Why piano (my story)?

There are two questions that I am asked all the time, one by parents & the other by pupils. Pupils ask why, as a piano teacher, I have piano lessons myself. Parents, particularly those who didn’t learn an instrument as a child, feel that if their child wants to learn piano, they should be happy to practise without being reminded and can’t understand why this isn’t the case.

So, let me take you on my musical journey…..

When I was 6, my parents decided it was time for me to learn the piano. I have no idea why – my father had no experience of learning a musical instrument and my mother had played piano at a very basic level for a few years as a child, we didn’t even have a piano at home at the time. My suspicion is that my mother thought every young girl should learn to play 😂. Initially, I had to go round to my friend’s house down the street every day to practise, though I think that only lasted a week or two till we had a piano delivered and I could play at home.

Every day my parents would time my practise; I remember having to do 30 minutes a day, though I reckon that can’t have been from the very beginning. After 2 years, we’d had a few false starts – my piano turned out to be a wreck and had to be replaced, and it was decided that my teacher and I weren’t a good fit (I can’t remember who by 😂) so I changed to a new teacher who lived down my road and who set about unpicking everything I’d been “doing wrong”. I stayed with this teacher through several grades until I went away to boarding school at 11. By this time, I’d picked up several other instruments along the way, which also had allocated and monitored practise time.

I know this was my parents’ way of supporting me, and equally that I wouldn’t have practised without it, however, they didn’t know what I was supposed to be practising and it was never explained to me what practise should look like, so mostly my ‘practise’ consisted of me playing through whatever I chose, from beginning to end, with the same errors each time, and avoiding ‘boring stuff’ like scales – which I couldn’t see the point of, as no one had explained why I had to do them, just that I had to! Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed playing my instruments and was proud of passing my exams, but my ‘practise’ was only useful in that I was playing lots, as any improvements in technique and pieces mostly happened slowly in lessons, rather than through my ‘practise’.

At my new school, I had a new teacher, and scheduled and monitored practise times – 30 minutes per day, so much continued the same way. One thing was different though – I had a musical community around me. Most of us played an instrument and I heard others practising, so found other music I liked and wanted to play myself and there were always people around to play duets, particularly at the weekends, when we had more time. Most of the pianos were in the practise room, but there was one outside one of the dormitories. There was always someone playing that piano, and often a crowd around it! The term I was in that dorm was magical – I was inspired to learn Fur Elise (predictable, I know 😂) – the middle section was quite a stretch for me at the time, so I had to work at it…..practise, proper practise, for the first time!!!

I also discovered Scot Joplin and a variety of film music. For some reason, this was all self-taught….in my lessons, I continued to plod through one exam a year, straight from one grade to the next. I’m not sure I would have continued had I just been having lessons and playing 3 exam pieces a year, although I was undoubtedly amassing skills and improving by having lessons – this was the ‘old’ way of teaching, that does unfortunately still exist today. I wonder how many people have been put off for life by this kind of experience and it makes me even more grateful for my musical friends and the fun we had together!

I did eventually change teachers aged 15 or 16, and my new teacher was a lot more modern in her approach. Suddenly, I was away from the exam treadmill and playing all sorts of challenging, but beautiful pieces by composers as diverse as Haydn and Rachmaninoff – “did you see Young Musician of the year last night – what did you think of that piece & would you like to learn it?” “What me – really?!” Lessons became interactive and explorative, and I felt involved in my learning – no longer was I told and taught – this was collaborative, and I loved it! I did actually start doing some real practise alongside my playing – OK, not as often or as much as I should have done, but it was a big step change for me!

Throughout my school career, I was actively involved in all things musical; we had the most fantastic choirs, so singing was a big part of my life as well as piano, organ, trombone and until my early teens recorders and guitar too. This meant when I went off to university to study chemistry, I actively sort out a choir to join and a piano I could play from time to time. When I went home for holidays, pretty much the first thing I’d do was sit at the piano, sometimes for hours!

Music took more of a backseat once I started working but was always there – when we bought our first house in our early 20s, my parents moved my piano down, so dinner parties always ended round it with me playing, and often everyone singing along.

When we had our girls, I started taking them to a local Kodàly music school. This was when my life changed! I was totally bowled over by the approach and began training as a Kodàly teacher through the music school. I taught at the school for 12 years, rising to the position of senior teacher. It was during this time that I picked up the piano more seriously, putting myself through my grade 8 exam, exploring teaching methods and networking widely with a view to starting teaching piano myself, which I started doing while still at the music school.

After a few years of juggling my piano studio and music school teaching commitments, I decided to take the plunge and leave the music school to concentrate on my piano teaching. Professional development has always been important to me, and I’ve enjoyed and gained a lot from attending music conferences over the years, as well as various online courses, webinars, and networking opportunities, but when Covid hit us, I needed to get up to speed quickly on online teaching options which I knew nothing about – like most of us at the time. This was the push I needed to join The Curious Piano Teachers, a professional group of like-minded piano teachers with a focus on networking and professional development. This has been the most wonderful forum, with opportunities for us to perform to each other, meet contemporary composers, discuss anything and everything piano related and have expert tuition on many diverse subjects.

Once we were allowed to teach face to face again, I started looking for a suitable piano teacher for me – by then, I had a long list of things I wanted to explore. I was very fortunate to find an excellent teacher who specialises in teaching advanced level pupils and am working on developing my own pianistic skills, which is in turn paying huge dividends for my own teaching too.

So, to come back to those original questions; -

Would I still be playing if it hadn’t been for my parents ‘forcing’ me to do daily piano practise when I first started lessons? Very unlikely, I would say, as I would never have got to the level where I could have enjoyed picking up and playing the things I wanted to play. I was also extremely lucky to have been surrounded by like-minded musical peers in those tricky teenage years when many choose to stop learning instruments. I often say to parents who feel their child shouldn’t need reminding to practise if they say they want to learn piano that it’s a bit like learning to read – once the novelty wears off after a week or two, how many children will pester their parents daily to hear them read? Or is this something that we, as parents, take responsibility for in those early years? It may be that they’d like to show off their new skills to their grandparents on an occasional visit, but would they choose to sit and practise reading every day without us chasing them? Yet how many of those same children a few years later will happily bury themselves in the world of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson or a Jacqueline Wilson novel?

Why do I have lessons? Now I’ve started having lessons as an adult, I can’t see myself ever stopping! I’m learning so much, both as a pianist, and as a teacher. Fitting practise in can be challenging and having regular lessons to work towards helps me stay on track with my practise and gives me goals, meaning my practise is more fulfilling and I can see real improvement in my playing. There is always more to learn, whatever level you’re at!