PIANO LESSONS FOR ADULTS

Christmas – the festival of presents and surprises… And what a surprise was waiting for me!
My son, with a beaming face, handed me an envelope with the words: “I have a special gift for you here, which will open up access to a “new world”, which will challenge your spirit and hopefully bring you much joy”. An introduction which I received with mixed feelings and which made me suspect “terrible things”. I only thought: “What is that coming to me?” I received the answer to this immediately when I opened the envelope. Embedded in a large Christmas card (with a lot of text) I found a voucher for once piano tuning and a voucher for one year of online piano lessons. I just thought to myself: What am I supposed to do with it? To my comment: “That’s very sweet of you, but I’m afraid that this is probably 65 years too late for me…” my son replied laconically: “First read what I wrote to you about it, and then we can talk further. The attached Christmas card contained a bouquet of good reasons why I should accept this gift. It began with the statement,

• that one is never too old to try new things,
• that the beautiful piano at home (after the children have moved out) could not be left standing around as useless furniture,
• that this hobby is a real challenge and (even at my age) not overly strenuous,
• that, in addition to the personal joy in one’s own musical progress, the positive health effects on memory and mental activity as well as on motor mobility (of hands/fingers) cannot be overlooked and are undisputed by doctors and ultimately
• that they (the children) would be happy to make music with me when I visit them.

Even Aristotle was striven for with a quotation: “In the essence of music lies the joy of making music. “Ergo, give joy to the mother and to all of us by accepting the gift and facing this challenge” was the final sentence in my son’s argumentation. I had nothing to oppose this phalanx of wishes and expectations, and so I was forced to promise to at least try honestly and “hold out” for the period of time planned.
So the piano at home was tuned professionally. When our piano tuner curiously asked me who wanted to “maltreat” the instrument in the future, I told him my “story”. He congratulated me on my decision, but immediately advised me against the planned “online lessons”. “This is just throwing money out and won’t help you at all. What you need is someone who teaches you the individual steps in a logical way, guides you and checks and corrects you in your game. Without this supervision you will teach yourself only the wrong things and quickly lose the desire to play the piano. You will often be frustrated because you cannot recognize mistakes yourself and if you do, you cannot correct them yourself due to lack of knowledge. He predicted that I would soon give up, unnerved.

Then he referred me to a piano teacher in Bonn, who mainly deals with teaching older people and has had good success with it. He recommended that I contact this piano teacher, Mrs. Gabriele Paqué, in the Blücherstraße in Bonn and inform myself about the teaching concept and all other modalities of teaching. I did so and after a detailed discussion with and advice from Mrs. Paqué I took a free trial lesson, which I liked, convinced me of the concept of the lessons and made me want to play more music.
Today – after almost four months – I always enjoy going to every lesson. Not to “work off” my gift, but because playing the piano is fun and enjoyable, because the workload is demanding and because daily practice brings visible or audible progress. The weekly critical evaluation by the “teacher” is usually frustrating for the “student”, because the shortcomings in one’s own playing and in the understanding of time and music are quickly made clear. In the end, however, pointing out these shortcomings helps to improve one’s own playing, to better understand the musical concept of the pieces and to increase personal satisfaction. The ambition and incentive to do it better next time and “show her” is often the result of a lesson that often passes far too quickly.

To put it short, the above-mentioned Aristotle’s quote already applies to me today without any restrictions, even if my “far better half” (the one to whom – according to Peter Ustinov – one owes obedience) always puts on the headphones at the beginning of my daily practice lesson at home in order to be able to watch and listen to television undisturbed.
However, we, i.e. my friend – the piano – and I, fully understand this.

A satisfied 73 year old “student”.