Making Progress as Adult?

[abyss44120]

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post. I tried to find an answer to this question online before posting, but, alas, I could not.  Apologies if this is an old or inappropriate topic. If so, just tell me: I'm new and won't do it again.

At any rate, I have been away from the piano for 20 years. I played as a child and through college, but slacked at the end (I was in college!) and never really did practice properly.  This time around, however, I am committed to practicing better. That is, learning a new piece VERY slowly, not speeding up until the notes are learned correctly, etc., and not playing at proper tempo until, again, I know the notes. Now that we have the internet, (20 years later! YAY!) I've also been studying the music and listening to each piece online.

But, after about a month of two hour a day practice -- as mindful and deliberate as possible --  I find that I am making NO progress. Every time I dare try to play at proper tempo, I still miss notes. I still make dumb mistakes. Sometimes my fingers, although they should "know" better, go haywire and transition to a completely different key than the one I am in! In sum, I am making NO progress. Does this mean I should give up? Will it ever come?  Is there something I need to do to be less, well, stinky?

I have my first lesson in 20 years scheduled in two weeks with a local piano professor (former international concert pianist who now gives adult lessons). I am hoping that she can tell me what's wrong!

Yet if any of you are adult learners/returners, I would be grateful to hear your thoughts on "making progress" along these lines.

Thank you,
A

[outin]

Well, I have learned that it takes me a long time to learn pieces no matter how I approach them. 3-4 months is about what's needed to make them secure, even if it's just a few pages. Not sure if it's age or just my brain. Probably both. I tried to add hours of practice but it does not help much in the initial learning stage. There's a limit to how much my head can handle with all the other stuff going on (work).

[dcstudio]

You are returning after quite some time. Your progress will not be a smooth linear process. You struggle then you jump ahead...sometimes it's a giant leap. 
I suggest you make a recording of what you are working on...do it in the middle of your practice session and then set it aside and don't listen to it   make another recording a couple of weeks later and set it aside, unheard, as well. About a week or so after that pull both recordings and listen to them for the first time.  You will hear the difference right away and you will realize that you have indeed progressed.

[abyss44120]

Thank you for your responses.  They help so much!   I will try recording and, also, know that the process may take long! 

I am also thinking I may need to dial it back in terms of difficulty level and just be more patient, knowing that learning and perfecting pieces that are "too easy" eventually is a means to an end....

While I would like to be able to play in front of others (friends, family) to show that I've got some sort of skill, my ultimate goal is personal satisfaction. I want to have that exhilarating feeling of accomplishment and fun-in-my fingers after playing a piece through perfectly.

Right now the darn wonky notes, though, are getting in the way!  Thank you again, though, for the advice.

[tenk]

Welcome back (again) dc!

Can you describe your practice routine a bit more? Your warm-up routine, how you approach your goals for the practice session, how you decide what to work on that day...all of that. Do you tend to play through pieces over and over?

[dcstudio]

Welcome back (again) dc!

Can you describe your practice routine a bit more? Your warm-up routine, how you approach your goals for the practice session, how you decide what to work on that day...all of that. Do you tend to play through pieces over and over?

Thanks...I always come back...I have been here more than 10 years.  Can't stay away from an opportunity to chat about the piano... I even miss the trolls. Lol

[abyss44120]

HI again all,

Well, right now I've NOT been warming up "formally," although I suspect that my new teacher may tell me to do so as she asked me to get out my old Hanon and Czerny books for our lesson.  (They are due to arrive today!).  I suspect I'll be warming up with that and scales and arpeggios soon??

Anyway, what I do now is play pieces or sections of pieces that I know well in order to warm up. Right now, it's mostly the first 2 pages of a Clementi Sonatina. But, I don't allow myself to play things I already know more than 2-3 times UNLESS I get an hour (minimum) of doing this following: playing what I can play of a piece 10 times through and then spending an additional 15 minutes for said piece isolating trouble areas and/or playing each hand individually.  (By the way, I always approach a new piece with both hands first and just go super slow. Agonizing sometimes, but I don't want uneven sound later because I do tend to lose patience and speed up too quickly.)

That's just what I do.  I have a checklist that I work from and sometimes my practice sessions last an hour at time; other times I'll do 30 minutes here, 15 minutes, there, etc., just so everything is on the list is checked off at the end of the day.

As I said, I am waiting for the magic to happen, but it hasn't so far.  Also - sorry this is long - I am wondering if I should not be spending all my time on FOUR new pieces as I am doing now and just spend the vast majority working on one at a time.  Perhaps that's the issue?

Anyway - thanks again!

[bronnestam]

When I re-started piano playing after decades of inactivity, it took me a ridiculously long time to learn something new again.
I wrote a blog post about this, how I needed weeks to conquer the first ten (10) bars of the Pathétique Adagio, and a few months to get through the whole piece. I mean, just get through it, not doing it perfectly ...

But I have speeded up a bit since then. Still, I need months to learn even a simple piece. And I always make those stupid mistakes.

I don't think it is a bad idea to work with several pieces simultaneously. I would die with boredom if I worked with only one piece. Would you learn faster if you just worked with one at a time? I am not sure. It seems that the brain cannot speed up learning too much, just as you cannot force a plant to grow faster.

I wish you the best of luck with your piano playing further on!

[abyss44120]

Thank you, Bronnestam, I will be visiting your blog momentarily, too!   

Coincidentally, one of the four *new* pieces that I am playing is the Pathetique Adagio. Although it's not completely new. The last time I played it was when I was 18, but only the first two pages.  So, I can play the melodic part very well as my fingers thankfully remembered that.  But the rest of it?  I've been back and forth with my progress despite my finely-tuned ear for the piece and knowledge of the bulk of it.  I found myself cursing at the piano the other day! 

Ah well, at least I know I'm not alone here, especially with the wrong-note hitting. Worst sound in the world these days!

[brogers70]

As others have said, progress often comes in fits and starts; a lot of frustration, and then things seem easier quickly. Your teacher should help a great deal. Without seeing it's hard to know what the problems might be. A couple of things that helped me (apart form technical things that a teacher needs to see and comment on).

1. Break things into very short bits, short enough that you can feel the progress. I never found running through a whole piece over and over helpful. So even if it's only a measure and a half, you'll have learned something and felt progress happening.

2. When you feel like you are getting nowhere it's very hard *not* to practice everything you are working on. I found it helpful to just trust that I could leave something alone for a few days to focus on a different piece and that I would not have backslid on the thing I left alone, or at least not very far.

3. Slow and deliberate is good. Sometimes, though, "deliberate" can morph in to "tense." So if you are playing slowly, even slowly and forte, you want to be sure everything is as relaxed as it can be.

I started when I was forty, but didn't get a teacher until I was fifty-four. She had to rebuild my poor, tense technique from the ground up. It was a slow process, but now, a couple of years into it everything is much better, and pieces that I could play only with great struggle and anxiety feel so much easier. Hang in there. Music is great.

[timothy42b]

If you played as a child and have been away 20 years, you have two things working in your favor.

1.  You made some of the internal neural connections that can only be made while young.
2.  Child plus 20 equals still much younger than most of us, long before the time that age alone starts to limit your skills, timing, and memory.

There is no reason at all for you not to succeed. 

I think you should relax and accept the journey.  Don't expect too much too soon, it will come.

2 hours a day starting out seems excessive to me.  I doubt you have the concentration at this point to benefit.  I would start smaller and ramp up over time. 

I also think it's important to play simple things fluently, and the mistake many make is to spend too little time at that.  The result is they learn to play harder and harder pieces, haltingly.  You may be working on pieces above your level. 

[abyss44120]

Oh my goodness - thanks so much to all of you for your tips and feedback!! All very good advice.  And, Timothy, please note that although I am 42, I am kind of feeling the effects of age! Or, just adult distractions such as those brought by full-time work, etc.!

I am still waiting to meet my teacher, but, as it happens, I *think* I actually made some progress - and I think I know why, which relates to the advice above.  I went a whole day w/out practicing.  I came back and sat down and lo and behold - somehow - either my brain or my fingers (or both) knew that I would not be hitting any wrong notes and I just felt that internal sense of confidence when hitting the keys. That's what I was looking for all along and, well, while it was just one small passage of one piece, it was something.  A glimmer of hope. So, yes, I think I am taking Saturdays off from now on!

This was just one section of one piece, (the Beethoven) but still.  It's all very informative.  Simply put, perhaps I was overtraining *and* being too tense.  Thank you all very much as I continue this journey. I'm glad you're all here!

[dcstudio]

.  I went a whole day w/out practicing.  I came back and sat down and lo and behold - somehow - either my brain or my fingers (or both) knew that I would not be hitting any wrong notes

That is how it works sometimes.  If you obsess day after day on something it can become contaminated with negative emotions...you can even start inputting mistakes into something you know how to play.  Taking a day off let's the short-term memory clear out a bit.  It's the same reason I told you to record yourself but not to listen to it right away.  Clear the brain out first.

[abyss44120]

Point very well taken -- clearing out the brain.  I think that's actually my biggest obstacle as much as anything these days.

This "clearing out" concept also may explain why sometimes when I "zone out" I actually don't even have to think about hitting wrong notes.  I just play the piece correctly and that's that.

I'm not saying that I am an advocate of "zoning out" during practice; just sometimes when I do not think so hard about doing it right, I actually do it right!

[dcstudio]

Don't think, just do. 

(Something my jazz instructor used to say.)

[pianoplunker]

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post. I tried to find an answer to this question online before posting, but, alas, I could not.  Apologies if this is an old or inappropriate topic. If so, just tell me: I'm new and won't do it again.

At any rate, I have been away from the piano for 20 years. I played as a child and through college, but slacked at the end (I was in college!) and never really did practice properly.  This time around, however, I am committed to practicing better. That is, learning a new piece VERY slowly, not speeding up until the notes are learned correctly, etc., and not playing at proper tempo until, again, I know the notes. Now that we have the internet, (20 years later! YAY!) I've also been studying the music and listening to each piece online.

But, after about a month of two hour a day practice -- as mindful and deliberate as possible --  I find that I am making NO progress. Every time I dare try to play at proper tempo, I still miss notes. I still make dumb mistakes. Sometimes my fingers, although they should "know" better, go haywire and transition to a completely different key than the one I am in! In sum, I am making NO progress. Does this mean I should give up? Will it ever come?  Is there something I need to do to be less, well, stinky?

I have my first lesson in 20 years scheduled in two weeks with a local piano professor (former international concert pianist who now gives adult lessons). I am hoping that she can tell me what's wrong!

Yet if any of you are adult learners/returners, I would be grateful to hear your thoughts on "making progress" along these lines.

Thank you,
A

It looks like you have the right ideas for some elements of practice. One month is not a very long time to expect any dramatic improvements. I would be completely open minded starting with a new teacher, and letting the teacher know what you think your improvement should be. Teacher might have a different approach so just listen , play, practice, and listen some more.

[cagal]

Hang in there!  I jumped back in feet first after decades away too and know quite a few people in same position and all agree it was worth it despite frustrations!

[lostinidlewonder]

If people stopped learning pieces too difficult and stuck with pieces they can efficiently learn and build from there it all will be a lot easier. I reckon way too many try to improve by constantly learning pieces too difficult and work on them until they become easy. Sure you can learn this way but in my experience as a teacher it is a much slower method. It is a bit of a loaded answer though saying learn pieces you can efficiently complete, you'll be surprised that many people don't even know how long it takes to learn a piece or whether they are absorbing the piece efficiently or not.

[dcstudio]

If people stopped learning pieces too difficult and stuck with pieces they can efficiently learn and build from there it all will be a lot easier. I reckon way too many try to improve by constantly learning pieces too difficult and work on them until they become easy. Sure you can learn this way but in my experience as a teacher it is a much slower method. It is a bit of a loaded answer though saying learn pieces you can efficiently complete, you'll be surprised that many people don't even know how long it takes to learn a piece or whether they are absorbing the piece efficiently or not.

That's so true...bit hindsight is always 20/20. 

On the other hand...when I was a novice I remember thinking it was so cool just to be able to play a measure or two of something way out of my league.