What our your goals?

[bernadette60614]

I've been taking lessons for about 3 years now (in toto...there have been lapses in time due to family stuff.)

On Friday, I began with a new teacher who teaches at one of the music institutes in our city.  The city offers a complete college prep course for kids who want to major in piano performance in college.

My goal is to get to the point where I could apply for a college program...so I've asked my teacher to treat me like a largely self-taught 14 year old.  I feel that I have learned in a very haphazard way and now I want to learn in a structured, focused way.

This caused me to wonder: What are the goals of the other adult students on the Piano Forum?

[amytsuda]

Two years ago, when I started taking lessons, I had the similar goal that one day I wanted to be able to play like those high school kids who are preparing for a college program. The teacher who teaches those high school kids quickly concluded I am not made to be able to do so, and he didn't really like teaching me - - he'd rather teach the actual gifted high school kids. He felt all my bad habits I developed self-teaching is not worth his time trying to fix as well as my non-optimal hands (small, short and weak pinkies, lack of power) - - not made to play those virtuoso college application repertoires. So I had to find a new teacher who focuses on teaching adults and is open to people like myself as far as the student likes music and wants to try hard. The teacher took away all the big sound / hand repertoires (e.g. Liszt, Rach, Scriabin) and gave completely new repertoires which can leverage that my fingers can move very fast - hence, I can play more comfortably without struggling and getting tensions. Now I am a bit confused what are my goals. I guess I want to go deep into certain repertoires I am able to handle better and I want to be able to play the whole Goldberg Variation well one day. Though I am really sad to be away from Scriabin.. (don't care about Liszt, Rach, Prokofiev so much)

[leemond2008]

I started taking lessons in March, 2 a month so by that reckoning I'm about 18 lessons in (although there have been a few occasions where either myself or my teacher have cancelled so its probably more like 15 lessons)

I originally started playing purely because I wanted to play a few pop/rock songs, now though ideally I want to work my way through the gradings, I don't have any specific pieces in mind that I want to learn to play but for the moment I am looking at getting to grade 4 or 5 and then I'll take another look and re-evaluate my goals.

[brogers70]

Started at 40. Now I'm 57. My goals were to be able to play some serious music for my own enjoyment, and maybe to play a bit of chamber music. My "target" pieces were things like the Well Tempered Clavier, some of the non-unapproachably difficult  Beethoven sonatas (like maybe up to Les Adieux), some late Brahms, and, maybe, Schubert's last sonata. At this point I've done  6-7 of the P&F from WTC I, some Schubert Impromptus, a handful of Mozart and Haydn sonatas, Beethoven Opus 14 #1, Opus 10#1, Opus 28. Now I'm working on the Brahms Opus 117 Intermezzi, the Eb Major P&F from WTC 1,and the Beethoven Opus 26 Sonata. I made spotty progress on my own for the first 10 years or so. In the last three years I've had an excellent teacher who focuses on technique and does not cut corners because of my age. Having a teacher who is willing to take adult students as seriously as youngsters working up to conservatory auditions is key.

[pianocat3]

my goal is to be able to play various approachable classical music pieces at tempo and expressively eg. I just worked on Beethoven's Tempest sonata 3rd movement but I'm not good enough to get it up to tempo yet.  I would like to be able to improvise or play most any arrangement of simpler stuff after just a little practice such as Christmas music and pop tunes, stuff from movies etc.  I would like to be a good sight reader. I had lessons as a kid and a bit of lessons as an adult, but I'm learning seriously at age 50 now and went from the beginning of book 3 in Alfred's adult books (intermediate?) to I dunno, some advanced level or another. I really don't know. I have worked hard on it this year which it is hard to find the time to do that, and got really good results from that effort and I couldn't be more pleased.

What I need to work on most is to have the discipline to do slow practice. I put the cart before the horse and try to bring it to tempo way too fast and that leads to note inaccuracy. And the other thing is I developed the habit of looking at my hands a lot when I played on my own for fun at Christmas for many years without lessons. I am breaking that habit now. 

[pencilart3]

My goal is to play in the 2020 Chopin Competition!

[adodd81802]

My goal is to play in the 2020 Chopin Competition!

I second that. If I'm young enough LOL.

[preludetr]

I'm thinking of piano as a large mountain to climb, and I want to get to the point where I can play very large and musically substantial works: Hammerklavier, Goldberg Variations, and so on. I don't care as much about super-virtuosic showpieces, though.

[outin]

My goals are quite flexible and evolving...so in the end I guess my main goal is just to stick with it this time until my hands don't move anymore...

[chopinlover01]

Composition. I have so many things to compose..

[pencilart3]

@Chopinlover it's best to make quantifiable goals, that way you can know when you have met them. I've found it very true myself, I would encourage you to set specific goals/goal that you can really go for and know when you have achieved. Remember, goals are 80% more likely to happen when you have written them down!

[outin]

Remember, goals are 80% more likely to happen when you have written them down!

For you maybe, for me it makes no difference at all... So not all great minds work alike 

[irrational]

I am very similar to Brogers70.

I started taking proper lessons 5 years ago i my late 30s not knowing where I wanted to be but with a rough idea of the kind of music I want to play.

Now I am busy with a grade 7 (out of and know I will be learning for the next 40 years.
My main goals are to
1: play a concerto with an orchestra. Perhaps a Bach one
2: play a few Beethoven sonatas 
3: A selection of works to fit what I feel like and can enjoy from the masters. Perhaps 1 or 2 Liszt pieces. At least something that will be very challenging to keep me working.
4: When I am retired one day, perhaps teach or lightly entertain.
5: If I can complete a performer level qualification for my own gratification, it would be great. But the amount of work to put into that is formidable.

[bronnestam]

Started to play again 4 years ago, have been taking lessons for about 1½ year now.

I don't have to tell you again why I started but RIGHT NOW my goal is to learn and to evolve. I like the challenges of learning new and interesting pieces and I guess I do this mainly for the "kick" of mastering (well ...    ) something I couldn't do for my life before. I like to explore strategies and techniques; in short, I think this is good for me as a person, in all the other areas of life.
I also play because I like the music so much and because I need to get away from family issues and other things.

Another reason is that I think I understand and enjoy concerts/recitals better the more I study piano myself.

More specific goals are to learn the whole Appassionata sonata, which I really love, and to learn and spread some works by the wonderful Teresa Carreño who is sadly neglected. I also see myself as an "advocate" for middle-age pianists who want to play as amateurs and do it seriously. In my country you either go for it, all in, from young years and then you go to conservatories and competetions and master classes and yada yada yada, or you don't play at all. Or you dabble a bit when you are 40 and learn some "basic chords" and the theme to "My Heart Will Go On" and so on. But God forbid that you make it a serious hobby. This attitude in my country really stinks, IMO, so I want to change that. People think I am totally crazy because I dream of learning the Appassionata (at least I have learned mv 2 so far) and take lessons with established concert pianists and so on - yeah, WHO DO I THINK I AM? - but I hope this can inspire more people of my age to do the same.

We also have only one (1) radio channel where classical music seems to be allowed to be played, classical music is systematically ignored and mocked (the term "fine arts" is an invective here) and the best classical artists have to play for half empty concert halls, at their best.

Do I live in the inner part of the Gobi Desert then? No, I live in Sweden!!! 

[chopinlover01]

@Chopinlover it's best to make quantifiable goals, that way you can know when you have met them. I've found it very true myself, I would encourage you to set specific goals/goal that you can really go for and know when you have achieved. Remember, goals are 80% more likely to happen when you have written them down!

I do have them written down; on a piece of notebook paper slipped inside my phone case.