Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Your music goals for 2020

I’m just wanting to stay in the game and move forward, no matter what.

I am similar to dobro. I just want to stay in the game. My only long term goal is to keep enjoying learning and playing, so I keep long term goals to a minimum. I don’t need or want the stress that I would inevitably apply to myself.

Having said that I have short term goals, I have just selected my next two pieces to learn.

Pleading child from Schumann’s Kinderszenen will the be the last of Kinderszenen pieces I will learn for now.

Also a completely new piece for me. Milonga by Alberto Ginastera. I found that via pianogrlnw’s soundcloud account and I can see that in the future I will be plundering her soundckoud account for more inspiration. So much good listening there.

I like goals!!! They also say it's a good idea to put a timeline on it, so here I go! (Can you tell I thrive on goals?)

1. Pass RCM Prep B exam with a good grade (mid-January);
2. Prepare for and pass RCM Level 1 with a good grade (August?);
3. Start RCM Level 2 material (Q4);
4. Learn a pop song for fun (any time);
5. Start learning sax with a teacher (January);
6. Start learning sax RCM material (maybe, don't know which grade yet, don't know if I will sit for the exam either);
7. Continue with concert band (all year);
8. Join jazz band in addition to #7 (Q4);
9. Buy a sax (summertime);
10. Maintain my house humidity at 40-45% (all year) .

I think that will keep me busy enough this year. I can't wait for the end of the year to see if I've achieved my goals. I hope I do. We'll see. Happy goal-setting everyone!

Practice slower.

Work towards ABRSM grade 8. With the plan to take it towards the end of the year.

2019 was a particularly difficult year for me, with some serious health set backs. The good news is 2020 should be better! This year I am taking a less aggressive approach to my playing and just enjoying piano. Therefore more goals are more modest.

1. Reclaim some of the pieces that I have previously learned over the last ten years, and build a repertoire.
2. Do the 40 piece challenge with these pieces and some some easy pieces.
3. Just have fun!

I plan to have some more fun and some less teaching-driven practising. Actually, more fun means just as much practice but more pieces of my own choice, and not those that will be submitted for feedback.

My goal is to...

1) Finish a (not very difficult) piece I started in 2013.
2) Learn read music more fluently (I currently "decipher").
3) Learn to read music for guitar.
4) And what dobro said!!!

@SwissMS, I’m glad to hear that things are getting better with those setbacks, your input here is appreciated.

My goals for 2019 were overly ambitious, I could only fulfill one of them, which was to learn and record a new piece every week. This year I am not going to push myself too hard, but I still want to keep learning a lot of pieces (aiming for +40 pieces). I want to be consistent in my technique and learn the important things that are missing, like all inversions of arpeggios and chords with 7th in all keys. I am thinking about following the RCM syllabus for that, having the goal of reaching Lvl 9 (or 10) by the end of the year. I am not doing the exams, they don't exist here where I live, but I want to prepare myself like if I was taking the exams, including the technical requirements, sight-reading, and aural skills.

So, in a nutshell, my goal (not set in stone, I have to talk to my teacher about it) is to simulate all RCM exams, from Lv.4 to Lv.9. For the short term goal, I want to find the courage to finish learning Mendelssohn's Op.19 No.5, which is the most challenging piece that I ever tried learning. I've been lazy about practicing it for the past 3 months, now it is time to finish it. Also, I hope to at least start to learn a Bach P&F and a Chopin Nocturne.

My "2020 Vision" --

Play as many different pianos as I can;

Keep a daily practice log;

Begin to learn to play some blues, rags, boogie-woogie, jazz standards;

Learn something by Beethoven to celebrate his 250th birthday;

Finish and polish some new pieces to keep in my (very modest!) performing repertoire;

Play in front of other people at least once a month;

Keep having fun!

I'm not generally the church-going type, but I must say that lately I've been praying that my usual spinal issues, and my arthritis, and my seemingly endless list of other ailments will remain relatively in check throughout 2020 and hopefully beyond, so that I can continue playing, even if only for short intervals. Having just recently returned to the piano in late October, 2019 after being away from it for 40 years, (Yikes!) for my health problems to force me off of the piano bench at this point would be utterly heartwrenching, now that I've had a taste of the good life once again!

So yeah, my New Year's goal is to simply keep plugging away at my music whenever I am physically able... and to continue to learn/play a wide variety of new-to-me material, both old-school and new, and to try my darnedest to enjoy every moment that I'm still able to keep at it!

Fingers crossed!

I actually made an entry in my practice log book with my goals for 2020. It's first time in my life that I'm writing any goals down and it feels little bit childish, but also exciting. Here goes:

1. Focused practice every day and don't feel bad for skipped days because of "life happens". ( I didn't skip that many days this year, but felt very guilty every time, so I need to work on it )

2. Finish with RCM Level 5 material including Etudes. ( I placed myself into Level 5 after discussion with my teacher to be able to re-gain skills and confidence lost after 30 years break from piano lessons )

3. Complete Coursera Fundamentals of Music Theory course (Free fun!)

4. Keep practice log (it helped me with finding the gaps and problems in my practice, so I will keep at it)

5. Add purposeful sight-reading time to every second practice. (It's getting better after a year back, but nowhere near how it felt 30 years ago, so I guess only practice will make it if not perfect, but at least better)

I'm also going to enjoy my time at the piano as I did all of 2019!

Best wishes to everyone in 2020 and have fun with your goals!

After reading everyone's goals I just realized I forgot some very fundamental ones which I will shamelessly appropriate for myself too! Thanks folks for reminding me.

11. Practice every day, even if it is just 15 minutes;
12. Keep a practice log;
13. Play in front of people more.

Here goes. Good to write them down in public to keep me honest.

1. Learn 10 pieces to performance level. (I tend to ditch pieces when I get frustrated with them)
2. Work on scales (I seem to never find the time - how convenient)
3. Play with energy and expression (This sounds vague and will be difficult to evaluate)
4. Perform at least 10 times (I have done this for several years now and want to keep it up)
5. Continue to keep a practice journal. Use the journal to document progress, evaluate honestly, and come up with next steps.
6. Be demanding of myself during practice. Try to accomplish something each day. (Related to #5)
7. Listen critically and carefully to my playing.

I just have one goal:

Get much better at sight reading. One of the specific goal is: hit at least 400 score in SASR test in PianoMarvel.

Osho

Wishing you the best, camperbc. I too feel that, at my age, with my late start, it's a race against time (a race with no finish line, though!). Hope you enjoy the journey for many years to come.

My goal is to slow down a bit for the time being.

I plan to continue what I'm doing. I might take another RCM exam this year either in August or December.