Tips for a Successful Career in Playing Piano

You may have witnessed a number of success and failure stories when it comes to playing piano as a career. Many musicians do quit or fail at learning to play piano and there can be different stories behind it. However for a successful and rewarding career in playing piano, there are certain norms and principles that each one of you would have to follow. Consistency in following these tips would enable you to enjoy your success as a pianist for a longer time frame. The key is to keep on grooming your skills and practices at piano and adding diversity to your performance so that audiences can find something new and charming every time they hear your performance.

Tips for Successful Pianist’s Career:

• Be Completely Motivated: The prime factor that is crucial need for your journey of becoming a successful piano player is that you should be completely focused and motivated for this musical journey. Prepare your mind in a way as if you don’t have any other choice apart from becoming a successful piano player. This focus would keep you determined for achieving your goals as a pianist throughout your musical journey.

• Prepare yourself for Enjoying Daily Practicing: Learning to play piano is an art that needs you to be complete passionate about it. Learning and practicing is crucial for improvements in your skills and if you don’t do that you would not be able to reach the level that you desire. You may achieve a place where you will be playing what every ordinary piano player would be playing but exceeding the levels is not possible without continuous work and efforts. This doesn’t mean that you have to be playing on your piano all day and all night long. You should set a time for daily practice and can even take breaks at piano for relaxation of your mind and for an energized startup again. It is important for you to enjoy each of your learning and practice session and only if you are enjoying and loving what you are doing would ensure that you would succeed on your goals.

• Have a Quality Piano with you: Just like it is important to have quality practice time, it is also important to have your practice and performance over a quality instrument. You are most likely to get frustrated and defeat if your piano has broken keys or strings or is not functioning in a way that it should. Quality sound production and learning would only be possible if you have a good instrument in your hands. Also make sure that when you transfer your instrument whether it is a grand piano or a digital piano, take special care of the instrument. Piano is definitely an expensive one-time buy so it shouldn’t break or get damaged during transfer. Better have a reliable transportation that you are sure will be able to carry your instrument well.
  

• Attitude Matters a lot: Not only your attitude towards learning and improvement but we are talking about your attitude with other people around you. Whether you are working in a band or are a solo artist, you will have people surrounding you and in order to have success over years it is important to be easy going with people. Anyone around you must have his space, respect and should find you easy to work with. Apart from being easy to work with, you should also have a professional attitude and certain level of courtesy. You should be well aware of your commitments whether it’s a performance or a recording or any other professional commitment. Emails and phone calls must be answered and returned promptly too.

• Knowing Multiple Languages: This is not a compulsion but for those who are really serious about making piano playing their career, you should be well-versed with multiple languages. The most important languages that a pianist should know include English, French, Italian and German.

• Learn to Play Well in all Keys: Many a times you will be accompanying musicians who will change keys quite frequently. It is better to learn to play in all the keys so that you are always in shape and ready to move according to a change of key. You should also be well aware of all the common chord patterns and progressions.
  Remain Prepared Always: One key to success for any musician is that you should always be well rehearsed and prepared to perform any time you are figured or called upon to play something.

• Be an Expert Solo Performer: In order to make your mark in this field, it is important that you should be an expert solo performer. Know your skills, practice well and learn a number of songs of different genre. Memorization is a technique that would make you excel in your performance and you will be able to add more expressions to your musical piece. So learn well. As an expert pianist, you should know how to play in all genres of music. There should be a number of songs in your list of expertise however you may have a specialized style too. But try to have an expanded knowledge of styles and songs so that you can capture maximum number of audiences.

Conclusion:

In order to be a successful pianist, you should look for various opportunities to improvise your skills, learn more and to promote yourself as a successful piano player. The world of music is highly competitive and if you lack on any of the factors that are mentioned above; you might find yourself end up being an average piano player or may even fail at becoming a pianist that people can admire. Focus, practice and a right attitude along with other positive factors would enable you to prove yourself as a pro pianist.