starting over... after several years...

[saloufinette]

Good evening to everyone.
To cut a long story short...
Had piano lessons when I was younger... (I am now 23)...
Quit when I entered university (17). I don't know why... I just did not miss piano at all...
Had second thought a year later and started over again, with a new teacher...
Due to a VERY bad coincidence, I quit again...
But now I am decided to start over again, and this time I swear I will NOT ever quit again. I had this marvellous experience some days ago, when I tried to play on my old piano (I tried a piece that I had once played at a performance, chopin Waltz in E minor), and discovered that for the first time in my life I could really FEEl the music...
The good thing, my fingers seem to be strong and flexible as ever... (as a kid student, I only excelled at Czerny... I was too shy to express any emotions, so Czerny suited me just fine... Bach as well)
My level when I dropped out:
Bach WTC 2,6,16
Beethoven Sonata in F minor
Grieg Sonata in E minor

... And here comes the question... I don't have access to a piano right now... neither will I during the next months... So, how can I prepare for the BIG moment, when I actually and systematically set my hands on the piano again?... For the time being, I have a pile of recordings and the music sheets on my laptop and spend hours browsing through them... I also try to do some of the mental work... like visualising myself actually playing the piece... And then I get really sad... (but this is another story!)

See you around!
Ailira M

[bernhard]

Use the months without a piano to plan your future work. Select the pieces you would like to be playing in five years time (100 pieces is not an unreasonable number). Then get the pieces and study the scores. Write down a practise schedule in detail saying exactly what you are going to be practising everyday during these five years and in which order so that your daily practise adds up in five years to fulfil your goals. Analyse the pieces, rewrite them, split them into separate voices, read everything you can about them.

Search the forum for efficient ways to practise.

In short, prepare yourself and get ready!

Start here:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,5767.msg56133.html#msg56133

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[cordelia]

I also quit playing while I was at university, and picked it up again after I graduated (seven years later).  It's amazing how quickly it all comes back.

[saloufinette]

Typically, Bernhard is right... (thank you Bernhard, I have spotted all your postings by now and intend to follow your guidelines!) By doing all the preparation required before touching the piano, one is more than halfway there. I started with WTC I/24 in B minor (the Fugue, which is amazing, even emotionally overwhelming). I haved started with analysing the piece (it just so happens that this fugue is 6 pages long, so I have a lot of work to during the away-from-piano time), separating the voices, rewriting the subject in its various versions in different keys and so on...  And I have just now realised that even when I had lessons, I practised the wrong way... My scores were blank (well, there used to be red ticks on notes on which I blundered or something). I have also realised I need more theoretical knowledge to cope with a fugue    I just found out (at https://www-personal.umich.edu/~siglind/wtc-i-24.html ) that the subject actually ends at the note after the trilled half-note in the 3d bar, and not at the trilled half-note itself... 


Ailira M