I did it.
I signed up for piano lessons. One evening a week, for an hour. I've found a good, serious teacher, and my first lesson is next week.
It feels kind of like I'm strapping myself into a roller coaster. I'm really excited, even though I'm sure the whole experience will have its scary and stressful moments. And there just may be a time or two when I want to yell, "Stop this thing! Let me off!"
The last time I took regular lessons was 2005. I studied with Deborah for about a year and a half, and then I got the teaching job, and then we moved, and then ... well. We tried to start up lessons again a few times, but it never worked. Our schedules didn't match up, and I was busy with a full-time job and a small child.
I'm no less busy today, but I've been doing a lot of thinking about priorities. I've also been thinking about where I am in life: My child is more independent, we're financially stable, and my health is good. My parents are elderly but still healthy. My husband and I both have steady jobs. Life may be as stable and calm and easy now as it will ever be. Things are going to get much harder in the years to come. I will need music. And now is as good a time as any to start working on it again.
So my new teacher likes to have students work on four pieces from the major time periods: Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and 20th Century. To get started, I'll have three pieces: one Baroque, and two Romantic. One is my old Chopin Nocturne in B-flat minor (Op. 9, No. 1) that I want to get back. I expect it will take just a few weeks, and then I will move on to something by Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven. For 20th-century, who knows. We'll think about that later.
In addition to the Nocturne, I'll be working on a Schubert Impromptu (No. 2 in E-flat) that I started learning at the end of high school. I never completed it and always wanted to go back to it, so that's what I'm doing. I also need to pick out a Bach Prelude and Fugue. I've narrowed it down to D-minor and B-flat major, both from WTC 1. I started the B-flat major with Deborah, so I'm already somewhat familiar with it. The D-minor would be brand new. So maybe I'll do the B-flat major and then move on to the D-minor.
Once I'm done with the Chopin, that will mean I'll have two somewhat familiar pieces (Schubert and Bach) and two brand-new ones (something classical and something 20th-century).
We'll also be doing the usual scales, arpeggios, intervals, finger exercises, etc. AND we're going to do music theory! Yay! She said her adult students don't typically want to do music theory and that she doesn't require it of them. And I'm like, "But why wouldn't they want to do music theory?"
I also asked about recitals, and she seemed surprised, saying her adult students don't typically want to do recitals either.
I want to do recitals.
Ultimately, I would still like to do the recital: the one where it's just me, and I play an entire program. I never did that in college because of stupid depression and having to take a semester off my senior year. I still want to do that recital before I die. I don't necessarily need to play the same pieces I was working on back in 1992. But I want to do the recital. Maybe when I'm 50.
Oh, wait. Fifty isn't that far away. Maybe when I'm 52.
For now, I am stepping back into the life of piano-study. As before, it will be tacked onto and squeezed into an already too-busy life. But piano has a way of slowing things down and providing depth to the time that passes.
That truth totally doesn't gel with my piano/roller-coaster analogy, but oh well. Piano has always been a thing of paradox for me.
Of course, I'll be posting about the journey here. So, as always, stay tuned.
I signed up for piano lessons. One evening a week, for an hour. I've found a good, serious teacher, and my first lesson is next week.
It feels kind of like I'm strapping myself into a roller coaster. I'm really excited, even though I'm sure the whole experience will have its scary and stressful moments. And there just may be a time or two when I want to yell, "Stop this thing! Let me off!"
The last time I took regular lessons was 2005. I studied with Deborah for about a year and a half, and then I got the teaching job, and then we moved, and then ... well. We tried to start up lessons again a few times, but it never worked. Our schedules didn't match up, and I was busy with a full-time job and a small child.
I'm no less busy today, but I've been doing a lot of thinking about priorities. I've also been thinking about where I am in life: My child is more independent, we're financially stable, and my health is good. My parents are elderly but still healthy. My husband and I both have steady jobs. Life may be as stable and calm and easy now as it will ever be. Things are going to get much harder in the years to come. I will need music. And now is as good a time as any to start working on it again.
So my new teacher likes to have students work on four pieces from the major time periods: Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and 20th Century. To get started, I'll have three pieces: one Baroque, and two Romantic. One is my old Chopin Nocturne in B-flat minor (Op. 9, No. 1) that I want to get back. I expect it will take just a few weeks, and then I will move on to something by Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven. For 20th-century, who knows. We'll think about that later.
In addition to the Nocturne, I'll be working on a Schubert Impromptu (No. 2 in E-flat) that I started learning at the end of high school. I never completed it and always wanted to go back to it, so that's what I'm doing. I also need to pick out a Bach Prelude and Fugue. I've narrowed it down to D-minor and B-flat major, both from WTC 1. I started the B-flat major with Deborah, so I'm already somewhat familiar with it. The D-minor would be brand new. So maybe I'll do the B-flat major and then move on to the D-minor.
Once I'm done with the Chopin, that will mean I'll have two somewhat familiar pieces (Schubert and Bach) and two brand-new ones (something classical and something 20th-century).
We'll also be doing the usual scales, arpeggios, intervals, finger exercises, etc. AND we're going to do music theory! Yay! She said her adult students don't typically want to do music theory and that she doesn't require it of them. And I'm like, "But why wouldn't they want to do music theory?"
I also asked about recitals, and she seemed surprised, saying her adult students don't typically want to do recitals either.
I want to do recitals.
Ultimately, I would still like to do the recital: the one where it's just me, and I play an entire program. I never did that in college because of stupid depression and having to take a semester off my senior year. I still want to do that recital before I die. I don't necessarily need to play the same pieces I was working on back in 1992. But I want to do the recital. Maybe when I'm 50.
Oh, wait. Fifty isn't that far away. Maybe when I'm 52.
For now, I am stepping back into the life of piano-study. As before, it will be tacked onto and squeezed into an already too-busy life. But piano has a way of slowing things down and providing depth to the time that passes.
That truth totally doesn't gel with my piano/roller-coaster analogy, but oh well. Piano has always been a thing of paradox for me.
Of course, I'll be posting about the journey here. So, as always, stay tuned.
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