Inspirational thread

[chicoscalco]

I wanted to ask what serves you guys as inspiration, what pushes you to study, practice. I ask this because I'm starting to practice again using my right hand after a 2 months hiatus (injury), and I'm trying to recover my right hand technique. That means Liszt etudes, scales and Bach's inventions. The thing is, the whole thing is a bit tiresome, even more so because I don't sound as well as I did before.

TLDR: What pushes you to study something you don't like, or don't feel like studying at the moment 

[theholygideons]

What pushes you to study something you don't like, or don't feel like studying at the moment 

what? so like studying music theory? cos you'll bloody need it in the future!!! that's my reason. 

[indianajo]

I was lucky enough the really boring stuff like Schmitt exercises was in the days of three channels of fuzzy black and white television.  It was either Merrie Melodies Reruns, Kiddie shows where they gave away pennies! to the lucky participants,  or Baseball.  Or do the Schmitt exercises, which Mother let me read library books while I was doing them.  I was using my cut off finger like it was crippled or something, she gave me piano as cheap 'physical therapy" that allowed me to start using it like it was still attached.  Worked.  
I have had a hard time coming back to piano after 44 year of working for a living, but the piano works with less maintenance than my stereo LP amp, the FM radio is playing all these classical guitar concertos and simfonias by people who were obliterated by Mozart and should have stayed forgotten,  So plowing through my mistakes and forgotten fingerings is tedious but not hopeless.  After I make enough mistakes, I eventually remember the fingering I was using 50 years ago and it all comes back.  Like playing a tape of an old computer program, all the movements are still in there, I just need to recalibrate the knesthetic feel which is way different, and watch my hands more than I used to when at 16  my kinesthetic feel was flawless.     
I actually like JS Bach 2 part Inventions.  I don't play them like that wimp Glenn Gould, or even today on the radio that effeminate Wilma Dennerlein (she's excused, she is female I imagine).  I play them like Willy the Lion Smith, that I saw a short of once at an upright on PBS playing Fingerbuster.  
JS Bach Inventions is what I play for a rest after warming up with three Scott Joplin rags.  Czerny is all good, and I cycled through those one a week back in the three channel days, when Get Smart was the ultimate thrill, but Scott Joplin will stretch all your muscles and tendons, sounds great, and at my age, makes me breath deeply.