My mom has been a pianist all of her life. At this point, though, she is teaching middle school music, which she absolutely hates (90% discipline, 10% music). She used to teach piano lessons privately and I think she did a little bit of professor work at a private Christian college one time before I was born. Her life isn't music though. She doesn't play much outside of the context of preparing activities for school (like experimenting with fun, lively songs to get the kids involved in the lesson). She spends more time calling parents than doing that, though. But since I've started playing (3 weeks), I've found sheet music for pieces that sound hard to me and asked her to play them and she can sightread them almost up to speed, like Revolutionary Etude and Moonlight Sonata 3rd movement (she said she had played them before, but still, like 20 years ago). Our piano blows, though. Every key sounds like crap. Slightly out of the middle area and keys start getting stuck. Near the highest and lowest spots, keys won't even push down. It's ridiculous. The action is terrible, too. I also have a crappy keyboard and I was amazed at how well I played on it after practicing on our piano for awhile.