YOU ARE NEVER TOO OLD…here’s why…
One of the first things I hear acquaintances and friends and strangers alike say to me when I ask if they play the piano is “….I’m too old to learn now.”
I can tell you with a growl if you like, so…ROAR…I do not buy this statement. I am convinced that if you have a desire to play the piano, no matter how old you are, then the time is now. Move on with your dream.
In this blog we will concentrate on the various negative reasons that are running freely in your mind that are preventing you from following through and achieving your dream.
MIND GAMES
It definitely is a mind-game. Nothing else. The mind will play tricks on you as you know. It will tell you that “Hey, your mother told you 50 years ago the there will come a time when you will make foolish decisions” and you’re now thinking that trying to learn piano at your age is one of those foolish decisions. Let me assure you that YOU are never too old to prove your mother wrong….well at least in this decision.
TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR THOUGHTS
(1) Have an open mind, which means in effect, if I will clear my head of the negative nuances that creep in o-so-subtly, then I’m farther ahead of the game. Right! and in order to do that I need to change my mindset in terms of my age.
Listen you know you got older in a way that if you stop and think about we always say “Man, was that fast! It just seems like yesterday that I was in university”.
That’s just the way it is. Sadly, along with this realization it is also true that the second thought we have about the present age of our body is…. “Now I’m a senior and so I might as well give up trying to learn new things”.
These are the negative points that haunt you. So you need to get those liars out of your mind and if you do you will have completed the first step toward accomplishing you dream.
(2) You now have Free-Time. Think about that for a minute and depending on how old you think “old” is you still have more free time on you hands than ever before usually. You may be in mid-life or a senior. Usually the mid-life years it’s the time in your life whereby the kids are grown and either off to University or often at this point they are either seeking there own careers or are married, etc.
So, what I’m getting at is the fact that with a little rescheduling you should be able to free up more time than you know what to do with. Time is available and it is at your control so, really, if time is not an issue to your training for piano you know what is.
As a senior citizen time is your enemy anyway but in another way because you usually have too much of it on your hands. We seniors are always looking for something that we like that can fill our dreams and imaginations.
We will sit and read or watch soap-operas or look out the window for hours and unless we do something constructive before we know it another day in our lives has passed and we accomplished nothing. That is where we need to see that learning to play a piano even for a few hours per day will discard the feeling of uselessness due to old age. Ah, my friend, that has got to change and you can do it.
(3) Nothing Physically stopping you. You get up and walk across the floor and get the coffee on when you feel the need for stimulation. You can touch and feel and see and remember phone numbers and write emails and read the newspaper and play solitaire on your computer.
I mean if you can do even some of the points (and there are more of course go ahead and add to my list) that I have listed in this sentence you can learn to play the piano. There is NO DOUBT that you are a candidate to pick up where you left off as a kid when your mother sent you to all those piano lessons and somehow your dropped them later on in life.
You always wanted to return to them but you “thought” you got too old. Don’t let these lessons fall by the wayside. Now is the time to continue where you left off all those years ago and I guarantee you that you will be surprised how quickly it will come flowing back to you.
(4) Passion, Motivation and Vision. You need to understand that playing the piano is not about when you start out or how old you are. It has all to do with how you are viewing life from in behind your own eyes. Passion by way of definition means: “A strong and barely controllable emotion”.
Some synonyms for this word passion are Fervor, enthusiasm, zeal. It is the type of word that is worthy of our consideration and truly passion for, in the case, an ability is a driving force.
Without passion most of the greatest accomplishments in the history of the world would not have been accomplished. They say that Thomas Edison had such a passion as an inventor that, for instance, when he invented the electric light bulb he did it on his 1,000th try.
Motivation and Vision are two more driving forces in our lives. Motivation is the reason that we act the way we act or behave the way we behave when we are pursuing something. Vision is the minds view of what it will be like after the fact. You put all this together and you are well on your way to your goal of being a piano player. What motivates us to do the things we are able to do?
(5) Legacy that feeling of leaving something for the family and friends to talk about when you are gone. Who could not be amazed at the fact that you, in your reclining (so-called) years, was able to start and master the piano to a certain degree at his/her age.
TODAY IS THE FUTURE
Do you not see this as a stimulus for others who knew you and what about the family. I mean I will always talk about the feats of generational parents and also some of my relatives. Maybe that’s the reason that I play seven different instruments and I never started any of them until I was 40 years old.
....looking back....leaving a legacy....
Let’s face it my friends, you are older, yes, that’s a fact but by being older you have many more things to offer man kind. You have more life experiences as an adult. Every person who is reading this blog right now can relate a story and indeed several stories of adventure, sorrow and immense jubilation. This has all made you wiser and smarter like a fox in many ways and will all come out in your piano playing.
If you think that the piano is not an emotional musical instrument you are mistaken.
Take a few minutes and right down just ten of your favorite songs. Now imagine you playing these wonderful tunes that have meant so much to you over the years.
I remember the first time I played Paul McCartney’s great ballad “Yesterday”. It was a feeling that gave me a new love for the melody of the song as well as the lyrics of it.
The feeling has not gone away and I tell you honestly these feelings visit your listeners also as they are brought to a different place in time as you play the piano songs that are buried deep in there subconscious.
You can do it and, as I see it, the only thing holding you back is …..you.
Written by Duane Graves of Duane's Piano Tuning & Technology