Did you have piano lessons as a child?

[timwat]

I had 9 years of private classical piano as a child. Then I started playing non-classical music. But that obviously has defined who I am as a keyboard player, and I'm curious who else here on the forum comes from a similar background. I realize some of you had formal organ training, some formal training on another instrument, others are self-taught. 

 

But I'm specifically wondering who has childhood piano instruction in their past, and curious if that ends up self-defining ourselves as pianists, so to speak.

[Ed A.]

I had a year of piano lessons when I was seventeen from a teacher who had her doctorate in performance from Juilliard. I still remember some of what she taught me almost fifty years later, but I fortunately forgot most of it. 😀

[EscapeRocks]

Hi Tim

Our stories seem to parallel a bit. 
I began formal lessons when I was 7 at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago. 
I, too, took lessons for 9 years before we moved to Tucson.  
 

While my classical chops are really poor now, that background has made it possible for me to do what I do now.  Especially the theory part, and overall good dexterity. 
I still pull out the old Hannon book  to keep the fingers loose 

[GovernorSilver]

My uncle was my first piano teacher.  I was 7.  He was 17, and in his last year of high school.  I don't remember a set schedule like once a week, every week or anything like that.  He and his brother, another uncle of course, were teaching piano lessons to other kids too.  That's why I don't say I got a full year of instruction.    After the older uncle graduated and moved out of the house, I didn't get as much piano instruction.  The younger uncle sort of continued my piano instruction, but lessons were infrequent, from what I recall.    After the younger uncle moved out of the house (graduation, joining the military) lessons stopped altogether, and I was no longer being ordered by the family to practice on the piano.   These uncles used the Michael Aaron piano course book(s) with me.  I never made it out of Grade 2, which of course was my elementary school grade too.  Once in a while they would flex on on me, like when I was feeling good about playing Minuet in G from the Aaron book, they'd bust out the real Minuet in G and show off their classical chops.

 

I didn't think of myself as a musician until I got into high school and some classmates started a music club.  Then I thought of myself as a wannabe keyboard player.   After high school graduation, I didn't play an instrument until I got my first apartment and happened to have a roommate who led me down the dark side (guitar playing) instead.   I did find an old lady in one of the junior college piano practice rooms, who offered to teach me for free.  She taught me how to play the chromatic scale.  Unfortunately, I never found her again.    After I transferred from the JC to a university, I tried to focus on just being a student, then took the music courses that counted towards graduation requirements.  I got some piano instruction out of that.

 

I got other piano lessons as an adult. I continue to work on stuff on keys on my own, but I'll never myself a keyboardist.

[Ivan May]

I did have piano lessons when I was growing up. I wanted to learn how to play rock and roll piano, but I got tired of learning the same chord over and over and eventually quit.

 

A few years later I got a Casio Casiotone keyboard as a Christmas present and eventually taught myself how to play piano.

[Shamanzarek]

My Grandmother, Aunt, and older Cousin on my Mother's side of the family were all excellent musician's. When my Aunt and Uncle retired in 1962 they got a trailer and travelled around the country. We got their Piano and I started lessons at age 11 continuing with Piano and Organ through high school. My teacher and her husband were also violinists. He had taught Spade Cooley who appeared in movies and own TV show but his life sadly didn't end well.

[Brad Kaenel]

Seven years of classical and pop, age 9-16.  My teacher was a Hungarian refugee during the Cold War who loved Lizst and Western pop music; he had been a piano-bar-style club entertainer.  Truth be told, we did the classical stuff (and the JohnThompson/Hanon/Czerny litany) because the music store he worked out of required it -- but we usually zoomed through that to get to the pop material. 🤫  I didn't go the classical route, so I lost most of my technical facility and dexterity, eventually.  But what I did learn, in spades, was how to make music when there's little or no actual notation: playing from lead sheets, recognizing and voicing chord symbols, improvising accompaniment, etc.

 

Through high school and college I actually did a lot of choir accompaniment, so I kept my reading skills.  But I was also in the jazz ensembles learning to "comp" as a rhythm player, learning different "feels", paying attention to arrangement.  That segued me to musical theater, which has been the longest-running thread for me.  I only wish I had had just a little more formal music theory instruction in my formative jazz years in high school; I never became a very good soloist.

[Delaware Dave]

5 years classically trained.  Still have the John W. Schaum instruction books from 50 years ago in my grand piano bench.

[AUSSIEKEYS]

I was FORCED to have lessons. forced i tells you.

 

My dad was a singing teacher (also guitar teacher) so I was pushed towards piano. Pushed I say. Pushed with a capital P. And you know what happens in River City.

 

I Hated it, despised it in fact loathed it.  Would have done anything to get out of it. God this thread brings back memories. Bad memories. I used to literally have nightmares about my pushbike ride to the piano teachers place. 

 

Analyse me : in my recurring nightmares I was riding down the long road to the teachers place and halfway along the road Id always go into the same abandoned house where Id be attacked by ghosts and gouls. Theyd be flying around attacking. Id be fighting them. i cant remember ever making it to piano lessons in my dream. This would happen night after night.

 

Needless too say i fought him on it to eventually stop lessons.

 

Ironically in my first year of high school where everyone had to do  compulsory music for 2 periods a week my music teacher said to dad this kids a natural and knows his theory he should be taking music as an elective next year. I guess Dad told her I hated music.

 

So i never took music at school  although I did excel at art my one true love as a kid and my chosen school elective then went on to have my own design studio after college.

 

So its not as if I didnt have a love for the arts its probably i didnt want to follow my dads footsteps and be cloned at a young age. He also pushed me to go to sunday school.  Ahhh hated that and rebelled so much about that. But that my children is a story for another day.

 

Damn if i have nightmares again im gonna blame pianos again.

 

 

 

 

[16251]

Taking piano lessons early in life is one of my impossible dreams I can never obtain. IMO, Tim's question is too broad. I believe I took 12 months of lessons before 18, but I don't attribute anything from that since I had already been taking lessons learning cheesy organ pop.

 

IMO the magic happens, if it happens at all, at very early ages when your mind learns disciplines that wire your brain. Of course, it is not necessary since there are many great pianists who started late. Personally, I would of liked having that pedagogy.

[Stokely]

I was also forced, at age 10.  I quit by age 12.

However, these lessons were the reason that I play keys today.

At age 15, I was in a "fake" band that my friend was putting together for his movie project, which was modeled after the Beatles.  It was going to be filmed on super 8, the script was written and we all had our character names etc.  Well at some point the four of us were sitting around with a couple of our props and said "why don't we make a real band?"

problem: none of us could really play anything.  When it came time to divy up who was going to play what, I got assigned keys because of those lessons.  I could have easily have become a drummer or guitarist (who needs bass, we didn't have one, we had two guitars) on that summer day before the start of high school.

[The Real MC]

Mom said I started picking out notes on the piano when I was three years old, and soon figured out melodies I had heard on the stereo.

Started piano lessons at five years old until I was 21.

Went through four teachers.  Not because I exceeded anything (I was one of their star pupils but not a prodigy), but each teacher advanced my technique and repertoire.  Learned classical, ragtime, jazz, scales, Hanon.
I still have my piano lesson books (not the beginner stuff) and I still seek out new music to learn.

I am often asked if I give piano lessons - I play pretty well, but it comes naturally and I don't have the "teacher's gift" to translate my skills into lessons.

[mate stubb]

My mom was a piano teacher. She ear tested me and started me on lessons as soon as she felt I had enough finger strength. 

 

I studied with her from age 4 to 14, then a couple more years with a different teacher. By the point I was 16 I had been playing in bands and gigging for a couple years and had switched to organ, so I stopped practicing classical and eventually quit studying. I saw my teacher years later at a concert and she told my daughter that I was her "greatest failure" LOL.

 

I also studied pipe organ for a few semesters while at college before quitting to go play rock and roll full time.

[AUSSIEKEYS]

Oh shite:  i am remembering that haunted house in close detail right now.

 

I can remember the entire interior especially that first step into the door where the ghouls would start their attack.

 

I remember the furniture the cupboards. The drop down from the roadway to get to the door.

 

I'd forgotten all this ....till now.

 

Thanks very much tim. Hee hee

[Michael W]

13 years of private classical piano lessons (age 6-19).  I had an excellent teacher throughout my teenage years.

 

2 more years of private classical piano lessons (age 46-47).

 

Started playing at age six - am now 65 - never stopped!

[Tom Williams]

8 years.  Much later I realized he was a pederast.

[JamPro]

My childhood family was fairly musical: my father was a devoted amateur cellist, my older sister began piano lessons at a young age, and my older brother began drum lessons at a young age.

 

When I was around 8-9, I began taking regular classical piano lessons.  I quit about 12-18 months later because I preferred outdoor activities.  But I learned enough to read music.  At age 17, I began working again on piano, this time by myself.  I knew  how to read music, so I would get books of music of rock bands I enjoyed hearing: Allman Bros., Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Grateful Dead, etc., and slowly work out the songs.  Within a few years, I was jamming with friends, and then playing in local bands. 

[Floyd Tatum]

We always had an upright in the house.  My dad played a little bit (by ear, afaik), and my oldest sister took classical lessons (no ear-playing).

 

I started playing by ear at about 8 yrs, of my own volition, picking out tunes from the radio.  Couple of years later, the parents got me lessons with a guy that played in lounges, Ted Bowles.   He taught me how to read chord changes, and also notated music.  After a couple of years, we also jumped into the Royal Conservatory of Music at grade 5 or 6, can't remember.  (RCM is a Canadian classical music educational institution.)  I later worked my way up to grade 10 (There's 10 grades, then "Associate" level).

 

I'm really glad my parents did it that way.  They encouraged my ear-based playing, while making sure I got a "proper" education, i.e., learning to read Classical music, which I really liked, when I was ready for it.   I think I nearly drove my dad to violence once, by playing Hang on Sloopy for about 2 hours straight!   With no improvisation!

 

[wjwilcox]

I took piano lessons from our church organist ages 8 - 10.  I enjoyed sitting down and playing but hated practicing the exercises.  My parents finally got tired enough of my whining and let me quit.  But when I regained an interest in playing at age 37 I met people my age who never stopped practicing and playing and kicked myself for quitting for so long.  They were so good.....

[Dave Bryce]

I lost interest in lessons right around the time I figured out how much fun I could have with lead sheet chord symbols. 🤔😁

 

Like others above, I also wish I had stuck with lessons longer.  Would love to be able to sight read…

 

dB

[DeltaJockey]

I was 4th in a family of 5 kids. My parents paid for piano lessons to all my older brothers and sisters who in the end weren't interested. So by the time I came along they decided to not waste any more money. We had a very nice upright in the family, and I was the one who had the interest. I started playing simple duets with my sister when I was 4 years old. The irony was that I was the one they should have spent the money on! The interest grew into a passion by my teens, and my brother had a friend who was a music teacher when I was late teens. He started giving me some free lessons, but commented that I was already beyond the hand skill level that would keep my interest with his lessons. I picked up my theory through my life, and have come to the conclusion that formal lessons would have ultimately stifled my creative style, I just seem to have the intuition to know what sounds and feels right, and I've only been interested in composing my own pieces and not playing covers. Now in retirement my passion is more intense than ever!

[Moonglow]

My folks started me on piano lessons with our church choir director when I was in first grade. Took lessons with her for around 10 years, with a couple of breaks during the summer when I wanted to focus on playing baseball. I’m sure my parents feared each time I quit I would never resume but I always came back to it, on my own. I eventually outgrew her instruction, and then in my late-teens/early-twenties studied with a prominent jazz guy for a few years who opened worlds I never knew existed.

[Dave Ferris]

I did, early on, maybe 10-11 years old but they were very inconsequential. I jumped into the fire/ band thing around 13 or 14, playing all by ear.

 

When I hit 19 or 20 I started realizing my shortcomings and took about a year of classical lessons with a fine teacher in St. Louis. It certainly helped and my playing advanced quite a bit in the STL/Illinois area rock bar bands I was playing in.

 

However once we took the life altering leap of faith from STL in 1979, at a rather late in the game age of 25, and moved to LA, it became very apparent that I was still highly lacking in the general pianistic qualities, as well as basic musician fundamentals, that were needed as stepping stones and were vital to becoming a more advanced player. Simply put, I wasn't at a level of being good enough to hang and make a career as a freelance player in LA.

 

My mentor, Terry Trotter, I was with for almost four years. We studied a wide range of classical pieces, as well as jazz. He pretty much shaped and molded my approach to the piano, getting the most out of my practice time with more focus, concentration and attention to detail. I was also lacking in this area. Terry basically altered my thinking about all music in the general broad sense. I was highly influenced by his golden, lyrical touch and use of space, along with his deep concept and restrained taste in Ballads. Saying more with less. Needless to say, I feel extremely lucky to have come under under his tutelage mixing the cerebral with his real world street experience.

 

I simultaneously studied be-bop jazz improvisation with Vibist Charlie Shoemake. He was very popular with players on all instruments, maybe similar to  Charlie Banacos in Boston, although he only taught in person.. While not as musically encompassing as my studies with Terry were, he was an effective drillmaster, with a highly motivating work ethic.  I still use Charlie's basic principles to this day. Specifically with regard to transposing lines, voicings and tunes to all keys. And having a rock solid, swinging/grooving time feel, even if the music goes off the rails and to a different, more exploratory place.

 

Even though I've often lamented in my life about not starting earlier seriously and having to play so much catch up, while many of my peers were already fully formed and accomplished, I was highly fortunate to come up in a time when live music and the need for good musicians was still flourishing. The LA scene was incredibly fertile. Combine that and hooking up with Terry and Charlie, looking back things worked out well in the big picture, no regrets.

 

edit-- I added a photo from a few years back when Terry and his wife came over to my house for a visit and went out to the studio to play my piano. Still the teacher and still the student.

 

[NewImprov]

I had 12 years of classical piano lessons, the last 6 with one of the best classical teachers in my area. My older brother and sister both took lessons, and my sister ended up being a professional classical musician, with a doctorate in classical organ. She was an amazing musician. So it was kind of expected that I'd take classical lessons, starting in first grade. I did fairly well until the last 3-4 years, when I discovered rock music and cheap weed. My teacher had zero tolerance for me (or any of her students) playing anything but the classical repertoire, I remember her lecturing my parents about how I was going to ruin my ears and technique once I started playing in bands. The last few years were a nearly constant power struggle, I nearly quit playing altogether.

 

Fortunately, in my sophomore year of high school, I got into the stage band playing piano, because I could read reasonably well. Had a really good band director, and the school had  a Fender Rhodes, and I learned that I really, really liked jazz. 

 

Looking back, I appreciate that my piano teacher taught me good technique, it's the only reason I can play at all these days. And, in the past few years, I've started working on some of the Bach pieces I used to do, and I have a new appreciation for them.

[Steve Nathan]

My story is somewhat similar to Real MC perhaps.

I was 3 and my oldest brother took weekly lessons. He hated it, but I was so fascinated, I sat and watched the whole lesson, and then when the teacher left and my brother went back to baseball, basketball etc, I would pull myself up onto the piano seat and try to play.  My father, who also played, had already noticed I had an ear that "remembered", so he convinced the teacher to start me.  She was the first of a few interesting teachers my Dad hired. She played Jazz/Cocktail nightly at Murphey's Omega Lounge in the heart of Buffalo's seediest part of town. A few years later he got Andy William's piano player to teach me, who was also a Jazzer and the one who figured out that when he played next weeks assignments for me at the end of my lesson, I would play them by ear the following week. My reading skills have been weak my whole life, but my ear got me through a lot of doors.  I kept at lessons until I was 16. My teacher moved and it was a long boring bus ride to his houses I eventually just quit.  

[jpgxk3]

Yes, about 3 years from a wonderful woman that I should have paid more attention to. She taught from Schaum but she also taught me correct fingering for every scale as well as all modes of chords. Wish I saved her handwritten book notes etc. but I was too young (11-13) to appreciate it at the time.  Went on to play an old Allen organ in church and kept going from there teaching myself. Still playing 50 years later. Rock on! 😜

[CEB]

Yes

[Al Quinn]

I didn’t have piano lessons or a piano as a child. I started playing organ in 1966 when I was 8 and took lessons for about five years. I learned how to play popular songs. In my early teens I began playing in rock bands and learned how to improvise by ear. At first I poked around and found notes that I liked and a couple of years later started transcribing licks off of records.
 

At age 19 I decided to learn piano and, at the same time, learn classical and jazz. I quickly realized the organ and piano have very little in common other then the keys looking similar. I studied classical piano for two years with an excellent teacher (Juilliard grad). I think I was an unusual student for her because I had pretty advanced technique on organ but had no clue about how to get a good sound from the piano. Initially, I worked on beginners pieces but by the second year she had playing some more advanced music: Beethoven and Mozart sonatas, Bach 2 and 3 part inventions, and Chopin Etudes. In retrospect, I wish I had continued studying with her because I love classical music and wish I could play it better.

 

I’ve had some jazz lessons through the years but not many; probably 30 to 35 total. Most of what I’ve learned about improvisation has been through exploration and transcribing my favorite blues, jazz, and rock recordings.

[Geoff Grace]

I pleaded for piano lessons for years before I was finally allowed to start at age 6, when my hands were deemed to be big enough. I had classical piano lessons off and on from age 6 through the end of college. The first four years were exclusively classical with Bea Isaac; but I longed to write music and play other styles as well, which I did on my own time after practicing classical pieces an hour per day.

Then I found a teacher who not only knew classical but was a major jazz figure in the Phoenix area: Charles Lewis. Charles built his lessons around my interests. He gave me feedback on my writing, taught me jazz piano, and helped me learn Bach Partitas. He was a great teacher, mentor, and friend.

After high school, I majored in music and studied classical piano with Nadine Driscoll. I also learned more about jazz piano from classes with Dan Haerle. I switched my major from jazz piano to composition midway through college, and that was the end of my jazz instruction. I never studied piano again after I got my degree, as I switched to being a full-time musician from then on.

Best,

Geoff

[Theo Verelst]

No piano in the house as a kid, and no lessons, however, I had recorder lessons for a few years or something, so in primary school I learned the notes, timings, songs and would learn by myself also to apply that to play song melodies from score. Then I built various instruments as well, culminating at 14 or so in my self designed and built organ/synthesizer with very good 4 octaves keyboard with full polyphony though unfortunately it would create square waves only (with synth stuff like ow order filter and global envelope I built), and I learned to play at that, scales, chords, songs with left and right hand. I had an organ playing girlfriend somewhat later who I studied some pieces with and mostly learned what I wanted from library books. A bit later in my teens I would play organ and piano in a small church like community, where there was also an organ teacher who would comment and exemplify organ techniques. In high school there was a nice grand piano which I could play when I wanted because I was the coordinator of the technical committee (transliteration isn't great as a translation) amplifying the school band, events with live sound and lights, etc., which was a sound I liked a lot better than my square waves, and at the end of high school (college age I guess) we got a big keyboard at home, which I learned to play as wel.

 

After the beginnings of university I left the church environment and the organ/piano playing there, and got into a home studio with advanced instrument and equipment, where I got more or less proficient in playing every cover I wanted and gained rhythmic stability (took discipline), and a few years later in another environment had my first digital piano which allowed me to practice the blues for year or so, after which I got into various kinds of musical activities, including bands, and also took some good courses in harmonic theory, improvisation for piano, etc etc. I even practiced with first year conservatory score reading books later on, because after the classical organ pieces, I only did occasional melody reading and read chords and if needed rhythm patterns, but no classical or other scores much (I'm very slow, though know all the symbols etc.). But after graduation and by that time Jazz experience, I didn't patch up the score reading and would have found studying classical pieces prohibitively boring, with the exception of some theme or so I could get from a listening to a tape or record usually.

 

I don't think I would have been happier with kid piano lessons, and I don't practice sight reading because the added value is countered by a sort of straight jacket that follows from a conditioning that score reading effectuates. Doesn't preclude me from any musical theoretical understanding or implementation!

 

T