The amateur musician faces a certain dilemma, throughout their musical life.
The biggest dilemma is about this, do I play my instrument for sheer enjoyment, or do I continue to learn? Playing for sheer enjoyment for me, generally involves a trip to the local music store (in this case Graves or Stanton's) and picking up a piece that I have heard another play, or a song I heard on the radio or my Pandora account. Often I get a piece with high hopes, high hopes that I have had enough musical training thus far, that I can learn it on my own. Often my hopes are dashed by a single, solitary measure, and the realization that I still, still have so much to learn.
When one starts taking piano lessons, it is all about learning the notes, the clefs, the staffs. As a 7 year old I just longed for the gold star, the Beethoven or Mozart sticker, or the handwritten well done. I even had a a piano teacher, that gave you a statue of Beethoven or Mozart, when you memorized 30 pieces. I still have both statues, and they remind me of how far I have come even to this day.
In my case, there was a real lull in piano lessons in the early years of raising my children, who are 25 and 22 now. My mom did the most amazing act of selflessness, when she had the family piano, a little Baldwin spinet, moved down to my house in Columbus, Ohio from Detroit. I played the piano in those years, but it was tunes for my children, Winnie the Pooh, Mickey songs, Barney, and whatever Disney movie score was happening. I wanted to take lessons during that time but with mom hood and career, I always put it on the back burner.
I did get back to lessons at the end of my children's grade school years, but the busy- ness of high school and being a marching band mom, took over. So I stopped out from lessons once more. During those lesson years with Dr. Suzanne Newcomb, though I branched into chamber music, and actually performed in a trio. I think the most amazing part of all of it, was that my mom and dad got to hear me play that piece. I think they were amazed about what I had accomplished, and were impressed that I took time out for me to make it happen.
I actually am intimidated by performing, but at the same time, it is the performance that pushes an amateur to a greater level of excellence.
After that stint of lessons, I again returned to my treks to the music stores, again, picking out pieces I wanted to play, but not those I necessarily had the ability to play. I also found myself working up lounge lizard Christmas music as well to play for family and holiday parties.
I took lessons from my daughter's piano teacher (Madeline Karn) on and off for awhile, but took a hiatus because of work/career related commitments
I have been singing in my church choir for several years. Our director is an amazing jazz pianist, and she can improvise, and transpose like no one I know. When I hear her play, I find myself saying, I wouldn't mind doing that, or attempting to learn how to do that. I also find myself thinking it wouldn't hurt to try chamber music again, or find another pianist, I could duet with on a regular basis.
The problem with being an amateur, is that when you are not taking lessons, you reinforce bad habits picked up over years of mindless playing. You get trapped into the place of "I know I need to attend to that detail, but I just want to play it even if it is wrong rhythmically or melodically.
The only thing good about soul searching as a musician is that, one can come to the conclusion that it is okay to search, for the next exciting musical thing you plan to do. Tried to take on line music theory, but that was challenging for a dinosaur like me, not being physically in the professor's class room. That is an entry for another blog post.
In the meantime, I still plan to play my Bach inventions, play Czerny Number 5 and practice church hymns as I search for my next amateur move!
