Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Are All Adult Beginners Suffering a Mid-Life Crisis?

CebuKid: it's true that some people might take to sight reading more easily than others, but unless there is actually a problem with your eyesight, you (and anyone) can learn to be a highly competent sight-reader. It requires discipline, practice and tenacity but it's part of any professional musician's formal training.

Mid-life crisis? More like a return to childhood, maybe.

I could play piano pretty decently when I was 12, 13, 14 years old (years of lessons by that point). So after various less than entirely satisfying musical endeavors in my 30's and 40's I recently returned to playing the piano every day. What a pleasure to do something where at least the very basics come easily without every tiny little bit of technique having to be learned from scratch.

Piano playing offers me more music for less effort, I think of it as "cashing in" a sort of savings account I was accruing during all those boring lessons and practice drills as a pre-teen. There's still work to do to play all the stuff I'd love to play but while I'm working on more advanced material I can play "simple" stuff that sounds wonderful!

Oh, I like that, well said, Brent. That sentiment (underlined part) holds for any age, and not just piano.

The cool existential question is this...

Would I have gotten as much return from my "savings" if I'd re-taken up piano playing 15 years ago before fumbling around with violin, viola, guitar and mandolin for a few years each?

I actually played and enjoyed different types of music on different instruments and developed a lot of "musical sense" that comes very naturally to me playing the piano now. My wife says if I have returned the piano a in my 30's before all that other stuff it would have bored me quite quickly because I didn't have anything I wanted to express musically.

+1

Lyricmudra,

"Executive function" is a term I hear often at my sessions. It seems you are knowledgeable on this subject.

Yes, they not only allow me to see the data (just mine) but we discuss different aspects of the results. And yes, it is considered a longitudinal study. (I had to wait until my next session to confirm) The study is to last 18 months and possibly longer if they can get funded for additional time.

The whole thing is very interesting to say the least. I can actually see scientific proof that my cognitive skills increase on a fairly steady rate just as my piano playing improves at at slow but steady rate. Of course, there are occasional flat spots but, overall, the trend is definitely upwards. All of this has added even more interest, fun, and excitement to my pursuit of music and the piano.

Several other posters on this thread have stated that they have experienced a greater "sharpness" in their general lives since they took up the study of music and piano. By participating in this study I can see actual proof that it's not just their (or my) imagination or wishful thinking. The improvement in one's ability to play an instrument, especially the piano, carries over into your general day to day cognitive functioning.

I'm sure there are countless other challenging occupations and/or activities that would require similar skills and abilities but it is flying I know so that is my where I am able to make a comparison.

I am hoping that my participation in this study will, in some small way, contribute to the eventual prevention of the horrible mental degeneration that is Alzheimer's. It inflicts heartbreaking tragedy on so many individuals and their families.

Interesting stuff, Cmajor.

Personally, I feel so sharp now, I could cut through an iceberg.

I too have a relative with dementia (but of the vascular variety, following many strokes). It is indeed sad to watch the people you've grown up with succumb to this disease.

This is something I just cannot understand ... why do so many folk feel threatened by knowledge and the reasoning that's required to increase knowledge ... no wonder our children are lagging far behind others in science and math

This all probably belongs in a new thread but I think the problem has many causes, the most serious of which, is that we allow politicians instead of educators to call the shots and that is a fatal mistake. They are simply not qualified. I wouldn't trust most politicians to mow my lawn properly let alone dictate how a school system should operate. In fact, a highly educated electorate is a politician's worst nightmare. Oh well, they say "ignorance is bliss" so I guess we're all headed for a very blissful existence. Our priorities, as a nation, I think, have been out of whack for some time now.

Back to my piano... where bad things go away, at least for a while.

Yep, on the sadness scale it is a 9.8. I watched helplessly as both my mother and mother in law progressed from the early stages of terror and denial right up to the point, several years later, where they finally and mercifully enter their own separate world but need to be kept under lock and key like criminals, for their own safety. Alive, but not alive.

The results of this study I'm involved with are very impressive. My cognitive skills are increasing rather than decreasing and I'm in my sixties. The evidence is mounting that the pursuit of music is one of the best tools to at least delay the onset of the nightmare of dementia. The premise is simple... use it or lose it. Of course, exercise and diet are also important.

If we are then bring it on!
Woohooo!

Havent read all the posts on this thread... anyway, I bought the piano because of my hubby's mid-life crisis! Not Me! Since we lost our evenings together, I want to find something else to do so I bought this keyboard.

I can see why people think that because my hubby picked up harmonica instead of piano as a complete beginner, he didn't know any music and soon gave up.

i wouldnt say I'm at middle of my life now, I'm 23 but piano is something I have always wanted to play. Sadly, my parent couldn't afford music lessons or a piano. whenever I visit my aunt's house I wait for the house to be empty then I turn on the digital piano and play with it. just simple tunes, most of the time I end up trying to play mary had a little lamb (embarrassing, I know) while keeping an ear open to the sound of the car pulling up the driveway. whenever I press the keys and by some chance I get it right I get something like an adrenaline rush - I'm actually making music (to my ears anyway). the piano is meant for my 7 year old cousin and I couldn't bear playing in front of people. I'm in my 1st year of medical school and it probably going to be at least another decade till I am able to take lessons for it and even this is not a certainty.

I do feel extremely embarrassed when I picture myself in my late thirties practicing mary had a little lamb but dammit I want to be able to play the piano and hear music from it.

I started late in my 58th year of life. One of my first assigned pieces was the Brahms Lullaby. It was hard! (And also real music, BTW.)

You'll find either that practicing the pieces is rewarding enough that you don't care who hears what you play -- or you'll listen to yourself through headphones.

Either way works. Just don't let self-consciousness stop you. Put your fingers on the keys!

I'm 26 and just began taking lessons. My parents couldn't afford lessons when I was a kid and out of ballet and piano I think piano is the missed childhood pastime I can realistically take up. That and ballet looks like so much work .

Randomcloud.... Try Beethoven's 9th symphony. Very easy to play simply. That will help your ego. Good luck with school.

Now now Mareesey... Remember the advice in the post above your's:
"don't let self consciousness stop you". Imagine a middle aged overweight man in tights and a Tutoo. Don't let self consciousness stop you.

rnaple I was only kidding. I really wanted to learn to play piano. I'm in college (another thing I waited to do) and when I stand in line for Starbucks it seems like there is always someone jamming on the Grand Piano in the student union. I also have a friend who started learning a couple years ago and he encouraged me to take lessons. So here I am 2 lessons in and loving it.

Ok. So I'm a 42 year-old absolute beginner and had my first ever lesson four weeks ago. I'll warn you now that this is quite a long post for which I apologise. I hope it will be interesting enough that you won't doze off too early through it though:-)

I have always loved listening to music and still attend a festival and as many live shows as I can fit into each year but I've never considered myself arty or creative enough to do it myself. An extremely brief fliratation with a borrowed guitar about 20 years ago gave me no reason to doubt this was true.

However, this all changed on a recent trip to the New Forest. My girlfriend and I had gone out for an evening meal and the restaurant owner suggested we might like to finish our drinks in the lounge area. It was a typical English summer evening (ie. thunder, rain and temperatures that polar bears would find too chilly) so the opportunity to sit in armchairs in front of a log fire sipping coffee was just what the doctor ordered.

While we were drinking, one of the young waitresses (young being a relative term due to my age:-) I would guess she was in her mid 20s) sat down at a previously unnoticed piano and proceeded to play 6 or so minutes of the most mesmerizing music. A glance at her playing showed that she was totally in the moment. I suspect for her in those six minutes, there was nothing but her and her piano.

She finished to a prolonged round of applause and it was at that moment that I noticed she wasn't even reading from sheet music; It was all from memory. We asked her what the piece was and she said that it was Ludovico Einaudi's "I Giorni". From that moment, I decided that I would love to be able to play that tune. The seed was planted.

It stayed in my mind for the next few weeks and this convinced me to look for a local teacher and buy myself a Yamahama digital piano.

With apologies for the lengthy pre-amble and to get back on topic, I heartily agree with a lot of the other poster's comments:

- The opportunity is there for me now. I have been a home owner for almost 20 years but the last two years have been the first time I've had a house that's just mine which means that practise is not a problem.
- I have time to myself which gives me the opportunity to tinkle the ivories whenever I fancy it.
- About four years ago my philosophy changed (matured?) when I finally realised that you only get one shot at life so why not try things out while you have the chance?

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that from my point of view, I don't see it as a crisis but more of an increasing maturity, a realisation of what makes you happy and a chance to learn something new which ultimately has endless possibilities. What more can you ask for :-) ?

Beautifully said, Reaper -- and welcome! This really is an undertaking where you reap precisely what you sow; may your username predict great piano success for you!

What I found so offputting about the original suggestion -- that all of us who take this up late in life are only responding to some predictable crisis of aging -- was that it ignored entirely sentiments such as the one that you expressed.

Music is an opportunity that's there to be seized by any of us, at any age. That some of us seize it late (but still seize it) is a miracle, not a pathology.

tl;dr

I think the only "crisis" adult learners are going to have is how they're going to find the funds to pay for the piano they absolutely, positively MUST have and simply can't live without.

As for me, it was more an opportunity than a crisis. Always wanted to play from a child, parents didn't want a piano (or any musical instrument) in the house "making a racket" - so that was that.

I have a digital now so I can play any time I want - wish I'd had this as a child!