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Hey all,

Been lurking on various forums on this site for a couple months now, but this is my first post...

After a 5-year break from playing piano following playing for 9 years as a teenager, I decided that I wanted piano in my life again. Having just purchased a new digital piano (for better or worse, my living circumstances dictated this), I'm finding out just how much I've lost in 5 years of not playing. I can stumble through a few of the pieces I once had memorized if I have the music in front of me.

I was wondering if anyone else has had similar breaks in their playing "careers", and what the best way for me to procede is. Should I go back to beginner material that I don't find challenging and move on from there? Or should I struggle with the pieces I was playing competently when I stopped but find very difficult now until it "clicks" back in my mind (or is that even possible?). Should I do something completely different?

It's a very odd feeling to have muscle memory kick in for a measure or two in the middle of a piece I once knew, then completely lose it on what comes up next; I guess that's what I get for not playing for 5 years though.

Welcome aboard. Actually, if you search back a ways, you'll find a lot of returnee's like yourself with similar experiences. Except I think most of us were out of the loop for longer than 5 years.

Go back to the easy stuff and work slowly. Also, work on some of the more challenging things, slowly at first, and only a small chunk at a time. Whether a "chunk" for you is a measure, a line, a phrase or a page depends on how challenging.

Remember all that boring technique stuff? Scales, arpeggios, cadences and the like? Do some of that too.

Most all of us who have returned would strongly recommend that you find a teacher and get back into lessons regularly rather than stumbling along on your own.

I hope you'll go back and look for some of the other "returning to the piano" threads.

Best of luck.

I had a 15 yr. hiatus from piano. When I sat down with my music (which looked foreign to me), I was lost and couldn't believe I had ever played it. I just shuffled thru the pieces until I found the ones I could play - and kept working on the others. The most amazing thing was that my hand kept flying up to the other end of the keyboard ready to play before my brain/eyes kicked in and saw where the notes where going! It was amazing (as you mentioned), but you know what? It (almost) all came back. Be patient and stick with it. (and scales never hurt). Oh, and I have gone back periodically for lessons.

Like Joyce, I also had a 15-year break before starting again 8 months ago. I agree with both Joyce and Beth that you should take up lessons again. I found that my technique was somewhat lacking, and unless you had a very good foundation before, you would need a teacher to work on problem areas with you.

The reward is that after 5-6 months of lessons (and hard work), I have surpassed the level at which I stopped previously.

Well, let's see ... after (mumble mumble 13 years mumble mumble) of college education, I finally decided to go back to playing the piano. I never realised how much I missed it until I started playing again. Just for fun, I went through all my early early lesson books (and since I was raised on the Thompson series, went all the way back to "Teaching Little Fingers How to Play") and worked up from there. It was also a great sight-reading exercise for me, and much to my delight, I found that I still have good sight-reading ability.

So it's been a couple of years since I've gone back to playing the piano. And now I'm expanding on my musical horizons, taking both voice and organ lessons. It's been fun, thus far.

Best of luck to you!

Lyn F.

I went back to the piano after 10 years.
My advice is very simple. Do not go back to the ancient material. Move on from where you stopped even make a jump to more difficult stuff. I don't know why some people think they cannot learn more advanced stuff. I've proved it to myself that you can.

It's like the difference between a person A that does 30 minutes of workout every day and another person B that never worked out and decides to join the Navy Seals for a 1 year training.
The result is quite simple. After 1 year of training, person B will not only be able to handle more difficult situations with more ease, but will be ready to move on to even harder stuff. Plus person B will be able to handle any kind of daily work out that person A was (slowly) working on.

I hope it makes sense.

Enjoy

Thanks for all the advice; I've been playing as much as I can the past week or so. Picked up the Hanon exercises and some "easy" classical pieces (original, not arranged) and it seems to be doing some good. Now I need to look into finding a teacher to at least look at my technique.

Hi, Paul K:

Although I never stopped playing, I didn't take lessons for years, oops, decades! I started taking lessons again about 2 years ago, and I strongly recommend it...

Not just for technique, which is worth it alone, but for me there is also the push to really polish something and tackle "harder" works that I probably would not approach on my own.

In other words, knowing I have to perform in front of my teacher every week really keeps me motivated.

See you
Nina