After not having a really excelling education, my work took me to a predominantly Welsh speaking area of North Wales. I was really surprised how quickly I could pick up this language (that the majority of Anglophones say is not the easiest language to learn), in fact within 5 years I was a fluent speaker. Just before Christmas I had a phone call from the lady who offered me board and lodgings there and I was amazed at how I - a proud Englishman - could still hold a fluent conversation yn Gymraeg SIXTEEN years after leaving the Principality.

From learning another language to learning the piano. I started to attempt to learn in my late 30s and found just how difficult it actually was by comparison. But now I'm 42 and I cannot ignore the ageing process and how this - quite naturally, impedes my ability to absorb new information.

Is there a certain biological limit that I've somehow crossed that is making me struggle to do basic things like play Fs as F# in the key of G, or bring things to my memory quickly whilst I'm playing, helping continuity. Or is it possible for a 42 year old on anticonvulsants and antidepressants to become a reasonably fluent pianist??

I suspect that you are expecting a little too much of yourself.
If you think about it there's an awful lot to take in when learning an instrument and it's possible that you need more time on basics. This may seem like going too slowly for a while but it will pay off. Any small missing link will impact at some point.
If you are not yet fluent with that F# you could lightly pencil in reminders for a while.
If you feel you are not quite managing at the level your new teacher has pitched things at do mention it. There can be a little trial and error in finding out where a student who has has lessons previously actually is and what they can and can't yet do.

I have PM'd you.

Regards

Collyermum

I started playing piano in 1995 at the age of 37; I'm now 43 and just passed grade 4.
I don't think age is a barrier to playing- but I do think it takes longer to learn than when a child- but what's the rush?
It took me three years between Grade 3 and Grade 4 exams, but in the meantime I covered a lot of different repertoire and always enjoyed playing.
From your profile you did very well at your Grade 2 exam and there is no reason why you can't continue from this great start.
I think as sbhoa you may be expecting too much of yourself- just enjoy playing and you will continue to improve.
As sbhoa suggested, if your forgetting to flatten or sharpen a note in a key, pencil in reminders to yourself- this is something I do all the time- there are pieces I have practised for several weeks and realised I've been playing the wrong note!
How much practise are you doing ? Is it possible that you may be practising too much?
Good luck with your playing and don't get downhearted- if you're struggling with a piece, give it a break for a couple of weeks and come back to it.

Hi Dave. Before I start, I should say that I have no idea of the effects any medication you are on. However, a couple of observations derived from my experiences in music and other areas of life.

From birth to your mid/late teens, you are a 'professional learner', for want of a better phrase. Learning is what you do every single day and you get good at it. When you leave school/college/university, it is likely that you no longer need to learn so intensively. Learning is a skill in itself, and the old adage 'use it or lose it' is as true here as anywhere else.

You don't say how old you were when you successfully learnt to speak Welsh (respect by the way!) but I'm guessing you would have been about 20. If you learnt to drive, it would be a fair guess that you did this around the same time, and driving is frequently one of the last practical skills people learn. Music is way more complex than learning to drive!

Chances are, you are simply out of practice at learning. Be kind to yourself. Take it a bit at a time, and I hope you enjoy the journey.

Wise words VM. This is what's stopping me from taking up the 'cello again. I last played at school in 1964 on a school instrument, but handed it in when I left. As Im retiring form work shortly, I could buy a 'cello and take it up again. But with being Dip standard on Piano and Organ , I think I will find returning to 'cello as a slow and frustrating process (I was only just moving out of first position when I stopped).

It was way way back when I started out at Cymraeg, I'd be around twenty or so, and I passed my driving test around my 21st birthday.

I am guessing that I'm trying too hard, after all I am very enthusiastic when it comes to the whole sphere of music. This morning's piano practise has been 'oh bells, I'll never be able to play this on teach's piano next Tuesday' followed by snails pace and out of time playing, which I found I could play the right notes at sight, and in the correct order.

I always am very admirational of senior citizens who take piano and music exams and pass them!

Wearing my teacher's hat, I agree with sbhoa in that you may be expecting to move along too quickly. I have found that pupils (and often adult pupils are affected more) can reach a plateau for a while. It doesn't mean that you will not move on in terms of skills and dexterity, but it may be that you are consolidating skills that you've already acquired. Playing the piano is a very complex business in terms of coordination, reading skills, listening to yourself and memory so please be patient - you're clearly doing the right things - look at your exam result!

I will always mark in accidentals for pupils if they need them - the main thing that you need to achieve is fluent playing of the right notes, and if forgetting accidentals makes you play the wrong notes, then you need some visual help. Hopefully your teacher will be happy to help you in this way too.

I most certainly could NOT manage to sit a grade 2 exam right now, and get a distinction. I gaze at my certificate and wonder if the AB have got me mixed up with someone else!

I was a late starter as a singer (mid 30s).

There's no shame in scribbling things in the score in pencil if it helps. I need fewer marks these days (other than noting conductor's directions). But I will still put a ring round an unexpected accidental, change of time signature etc. I'll even put in the beats in very complex passages (I can see that happening with the Sea Symphony which we started rehearsing this week) where the counting will be difficult.

In more straightforward peices these days I only usually have to put breath marks and place teh ends of words if necessary.

Youngsters have it easy - they are naturally very good mimics (go to a ski resort and look at the little 4/5/6 year olds following the instructor round the mountain like ducklings and compare with the adult beginners). Adults have to learn to learn again and it takes time. One of the disadvantages of being an adult is the tendency for your brain to interfere and rather than just doing what you're told or copying what you've seen, it starts to interfere and ask 'what / why / how'?

I'm sure you'll be fine.

I would echo the comments above and emphasis that progress is most definitely not steady, but goes in jumps (great when they happen) and plateaus (tedious and disheartening).

As said above, the important thing it to enjoy playing, and to try and promote the jumps by refering to those threads which have dealt with the right type of practice and effective practice (as opposed to endless playthoughs).

Mole

I always tell my adult pupils that learning to play piano is to develop a new fine motor skill. If they have children/grandchildren, I always remind them how long it takes children to learn to write - they start forming basic letters in nursery (kids start at 3 here in Wales) and spend the next few years developing this skill. And judging by my 9 year old's writing and that of some of his friends it takes a while longer to develop neat writing. And don't forget that playing piano is a little more complicated than writing

Dal ati ac fe ddaw gan bwyll bach!

Aaah, diolch yn fawr iawn iawn, Brynfan. Rwy'n cofio'r amser pan ddysgais i'r gair 'dyfalbarhad' bellach!!!

Gair da

Back to English I'm afraid. Here's my 2 pennyworth, as someone who started piano from scratch in my 30s, learnt for about 10 years & got to grade 4 (pass) then gave it up until I retired about 3 years ago. I am now learning the grade 5 pieces & love the piano, even though I get frustrated by my slow progress sometimes ...

-- with the forgotten sharps / flats, don't actually write them in, but ring the offending note to jog your memory

-- I find it very helpful to write in A LOT of fingering. I tend to try and sight read my pieces (so you can guess how slowly I play) and found that I was tending to go wrong in places where I used different fingering every time

-- FORCE yourself to start your practice of a piece each day at a different place, preferably one near a section you find tricky, and go over a small section several times.

Good luck

PatC

Well, on the bright side ... at 54, my memory has not (yet!) deteriorated and I can memorise whole pieces fairly easily ... even complicated ones (I'm a poor sight-reader and memory comes to my help).
The point is I tend to blame age for whatever I find it difficult to learn on the piano.
At times it is the instability on black key (which, for example, makes G flat and E flat minor arpeggios hard to secure or which is currently hindering my progress with a Scarlatti Allegro from his Sonata in F# minor), at times it is just finding it hard to concentrate due to the many worries one is exposed to as an adult and father of two, and at times, most of the time, it is how excruciatingly hard it is for me to speed up pieces or ?tudes, and I could go on listing instances.
But sometimes, I wonder , but how many of these things are really due to age?
So Brynfan, my question is, objectively what disadvantages do you notice in older pupils which, in your opinion, are due to age?

I find that adults are far more critical of themselves than children. Children are proud of their achievements no matter how small, whereas adults can only see how much more there is to learn.

Thanks Pat for that, very helpful. Though I hate making a mess of my music though!!! When I did a bit of voluntary work in a charity shop we had loads of old pianners with the note names either scrawled on the keys in permanent marker, or stuck on with labels, going to the extremes there!!

best of luck with your studies!

It is paranoia! Adults learn much faster than children.

It is a problem that the rest of society is in general encouraging of children, and scornful, dismissive or over-critical of adult learners. So as an adult you have to be tougher and more self-reliant.

Wow. I guess what they say about music slowing the ageing process is true.

However adults in general are more 'cynical' and resistant to change than youngsters who will just accept what they're taught it could be said.

But I see what you mean, my wife is forever criticising my playing so much so that I've had to learn to turn a deaf ear to it!!!

[/quote] However ... I see what you mean, my wife is forever criticising my playing so much so that I've had to learn to turn a deaf ear to it!!! [/quote]
Why doesn't she give it a try so she can understand what a lot of inhuman effort is required to be able to play even the easiest of tunes decently well ??

[quote name='Juan Carlos' date='Jan 7 2012, 10:15 AM' post='1120397']
[/quote] However ... I see what you mean, my wife is forever criticising my playing so much so that I've had to learn to turn a deaf ear to it!!! [/quote]
Why doesn't she give it a try so she can understand what a lot of inhuman effort is required to be able to play even the easiest of tunes decently well ??
[/quote]


She did, a few years ago, Juan. I gave her some piano lessons with Anne as a Christmas present a few years ago, and bought a specialist piano course for her called Playing with Colour by Sharon Goodey, (www.playingwithcolour.co.uk) which uses coloured notes as a tuition aid, as my wife is dyslexic and cannot read.

Sadly she found that she also had a physical impediment in one of her hands and she could not play the right notes in time. She also has a very bad and undisciplined sense of rhythm which even Annecakes couldn't work on!

Sorry- should have been 2005!

Hello I am 54 and taking my grade 1 in March. whatever it takes I,m going all the way to grade 8.With desire, determination and dedication you can achieve anything whatever your age.

I have adult pupils in most decades from 20s to 70s. The only differences I have really noticed are in pupils over 70, who seem to be a little slower with the mental and physical aspects of learning, though they still progress. With all my other adult pupils, they learn at pretty much the same rate as the kids - they just think they're slower to learn and are harder on themselves - despite me repeatedly telling them that they're progressing at a normal rate.

This is encouraging.
I am fully aware of how hard I am on myself. However, it sometimes happens that after repeating certain bits in pieces and/or ?tudes after a few weeks I still cannot get them to come fluently and I say to myself that the lack of dexterity, after all, must be due to age ... or maybe the piano is excrutiatingly hard ... another thing that it seems to me is harder with age is speeding pieces up. Haven't you seen these things in adult learners?

Hmm... I do have adults who have issues with speed and dexterity, but then I also have children with the same issues. I couldn't honestly say it was age-related.

I find slower pieces harder to play then faster pieces, no problem with memory of pieces, but sight -reading is impossible.

...I wonder would I be a better pianist if I wasn't on medication. I've been on anticonvulsants for 27 years now and it does slow up my brain, good old tegretol!!

Pls, see my PM.