My attempts to play piano again as an adult fell flat. So I looked to my kids for inspiration

Lindsay Zier-Vogel · for CBC First Person

· Posted: Jun 18, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 8 hours ago

This First Person file is the acquisition of  Lindsay Zier-Vogel, who lives successful Toronto.  For much accusation astir CBC's First Person stories, delight see the FAQ.

I was sitting astatine the upright mahogany soft that I'd archetypal played erstwhile I was seven. I began with the simplest standard — C major, each achromatic notes, the easiest fingering. Even though it'd been years since I'd taken a lesson, my fingers knew what to do, up and down the keys, euphony filling my tiny apartment. 

My New Year's solution was to commencement playing soft again. I had played arsenic a kid, adjacent squeaking done my Grade 8 Royal Conservatory exam successful 1998. But aft graduating from precocious school, my apartments weren't large capable for a piano, and my beingness was excessively engaged with dance, penning and friends. Several years later, my ma called and said she didn't person country for my puerility soft anymore and asked if I wanted it. I couldn't accidental no. 

I opened my battered transcript of Chopin Waltzes and recovered the past portion I'd ever played. I rounded my fingers implicit the keys and played the archetypal fewer bars of Waltz successful C-sharp minor. It sounded incredible, and I was thrilled. 

The musculus representation wore retired rapidly though. I couldn't find my spot successful the music, and adjacent erstwhile I could, the 4 sharps were excessively tricky to construe from the leafage onto the keys. There were comments successful the borderline from my years-ago teacher that I nary longer understood, and notes circled successful pencil for reasons I couldn't remember. Pulse connected one! I had written connected the 2nd page, though I couldn't get that acold now. I played the archetypal fewer bars implicit and over, and a fewer days later, I gave up. 

I did this each January for a decennary since 2012.

A thrilling start, a demoralizing letdown

Things yet changed erstwhile my youngest kid started taking soft lessons successful 2023. I was delighted to constituent retired the treble clef and the bass clef, and amusement him which keys were which. It was fantastic to perceive the dependable of the soft filling the house, adjacent if it was conscionable Oh! Susanna connected loop. 

As I was sitting connected a hard pew astatine his archetypal soft recital, I realized that I wanted to play again — not conscionable the archetypal fewer bars of that Chopin waltz but for real. And I knew that if I was really going to play, I would request lessons. Before I could speech myself retired of it, I emailed my kid's teacher.

Faria taught students astatine each property and accomplishment level, and from sitting successful connected my kid's lessons, I knew that she was diligent and benignant and not a drill sergeant astir theory. On a snowy day successful January 2024, I unopen down my machine aboriginal and walked implicit for my archetypal lesson. 

I sat astatine the expansive soft successful Faria's surviving room, trying desperately to retrieve everything I learned arsenic a kid astir notes, fingering and clip signatures. We started dilatory — the simplest of scales, a slow, repetitive Tchaikovsky piece. My 45-minute acquisition was implicit earlier I knew it.

It was invigorating — the unreserved of being capable to fig retired a enactment connected a page, discovering that my muscles inactive remembered the rolling chords of arpeggios. I practiced diligently each evening and dilatory made it done my archetypal piece. After 26 years, I was backmost to playing piano. 

Except the scales got much challenging, and the pieces got harder and longer, and enactment was engaged and my kids needed me, and a fewer months in, playing soft had mislaid its shine. 

After a peculiarly engaged week, I showed up astatine Faria's knowing I wasn't prepared. I wanted to warrant my deficiency of practising — my kid was perchance moving schools, I was stressed retired astir the shot squad I was coaching, my kids had been precocious for schoolhouse each time for the past 2 weeks, and my publication edits were owed and not adjacent adjacent to done. Faria asked maine to play A-flat large scale, but I couldn't adjacent retrieve what digit it started on. 

My scales were unspeakable and the acquisition got worse from determination — my arpeggios were a mess, my rendition of Sarabande was a catastrophe and I bungled my mode done Chopin's Waltz successful A Minor. I felt the sting of tears, and adjacent though Faria assured maine that it was fine, I walked location successful a shroud of shame. This full task was a discarded of time.

It's not magic. It's practice 

That weekend, I sat astatine a swimming excavation and watched my oldest kid learning however to dive. He belly flopped implicit and implicit again until yet figured it out, and dove into the heavy end. As his beaming look surfaced, I realized my kids are perpetually learning caller things — diving, backmost crawl, pitching baseballs, agelong division. Everything they bash is marque new, and they walk astir of their clip failing. 

It seems similar magic that 1 time their belly flops crook into dives, and they aquatics lengths connected their backs, and propulsion strikes, and disagreement 9 into 144, but it's not magic. It's practice. They signifier each the time. And I realized that I'd stopped the signifier of practising. 

I'd organized my big beingness astir doing things I'm bully at, and stopped doing things that were new. If I was going to play piano, I was going to person to get comfy with being unspeakable astatine it. And I was going to person to spot that the lone mode to get amended was done practising.

I've been playing for a twelvemonth and a fractional now, and it isn't easy, and I ne'er person capable time, but I've started giving myself stickers each time I beryllium down astatine the soft and play. I signifier not conscionable to beryllium capable to play a sonatina for Faria connected a Friday afternoon, but due to the fact that it feels bully to alteration thing that's impenetrable astatine archetypal glimpse into thing I understand. 

An added bonus is that my kids get to spot (and hear!) maine fail, and they besides get to spot (and hear!) maine yet succeed. 

And there's nary extremity crippled here. I'm not moving towards a recital oregon an exam. I'm not turning this into a broadside hustle I tin monetize. 

Playing soft arsenic a hobby successful mediate property has reminded maine that it is the practising that matters — small, cumulative windows of effort — precisely what my kids bash each azygous day.

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