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DAVID SOWARD

Pianist, Teacher and Vocal Coach

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Posted on July 13, 2016 by DAVID SOWARD

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Returning adults

I began piano lessons on my 5th birthday and have played ever since. The physical and mental benefits are incalculable. But many of us get so far at school and then other priorities take over. Some of us reached a reasonable level some time ago but have not advanced since then. If you think of yourself as 'rusty' it may just mean that you need to learn how to learn! That way you can make progress again. That is my challenge: I want you to enjoy the piano as much as I do.

Playing at sight and playing from memory

The biggest obstacle to continuing to play the piano once the childhood routine has gone is not being able to learn new pieces quickly enough to start enjoying them. The key skill for anyone at any level is to learn to read notes and turn them into music. Some are better at ‘sightreading’ than others – but learning quickly is not quite the same skill, though an essential one to continued progress. Others are good at memorising – which is both incredibly useful and also a bit of a danger, if you learn the wrong notes or never learn to read the right ones except laboriously.

Don’t practise; learn the notes!

A common mistake is to spend time practising the notes (including the wrong ones) before we’ve actually learned them! Usually out of laziness, we play and play again – or ‘sightread until ready’, as I’ve heard it called – rather than taking time and effort to actually study the notes, look for patterns, concentrate on the sections which need most attention, and so on. You can waste hours of work playing unthinkingly, when what you intended to do was to learn – a matter of brain, not just fingers.

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