Dropped Piano years ago, how to start again?

[zameri]

Hi. I played piano from age 5 to 13. I had a wonderful teacher who had very bright talented students. But I wasn't one of them  . I was a slacker and unmotivated and only did the bare minimum.

It's been 7 years. I'm 20 years old. Not too old. But I don't want to wait any longer. I've finally, somehow, developed a passion for the instrument. I can listen to classical pieces and appreciate for the first time and want to learn how to play them. And I have some time to dedicate to this instrument.

I picked up this song: One Summer's Day - Joe Hisaishi to learn in the last week. But I'm finding that my abilities have deteriorated a lot and I have a lot of gaps in my knowledge. Sight-reading this song was a very sorry sight and in the week I've been practicing I am better at it, but I know I'm not using good technique or practice techniques so I'm afraid I'm going down the wrong path. Doesnt help that the music doesn't have fingerings.

Simply put, I'm not good enough to "self teach." I've lost a lot of my skills. But on the other hand I have a lot of foundation. I can play most of the scales from muscle memory. I know some basics of theory.

So what are my options here? I am sitting at the piano knowing I'm not getting any better and am teaching myself bad habits. But I feel hesitant to try to find a teacher and explain to him my situation (in that I am basically a beginner in some aspects but have some intermediate understanding in other areas). I'm not sure if "starting from scratch" is the best method here, or how to even do that. But on the other hand, I'm not good enough to pick up where I left off and I don't even remember where that was. Plus, I'm vastly overestimating my skill seeing as how I literally do not remember how to play a single piece.

What should I do? TL:DR: it's been 7 years. I was a bad student as a kid, but still managed to retain some muscle memory and technique. I know I'm doing a disservice to myself self-teaching things way too hard for me. Has anyone been in a similar situation? I have some regrets, but I'm willing to put my pride behind me and accept that I am essentially a beginner despite all those years in my childhood. I thought the song I picked was appropriate, and I think honestly if I put enough brute force time into it I can learn it, but I don't know if it's truly at my level or not or how to determine that.

[indianajo]

The first half dozen lessons are the most important.  Piano is a hobby where one can easily injure oneself if you don't use the proper posture and technique.  
Unfortunately, piano is also a hobby where a lot of boredom occurs before one can achieve one's goals.  For example, playing a particular piece you enjoy may be several years of practice in the future.  
Also unfortunately, most teachers follow a strictly classical training regime, instead of accomodating the different style required to play popular music.  If you pick a teacher at random from the professional guild in this location, you will find someone with classical training that can run your through a standard method, including the deadly (but necessary) exercise books.  In this location a good teacher will start you in Edna Mae Berman (or Schmitt, where I started).   I understand in Europe people tend more to use Hanon.  If you don't do the exercises, you won't learn proper finger techniques.  For example, Schmitt is particularly good in developing skill at using fingers 4 and 5, or in my case, my injured finger 3.  
My teacher took me through classical chord theory books, which did not involve ear training, which was totally useless for playing pop songs.  I had to pick up guitar (which my body is not suited for) and back the techniques into the piano, to understand the use of chords and lead sheets for playing pop music. This happened in my late forties, instead of in my teens when I asked the teacher to help me play a pop song I was enthused about.  I hope you find a teacher that is more into current music than mine was, but they are rare.  I can't find a pop techer in this county now at all that doesn't use some piece of imported trash to teach on, and I have to attack pop music by listening to the tracks note by note and writing them out on note paper,  before I pick up a pop song. (Or play one of those dippy, incorrect arrangements they sell at the music store).  
However slow the first year or two will be, find a teacher and take a course of lessons.  I'm not sure one needs a lesson a week over 8 years as I had, but certainly checking in occasionally to have bad habits detected is extremely useful.  One can now, compare ones performance on many standard pieces, to the performances on record, CD, or even the internet.  This reference check to recordings was not available when I was a student, or actually cost more than piano lessons until recently.  Piano lessons were local and $10 for 1/2 hour, a LP of a piece was $6 and took three hours on the bus to get downtown and back, if the record department even had the piece one was learning to play, before the internet.  
So, be bold, go out and find a teacher, however peripheral the experience will be to playing the pop pieces you want to play.  A comes before B in my opinion, and those of my friends who were self taught, I find a bit rudimentary with the occasional glaring error that I have to keep my mouth shut about.  One of these self taught tyros runs the music program now at my church, and I have as a result, given up singing with the congregation.  She is so "filled with the spirit" she can't play the song through on consecutive verses with the same backup chord structure, which leaves everybody out except the sopranos that can sing the melody. But, I have to say, she is very popular.  
You do have the advantage, you have an adult approach to the hobby and will probably spend the time to practice effectively now.  It is a pity you didn't develop the passion to create music yourself back when time laid heavy on the hands,  but one doesn't often buy into idea that your parents thought up.  I had the advantage in the fifties, the alternatives to piano were softball in the street, at which I was awful, and three channels of network television, which were as bad as visits to the dentist, IMHO. 

[zameri]

Thanks for the interesting reply. I can feel your years of experience while reading it 

I found out I can obtain a teacher through my university even though I'm a non-music major, so things are looking up.

However, the teacher is going to be a graduate student, not a professional teacher. Hopefully they will be good.

I wonder if I should introduce myself as a beginner student, or try to clarify that I have random experience from the past deep in my muscle memory...? haha

[hfmadopter]

Let your teacher be the judge of your existing level. Yes explain a few things of your past but if the teacher is good they will find the deficiencies mostly in the first lesson. That's how it went for me years ago. I had had 5 years of accordion as a kid but did not remember enough theory to not require brushing up the basics. My teacher insisted, in fact was not going to take me. There were two conditions. I own a real piano and follow her instruction to include theory. Then she moved ahead once that was under my belt. I stayed with her 11 years. It was a match made in heaven.

[bronnestam]

Everyone who has seen my posts for a while, knows that I repeat a few things like a parrot: the first thing you must do is to nurture your motivation. "Love the piano" is simply not enough, that will do for a short while and then the flame is gone again. You need to fuel it with motivation, and more motivation, and more motivation. If you want to drive a car for a real long distance, you know it will not help that it is on top condition and has a full tank when you start - you must regularly stop and fill up the tank with more fuel, and perhaps do some more maintenance on the road.

When I went back to piano playing after ... some decades ... of inactivity, I was highly inspired and eager to start again, but I was also very, very careful not to repeat old mistakes, those that had made piano practicing so boring and hard when I was a teen. I knew I had talent, I really liked to play the piano, and YET it all became so hard that I practically wasted the chance I had been given. And now, at the age of 45, I just knew that I could not afford to blew it again.

So I knew that motivation was the key. I started very modestly, with the ambition of sitting at the piano - doing whatever - at least 10 minutes a day. Then I started to focus on progress, and progress only. No matter if "progress" was that I had been hitting a certain key a bit better than before and no more, no matter if I played much worse on Thursday than I did on Tuesday - I ended every practice session by summarizing what progress I had made, what had made this particular session worth doing.

I always found something. I also learned to ignore mistakes. Before, I used to focus on mistakes, mentally whip myself for every flaw - and somehow I just played worse and worse, until I left the piano in rage. No wonder that it was hard to back after that! Now, I made baby steps but I always left the piano in a good mood, and soon wonders began to happen. I regained my old skills and I surpassed them. My ten-minutes-a-day increased. I began to LOVE TO PRACTICE. A difficult piece no more was like "oh sh*t, I will never learn this!" but rather "oh great, I will have many fun hours ahead of me with this".

With this approach I simply could focus on improving my practicing technique. Due to the enormous portions of practicing (I never played that much back in the ol' days, remember) I have got some stupid muscle injuries - nothing permanent, thank God, but I have to observe  myself and work a lot in order to avoid more inflammations and pain. I also have been forced to hold up playing during some periods.

I have also realized that practicing technique has evolved since the 80's, or at least has the knowledge spread a bit. I found some extremely useful resources on the net. One is for free:
https://pianofundamentals.com/

I also have bought some really good ebooks here: https://practisingthepiano.com/
They were not expensive at all and I recommend them as I have used them myself and found them very insightful and helpful.

So - be very kind to yourself, use the baby step method, constantly encourage yourself. Every practicing session should be a great time! Never, EVER condemn yourself, or compare yourself with someone else.

[kopower]

Great post bronnestam ! Everything you said rings very true!

I too have gone back to the piano after many years and am self teaching myself.

If you didn't get up to a reasonable level through formal teaching in your youth - self learning can be more challenging

But if you can read the notes - and determined like hell - you can do it !

[indianajo]

I find Bronnestein's level of emotion at his mistakes very preplexing.  My teacher's instruction at repeated mistakes was "slow down, practice slowly enough you can't make a mistake, and if necessary, go back to one hand alone again until no mistakes are made.  Then repeat many times without mistakes."  It is a boring solution, involves absolutely no emotion, and works every time.  I've recently fell apart on a very difficult couple of measures on a piece I've been practicing for years, and after a very boring couple days, I am ripping off that passage again as if it were programmed in midi on a sequencer.  
I don't worry about mistakes when I am sight reading and in the initial stages of a piece, but there comes a time when I have practiced enough to begin memorization, that every single mistake has to be practiced slowly and eliminated.  How are you going to make something emotionally of a piece if you dont' know it well enough to let the notes come out automatically while your conscience is thinking of what you are trying to communicate?   
The only reason for negative emotion, IMHO, is embarassment at not following the teacher's instructions.  
Again, I feel self teaching is only for people that understand everything perfectly the first time.  I have met very few of those people.  Even such commercially successful pianists as Irving Berlin had huge holes in his performance competence that he never dealt with.  What glaring problems you are totally missing is your teacher's responsibility to point out to you. By contrast,  fine points of performance style, I am willing to listen to a teacher explain what a barbarian I am, but if I wanted to hear a commercially popular recording, I'd just put one on the turntable. The last teacher I attended was retired after one lesson; I could play it her way but would rather not.    
I find piano so emotionally rewarding, I've devoted a large part of the time of my retirement to it.  I don't understand the need for emotional tricks.  Yeah, exercise books are boring and physical.  My Mother allowed me to read novels at the piano while I was working through exercises and scales, and I don't think this hurt me any.  Pay attention when attention is required, let the cortex wander when you are training your muscles or lower brain with repetitions.  

[zameri]

Oh, reading while doing exercises is both humorous and brilliant. I may steal that idea.

Interesting input, everyone!

I have another question. I have been doing a lot of reading both on this post and throughout this forum (and others) about mistakes. You guys mention reading through mistakes and other techniques. I've seen people support the idea that you want to play at full speed and ignoring mistakes on first run while sight reading.

If I cannot sightread a song in any recognizable way on first try (hands together), is it too difficult for me? I am a little slow on reading chords with 4 or more notes and getting left hand arpeggio patterns and stuff are not that easy for me to get at full speed. Should I go to simpler music, in this case?

On some better news, I've found a teacher in the fall. I go to university, so they have graduate level TAs. Seeing as I consider myself beginner-intermediate, I'm sure that will be plenty for me to start with.

[j_menz]

Should I go to simpler music, in this case?

Yes. Good sight readers read relatively comfortably at about 2 grades below what their study pieces are. Lesser sightreaders, more grades below. Start where you can reasonably play off the score - not perfectly, but at least recognisably.

[mulvin]

I'm a Canadian journalist writing an ebook for a newspaper about older adults taking up or returning to the study of piano. I'd like to interview adult students in the Toronto or southern Ontario area. Do you know anyone who has taken up the study late and is now playing professionally? What's the best way to find a teacher? What were your anxieties about learning an instrument? How is your dexterity? Your ability to memorize? And more.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
Leslie

[awesom_o]

If I cannot sightread a song in any recognizable way on first try (hands together), is it too difficult for me?

Yes!