Returning after summer break from piano

[musicaine]

I'm a 15 year old piano student. I started taking piano lessons about 2 1/2 years ago, in January 2013, and taught myself some bits and pieces about 6 months before then. I learned and advanced quickly, skipping ahead to my grade two exam in February 2014 and then my grade 4 exam in March 2015. I was thankfully able to progress fast enough to catch up to a more intermediate level through those years, despite starting at a later age (12) then most students my age (often between 5-8)  Anyways, my next exam will be grade 5, in either Feb/March or April/may 2016. I take lessons once a week throughout the school year, however lessons end for the 3 month summer break and return early September.
In the past years of playing, I've usually kept reasonably consistent with practising and playing during holidays. However, this summer I found myself not doing that  so, basically have taken about a 2 month break from the piano... With a day here and there of (very) light scale practice and fiddling around with pieces, but pretty much no solid work or progress at scales, arpeggios or new pieces. Just this morning I properly sat down at the piano, doing my old regular of scales, arpeggios, then pieces. Naturally, things weren't very much up to scratch but now I'm starting to second guess myself, my ability and my commitment  I return to lessons in about 4 weeks, and I have a hard working school year coming up for me (I'm Irish, and am entering 3rd year which is when I take my junior cert state examinations) and I really want to have my piano ability up to its usual scratch before I return to school and piano lessons, as I have a music practical exam for my state exams and my grade 5 exam. I know what I need to do- practice everyday, refresh and perfect my scales and arpeggios and get back into playing pieces- but, I keep giving out to myself got slacking off all summer. I know I could have worked at it consistently, I could have focused on scales and arpeggios that are particularly foggy for me (my minor scales ), I could have really tried to improve my sight reading (I'm not a strong sight reader), or I could have at least kept playing new pieces. I have 4 weeks to put in at least an hour daily, so I know I can still do what I need, but I need to be assured that taking a break was actually okay- or else I will just keep beating myself up over it and then getting stressed and anxious about it. I want this upcoming school/piano to be as smooth as possible (even if that isn't much at all) and I feel that if I keep getting stressed over this I will create stress before anything has started  I really really do love music and piano though, so with some motivation I'm willing to get back into practice and smoothing things out before September comes around, but I just need to know that (or even if) taking those two months away from piano practice was okay. Thanks 

[josh93248]

It always takes a little while to get back into the swing of things but I don't think it's ever that bad to take a break. Just ease yourself back into it. Build up your interest again by doing things like listening to great piano music, playing around with your pieces for fun for a bit, you don't have to get all rigorous straight away. Also, maybe explore new repertoire, that might get you excited to start again. Finally, I'm not a big fan of scales and arpeggios, do them if you must but don't sweat them too much, the real deal is music.

Also, what pieces do you play and what sort of music do you like? Would you like any suggestions for pieces at your level to look at?

[indianajo]

While excessive guilt is never good for planning the future, I find taking a summer break deteriorates my accuracy and strength at playing piano.  I've been learning a very difficult long piece, and every fall for five years I have come back to town with dozens of mistakes I wasn't making at the beginning of the summer. This year I solved the problem somewhat, buy buying a $50 spinette piano and moving it out to my summer trailer (caravan).  Now I can avoid the ozone polluted air of the city, and still make progress on my piano goals.  The sound this spinette makes is inferior, but the strength required to play it is just the same as my Sohmer console.  
I don't work as hard in the summer on piano, but three or four sessions a week do maintain strength.  I don't know if this losing strength problem goes a lot faster at my age (65) than in youth, for when I was your age, I only took two week breaks in the summer from my piano practice.
Good luck on achieving your goals at this art.  

[musicaine]

It always takes a little while to get back into the swing of things but I don't think it's ever that bad to take a break. Just ease yourself back into it. Build up your interest again by doing things like listening to great piano music, playing around with your pieces for fun for a bit, you don't have to get all rigorous straight away. Also, maybe explore new repertoire, that might get you excited to start again. Finally, I'm not a big fan of scales and arpeggios, do them if you must but don't sweat them too much, the real deal is music.

Also, what pieces do you play and what sort of music do you like? Would you like any suggestions for pieces at your level to look at?

Thank you! I took your advice, and have been listening to some new pieces and having a go at some different genres- for example I've found some Bach pieces that have interested me I found myself motivated and right back at the piano again later! If you happened to know any pieces that could interest me, that would be very helpful I particularly love pieces from the romantic era and of course the more classical era, particularly sonatas. Again, thank you!

[musicaine]

While excessive guilt is never good for planning the future, I find taking a summer break deteriorates my accuracy and strength at playing piano.  I've been learning a very difficult long piece, and every fall for five years I have come back to town with dozens of mistakes I wasn't making at the beginning of the summer. This year I solved the problem somewhat, buy buying a $50 spinette piano and moving it out to my summer trailer (caravan).  Now I can avoid the ozone polluted air of the city, and still make progress on my piano goals.  The sound this spinette makes is inferior, but the strength required to play it is just the same as my Sohmer console.  
I don't work as hard in the summer on piano, but three or four sessions a week do maintain strength.  I don't know if this losing strength problem goes a lot faster at my age (65) than in youth, for when I was your age, I only took two week breaks in the summer from my piano practice.
Good luck on achieving your goals at this art.  

That was very interesting, thank you I realise that feeling guilty will only have a negative effect on my playing, when I could just get on with it! It's great to know that you have found a way to keep progressing with piano whilst you are away, I will definitely keep that in mind if such a problem ever arises for me in future

[hfmadopter]

It's been a long time since I've taken piano lessons but I still kind of follow my old pattern. In the summer I tend to work on a different musical material or path if you will than the rest of the year. In the past I'd even take a summer course in piano, be that embellishment or composition to help fill the desire to do my own arranging in pop or other kinds of music I liked at that time. I never worked as hard at that in the summer as my teachers studies demanded in the winter months but it kept my interest up and hands at the keys.

[josh93248]

Thank you! I took your advice, and have been listening to some new pieces and having a go at some different genres- for example I've found some Bach pieces that have interested me I found myself motivated and right back at the piano again later! If you happened to know any pieces that could interest me, that would be very helpful I particularly love pieces from the romantic era and of course the more classical era, particularly sonatas. Again, thank you!

That's good to hear!

Well, if listening to music invigorates you to practice, I think there's no one better than Cziffra for making one wish to play piano. try some of these videos if you like:

As for pieces to look at that you might yourself play, here are some, I'm guesstimating your level but I think some could at least be medium term goals if you like them.

Mozart:

Sonata K 545 (I'm trying to perfect this one, it's easy enough to get the notes but to really make it "Mozart" takes time)

Sonata K 280 I've decided this is really quite a worthwhile little sonata for it's relatively low difficulty and will be the one I go for after K 545, here's a nice Barenboim version.

Opus 49 by Beethoven contains 2 lovely little introductory sonatas.

For something a little meatier you could look at the two sonatas from Opus 14

Here's a few miscellaneous pieces you could think of doing

Any of 4 Schubert Impromptus (Op. 90) They're all very good.

Take a look at Scarlatti, he's baroque like Bach but with a completely different style, try this:

Scarlatti wrote 550 sonatas I think, some are quite easy and fun and they're mostly short. Michelangeli is also another very good interpreter of Scarlatti.

Chopin you must have heard of. The fantastic preludes are worth looking at. The ones that are in B minor, Bb major, Db major and E minor are all fairly doable, some are extremely advanced though. Also a Mazurka or two, but those aren't my favourites, try a waltz maybe, some aren't too hard but I forget which ones...

Tchaikovsky's "The Seasons" has some great little pieces like January and June.

Borodin's Petite Suite is a rare work but if you like Russian music it could give you something very different in your rep.

I think that's enough. I'll admit, I'm mostly just spruiking my own rep or planned rep but hey, I like it, that's why I want to play it