Tough question, but a good one.
Initially, it was just "that's pretty cool! I should do that!" observing over the shoulder at age five or so.
It wasn't until, maybe nine or ten years old that I heard Alf Brendel on those Philips recordings of Beethoven that it was like: "this is the real deal!" and so on and really began to study seriously.
Truthfully, I was not an excellent student in those early teen/tween years, but the foundational elements eventually caught up with me.
I don't know how Denise managed to deal with me in those years, but she was just starting out herself as an adjunct professor and with her private studio, as essentially a hired gun accompanist and teacher, so she probably couldn't have been much over thirty herself. I think about the time of her marriage she became an associate professor instead of just an adjunct, and I think she's probably emeritus (i.e., no teaching duties) if anything now: pretty old, I'd guess, and I think her husband makes or made bank.
/* IIRC he was some kind of lawyer, and when she married, she took his last name, which probably caused some confusion for her, professionally. When I started with her, she was in a studio in "the big city" lol with what was probably a rented grand, and she was just dragging me through the usual "here are the scales, here's the fingerings, so do it!" But even then, heavy proponent of leading with the shoulders. She had fairly small hands, and a lot of what I was playing was, like, Eubie Blake stuff which needed at least an octave: even at that younger age, I was already kind of "fixed" on a certain type of music and geometry at the keyboard.
So, I think in some respect she was figuring out how to adapt or apply her own training to (i) a style of music she knew nothing about (ii) deal with an intransigent geek who only put in the bare effort (iii) the kind of student who would show up and demand that he plays only the most diabolical Brahms and Beethoven which requires heavy octaves and beyond.
So, she was able to deal with that, at least technically. Even though that was not in her "comfort zone," whatever that means. And, yes, we found some middle ground, even if only by accident, with early Scriabin, mid-career strident Brahms, and mature Bach, which happened to have been in her wheelhouse, musically speaking. She talked a bit about blahblah Mozart concerts she was playing, but she never insisted. Oh, I think we did the early A major Mozart sonata, but that was at my own insistence. The one with the variations at the beginning and the Rondo/Turk. Bad idea (not that it's bad music, really, and I could probably still read it pretty well off the page, but I found it not very rewarding)! No, but that was more her ability in terms of reach and physical geometry.
Honestly, she didn't have much to teach me about the big Brahms pieces with very large chords: she'd just pencil in things like "technique!" when fingers 3-4-5 in the LH came up, like in the Bm rhapsody.
Much more helpful with smaller-hands oriented fugues from Bach.
I'd give her a passing grade as a teacher, but as I become a bit older, and despite seeing what were likely epoch-changing events in her life, I'm not sure she could have done any better.
Anyway, it was a long time ago.
I do remember that studio she leased: it was kind of a drab, but very large room with sort of elementary-school colors, and just the piano in the middle of the room. It was in an older building where you ride up on an elevator and hear all kinds of "practice noises" from people doing lessons on all kinds of instruments.
It was a big step for her when she moved on to her professorial duties, and started working out of her house with her own piano, which I already talked about.
And now that I remember, I think I stuck with her at least until age sixteen or maybe seventeen: I recall being with her even after my first girlfriend and was driving a car and all that.
It's difficult to remember the exact years and dates, but it's roughly accurate. I still remember that studio she had, though, and when she moved closer to the college campus and so forth. Geez, she couldn't have been more than thirty or thirty-five at most, maybe forty.
She also introduced me (well, I wasn't footing the bill, so, really, my parents) to the most excellent piano tech in town, who also happened to be a very good pianist herself.
*/
I do remember when she bought her Hamburg Steinway when she bought her own house.....and, regrettably for a young teenage boy, got married.
Yes, I'm not ashamed to admit there was a slight "attraction" there. Purely on my part: I was just a geeky not-even-teenager who was geeked on music. Then again, I was like eleven or so years old and so.....it didn't take much to get me going.
I'd say it was a wholesome period. I think when I finally left her at the ripe age of like fifteen or whatever, she was nice enough to suggest that I could play her college/MFA material pretty good. I don't think that was accurate, but she seemed happy enough. Yes, I left legit piano into the rock and roll and blues and started playing more guitar.
Hey, I was a young kid! I eventually came back into the fold!
She was very proud of the Hamburg, though, and it was a nice, chunky piano, and I was glad to have spent a number of years abusing her keyboard with my ridiculous fantasies. Lots of Beethoven, little bit of Chopin, lots of Brahms, and even some silly things from William Bolcom and Rzewski.
Yeah, she let me play the stride and blues stuff on her piano, since she knew I'd already been playing and so forth. She insisted on correct fingerings for scales, arpeggios, but she knew I'd been playing before, but I was a pretty square good-mannered kid, at that age, so she helped me roll my own, so to speak.
Very traditional technique, as well as strong emphasis on sight-reading, blocking, arm position. Very traditional musician. she was. No slop allowed, although we did get into repertoire that was a bit beyond my capacities, where she couldn't really program me to her liking.
Oh, and at about age twelve or so there was a pianist who taught counterpoint, RNA, ear-training at my school. I think he was a competent pianist, but we just did theory. Decent teacher, I guess: I'd already been transposing lead sheets from earlier work on the Eb saxophone, but he demanded quite a bit of rigor at pencilling in exercises. Good basic habits I still use to this day.
It is funny that in so few years, so much happened in terms of my own development and so on. Nowadays, five years seems like nothing, no time at all, but experientially it was a long time, in terms of experience gained.
Topic: Why and when did you start learning piano?