Out of practice, need general advice on technique-building

[sigurd104]

Hello everybody, I am a former piano performance major who took a break from playing the piano...and I want to learn Debussy's Reflets dans L'eau! (

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I have 12 years of overall piano experience, 1 year of which was in a college conservatory (Claire Trevor School of the Arts at UC Irvine), and I was wondering if anybody here had any tips for gradual technique-building for somebody who (at one point) had a reasonably good grasp of piano technique. It's been 3 years since I've touched the piano, but eventually I want to be able to at least learn pieces of the same difficulty as I used to. I also don't know how slow/fast I'd need to take my technique practice, because suddenly practicing even half an hour a day might strain my hands too much since it's been so long!

I'm looking for practice strategies and useful exercises, and even motivational advice because I know it's a lot to hope for that I could start playing again like I used to and I don't want to get super disappointed when things don't go as well as I'd like. I stopped playing and transferred out of my major because I had lost my love for the music I played, and I don't want to get depressed or burned out again like I did before.