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So....What motivates people?! Why DO we practice? They do allude here why people play musical instruments despite no monetary reward.



On a totally unrelated OT note, check out this phenomenal drummer!

I practice for myself, because I like playing the piano, and want to learn how to play more, and harder pieces, to broaden my choices of what I can play.

- A hobby. I took up piano almost a year ago (im 22) because I want to have music with me for my whole life...I want to be able to fool around with improvising, creating, and so on in my evenings and weekends
- Play for other people too. I love the gentle sound of the piano and I think it is great to be able to go someplace (someone mentioned a bed and breakfast) with my family or friends, and just get in the zone and give them some joy!
- Another thing is the piano is like a friend that never says anything that upsets you...haha, anytime I'm feeling down I can sit at it for an hour, play everything I know and then get up happier than I was before!

I just need to mention that I am rather familiar with the research he is talking about and I must say, this video is massively misleading in how it presents the research and its findings.

Like Charles Cooke says in his book, I practice to get better, with each step up the ladder of playing ability like a key to accessing an ever widening array of the vast piano literature.

or something like that.

Well that was different! After the lame introduction you are ready for some diluted Christian rock and then those guys really get down. How that drummer could hit as well as he does while constantly spinning the sticks is a mystery. He is a hoot.

I want to play, what ever I like, how ever I like, and think I may be in for a lifetime of learning piano, like the quote above, "you just seem to have learned something, but then that opens the door to all the things you didn't know existed"

But to be honest, I don't mind, cos the journey's kinda fun

And for who? Maybe just me, I dunno, just being able to impress someone is a start, so I suppose the better you can impress your self, and them, the better!

That drummer looks like he's enjoying himself

My goal of playing piano, is to have something that relaxes me after a day of hard work. I have searched for a long time before I ended up with the hobby playing piano. Not everything gives energy after work. For most people sport and socializing with friends will give energy. I'm not a sports guy, although I like diving due to the relaxation reaction of the body when it's under water. Too bad diving means sporting one or two days a week and I work more days than that. It's not sufficient to me. I'm also an introvert guy, so social events costs energy. Well, it limits my possibilites. Playing piano relaxes me. It's a little world where I'm totally focussed. My muscles relaxes. It doesn't matter if I have a good or bad day at work. That's not important when I sit down to play piano.

I also love the piano. It was love at first sight when I met a beautiful tuned piano at a house where a friend of mine was babysitting cats during a vacation. I remembered an interview of an industrial designer who had the project of designing a steinway for its jubileum. After the design, it made him sad that he never learned to play such a beautiful instrument. Having industrial design as a minor, I understand his pain, because for a design he needs to fully understand the product. And then not to be able to play it... ouch. So I started to play piano. In hope that someday I could play piano that would do any justice to such a beautiful instrument.

That's it, I don't have other goals.

Chris

That's lovely Paperclip!

Cebukid, thanks for that video of the drummer, hes stunning, some of those tricks are so fast and subtle even slowing the video down doesnt do them justice, WOW.. excellent..

My Drummer is better than his drummer

I resumed lessons last fall after a 31 year absence. In the seven (!) years I took lessons as a kid and teen, I never managed to progress beyond level three due to a resistance to practicing from my lesson books (Thompson & Schaum).

I've worked up to practicing 1.5 or more hours per day, every day and I LOVE it. I have managed to get up to level 5 over these past months and it feels great. My goal is to make it up to playing level 8 pieces (w/o exams) in order to be able to play just about anything I want to with a little practice (I want to be able to just sit down and sight-read intermediate pieces).

A secondary goal is to be able to play hymns so my church will have a pianist willing to play hymns for "the older set", like myself, who miss the joy of corporate singing of hymns. I hope to host my first "hymn sing" in the next few months - I just need to find someone to lead the singing.

Without reading previous answers, I practice for myself and so that I can sometime jam with my friends who play guitar

I have a couple of motivational mental images. When I was in college, one day a friend sat down at the piano in commons and pounded out some totally amazing Joplin, and I was consumed with admiration, envy, and wishing for the ability to generate much fun in the world. However at the time I considered myself completely devoid of musical talent, so that felt like a hopeless desire. But now that I can play (a little bit), this memory remains a very motivational mental image for me.

My other motivational image is entirely hypothetical. I imagine myself whiling away a rainy afternoon by exploring unfamiliar books of sheet music, enjoying the ability to alchemically transform those enigmatic swirls of dots on the staff into musical vibrations in the air.

This is very easy question for me: I play piano just for my own pleasure and happiness. I also keep venomous snakes, smoke cigars ... because this things make me happy. I simply love doing this. Every new piece is a challenge. Musically and technically. And I love that. Everything else is extra, a bonus for me. But it is not necessary for me.

So answering what I would like to achieve with my practicing is simple - to become so good I can satisfy my expectations when hearing myself (after recording, of course). That's it. So basically - a lot of words for simple answer. For myself.

Dabbled with keyboards and synthesizers playing chords and melodies until one day I realized I would never get better without lessons. So I started taking piano lessons, didn't realize I had chosen an instructor who teaches classical piano until it was too late. I've fallen in love with classical music and now I practice because I can't stop. Have no idea what my goal is, just know that if I can't practice, I feel lousy by the end of the day. I come to PW hoping someone here can give me a clue as to what happened...I used to be normal.

I don't call what I do practice. I play. I open my folder of songs, pick one and start playing it/working on the parts I need to improve. I do it because, as others have mentioned, I simply love it. It gives me relaxation and satisfaction. I do it because I have to (motivationally). I've had playing an instrument as part of my life for a little over 40 years (20 of them performing) and couldn't imagine life without one close to hand to play as the mood strikes me.