I took piano as a child all the way up through college - I minored in it, actually. I was one of those unfortunately stupid kids who have a lot more talent than drive, so I always played quite a bit below my ability because I never really practiced much. (A gift for sightreading and natural laziness are a very bad combination!) Still, by the time I graduated from college I’d reached a certain level, I guess. You can’t not, after more than a decade doing something.
My senior year of college was… bad. Really bad. I was one of those extremely depressed college seniors that they probably catch a lot better these days. Almost flunked out - went from the Dean’s List to a .5 GPA my last semester. (Actually, piano was the only thing I didn’t flunk, oddly enough. And Chorale.) I guess I felt the piano was kind of bound up in all of that, because I haven’t touched it since. It’s been almost ten years, a fact which boggles my mind. Ten years! Holy crap, I’m old! (I’m REALLY old - my 30th birthday is Monday.)
Since we’ve started to clean up the house, I’ve suddenly had the desire to play again. (Being able to make it to the piano is surely part of it.) I’ve been noodling through some hymnals and books of Christmas carols and such that I found in the bench, and I told the boyfriend I’d teach him, so I picked up a good old Alfred Adult Beginner book for him. But I’m not sure what to do for myself.
I can’t afford lessons right now, really. And hell, I shouldn’t need them - I had years and years of the best lessons money could buy, and I wasted them. I guess I need a little direction, though. I’m not sure what I was playing when I quit - I can’t find those books anywhere, and that last year is frankly kind of a fog. I definitely couldn’t play it now, at any rate. I’ve been experimenting a bit with the stuff in one of those big comb bound Piano Classics books and finding things I played as a kid, working through them again - some of those Bach pieces like the Minuet in G that kids play, that sort of thing. They feel like good warmups - I’m surprised my hands remember what to do, but if I think about it they forget. So I’ve worked my way through some of those - takes maybe two days to get them down mostly perfect.
Of course, I want to be playing the big stuff again - Beethoven sonatas, that sort of thing - but they’re way, way out of my league at this point, I think. (The eternal piano problem - piano is like math, you have to stick with it for decades to get to the good stuff. Guitar is like literature - you can enjoy it from the start.)
Is there any sort of… graduated list, I guess, of pieces? That would give me some structure? For that matter, are there any packaged learning tools for the, uh, “advanced beginner”? The “hasn’t done this in a while”-er?
I don’t have a ton of time to practice, which is funny because I think back to when I had ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD and concert Steinways to do it on in college and I never did, but I’ve been working on it fairly steadily. If I continue playing things this easy, I’ll never go anywhere, but if I make too big a jump it won’t be satisfying and I’ll probably quit out of frustration. (Nothing like not being able to do something that used to be easy!) There’s the physical side, too - I’m continually shocked at how easy my hands tire and get fumble-fingered. I could use a theory review, too, although I’m sure teaching Aaron will do a better job there than any self-study.
I guess I’m looking for other people’s experiences at this and any suggestions on materials or courses or just a way to proceed.
I’ll have to look and see if those specific ones in Grade 8 are familiar. And Fur Elise, of course. I probably ended up somewhere around grade 7 or 8 in college, I’d guess - the trick is figuring out where I should start back so as not to frustrate myself.