Advices for Relearning Piano after a Long Gap

There are certain skills that you usually don’t forget especially when you have learnt it in early years of your age and playing piano is simply one of those skills that you won’t easily forget. Provided you have taken all the basic knowledge and have practiced piano for years in your childhood, it is most likely that you will remember it for your life. However, if you have leave practice for years and try to return to playing piano at a later stage in your life, it may appear much of a challenge. Many people who try doing so often gets discouraged really easily. With their first hand over piano, they may realize that they had lost a lot of skills and easiness over playing piano as they remain out of practice for years.

Returning to Piano:

For gaining your piano playing skills back, you will need a lot of control, patience, focus and dedication. Returning to your form would be time consuming and would need a lot of efforts from your end. Picking up piano again may seem difficult but it actually isn’t. Though if the foundation of music was laid in early years, you will have an added advantage in getting back to playing piano effectively.

Tips for Relearning Piano:

Here are some tips that would help you regain the skill of playing piano.

1. Prepare Yourself: First thing that you need to think of when returning to piano is that you need to prepare yourself for this challenging task. As you are returning after few years, methodologies and lessons may have changed to a great extent and thus it would be tougher at initial stages to get hold of those changes.

2. Arrange a Well-Tuned Instrument: If you already have your old instrument, you need to check that it may need some maintenance. If you don’t have one, you need to get a good condition piano.

3. Begin with Warming up Exercises: In order to get yourself relaxed at playing piano, you should try beginning with some warm up exercises such as trying your hands on scales and simple stretching of fingers over piano. These warm up exercises would release any tension in your body and would thus prepare you for your practice session.

4. Initiate at a Slow Pace: Even though you may have had a complete grasp on this instrument years ago but when you return to this venture of playing piano after years of no practice, you should not jump in with complete force to learn everything in one session. Just set small sessions for each day learning and practicing. Avoid sitting on piano for hours as you may end up feeling frustrated and may face fatigue. Though methods and techniques may have changed but practice still remains the essence of learning to play piano.
   

5. Include Exercises and Real Pieces: Your practice session should include a mix of exercises as well as playing real musical pieces. Not only it would make your session more interesting but would help you in avoiding boredom. Moreover it would enhance your strength and would rebuild your skills.

6. Most Importantly Plan Each Session: Planning and structure is the key to gain your expertise back. If you will be playing pieces and practicing randomly, it would be difficult to keep a track of mistakes that you may be making during your practice sessions. Your sessions should be properly planned and structured. Sessions at the same time should be challenging offering some new piano practicing exercises each time. Your practice session should be planned to begin with some warm-up exercise, learning a new skill or piece and then playing a piece that you play well and enjoy.

Advices for Relearning Piano:

Some important advices that people who wish to return to playing piano must consider to follow include:

• Be aware of your old bad habits and mistakes: When you used to play piano, you may have learned some bad habits and techniques. Be focused and try not to follow those habits and mistakes. Try to leave them aside and choose techniques and methods that are in favor or pianists.
• You should begin from scratch: Though you are familiar with the instrument but it would be wise to begin from scratch. First few steps would be easier for you and thus a good refreshing start would motivate you to move further ahead to more challenging tasks.
• Use Correct Body Posture: Extremely important it is to take care of maintaining a proper body posture when learning to play piano. If you don’t follow proper posture technique, you may end up with paining and stressed body parts.
• Hire an instructor for relearning: If you can find a good piano teacher to support your relearning and practice sessions, there could be nothing like it. When you hire an instructor, give him complete details of your previous learning so that he could guide you in a better way.
  
• Practice & more Practice: You need to push yourself and be motivated for consistency in practicing. Regular sessions and no skipping of practice should be your priority. Your dedicated efforts on a daily basis can only help you win success.
• Keep an eye on your body: Any excessive pains or soreness in your body is one of the signs that you may be overdoing it. However some soreness can happen just because it has been long time since you have left playing piano and when you suddenly start consistent practicing; this may happen. However any prolonged or severe conditions may be a sign that something is wrong and you would need to stop to take a break. You may need to change your technique, seek help of a professional expert or may need to consult a doctor too.

Conclusion:

Relearning to play piano can actually result in improved skills at piano and it would not only reward by turning you in to a good piano player but would further develop your brain functionality too. It gives you improved ability to focus not only on learning piano but on other tasks too. But remember that anything overdone can cause more of destruction when you expect it to give constructive outcomes. So practice but don’t forget to have fun with it. Enjoy the process of relearning and have fun exploring various aspects of it.