Over piano!?

Question:I have been practicing the piano now for just over 3 years as an adult student, I am currently studying for my AMEB grade 6 exam. The thing is I'm really starting to find I have no enthusiasm for piano anymore, but I still want to learn it. It's a strange predicament. I use to love piano and had a real passion for learning it. Has anyone else had this issue, my piano teacher is getting frustrated with me as I'm turning up to lessons not having practiced and he can tell. HELP!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I have been practicing the piano now for just over 3 years as an adult student, I am currently studying for my AMEB grade 6 exam. The thing is I'm really starting to find I have no enthusiasm for piano anymore, but I still want to learn it. It's a strange predicament. I use to love piano and had a real passion for learning it. Has anyone else had this issue, my piano teacher is getting frustrated with me as I'm turning up to lessons not having practiced and he can tell. HELP!

That's funny I find the same thing with my AMEB students! (not funny ha ha but funny strange)

Think about why you choose to play the piano! What motivated you? Was it a childhood dream? Did you see a specific pianist and say 'that's what I want to do'? Did you want to play a certain style of music? If you got into piano because you wanted to play Jazz and your piano teacher is a classically trained then its just a case of him giving you different pieces. Once you find out what motivated you you can do the same things to get it back. Listen to lots of pianists! youtube, concerts anything that helps you! You could even buy yourself a new piano CD!

It could also be a case of life! Quite often when life gets busy creative juices and motivation can go out the window! You could try Just sitting at the piano and play! Anything other then your AMEB pieces. Improvise, anything other your serious pieces. Go to a music store and get a new piece. One that is totally different style to AMEB! A musical, a ragtime piece, etc Anything that makes piano fun!!

Relax!! Your AMEB exam is not at the earliest June! you still have time! Creative people go through periods of motivation! You could also try a day/ week off from not practising! Allow yourself to have a week off without feeling guilty!

Good luck with your exam!

P.S Don't worry if your piano teacher can tell if you haven't practised! We are used to students doing that!

If you lost instrument, pick up another instrument. You either have passion for your instrument or none.

i think you should start listening/researching works of other pianists for inspiration. i had the same issue with the violin years ago when i basically gave up on it due to lack of interest. however, a year later i was invited to a concert by a friend at carnegie hall, and there was a wonderful violin soloist that just amazed me. it was beautiful and just inspired me to pick it up again. sometimes researching the works of others might rekindle the feelings you once had.

one of my favorite contemporary pianists right now, btw. is philip glass. take out the film "The Hours" watch it, and then listen to the score. it's beautiful. he turns the piano into a heavenly instrument of orchestral music.

"leftie1959" has one way of looking at it. Here's another. In every pursuit in life, if it's a voluntary pursuit, you go through a "passionate" stage. After some time, which depends on the individual, you go through a "let down" time where you'd love to be doing anything BUT what you once found passionate excitement or love for. It's like what the renowned psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, M.D. said in his incredibly best selling book from back in 1978, "The Road Less Traveled", when he said that in order for people to truly love one another, they have to fall out of love first before they can truly choose to love one another. The same is true in passions such as piano, or as a bicycle racer I was decades ago. I began by buying one of the world's best, and costliest, bicycles around. Oh I loved it, and couldn't seem to ever want to get off of it. Yet, gradually, I began to lose some of the excitement, and then I began to say to myself in later months and years, "Who wants to do all the training and sitting on this bicycle like I do. Who owns who? Do I own the bicycle, or does the bicycle own me?" My passion was seriously abating, and yet by that time I had spent thousands of dollars on the bicycle and clothes and shoes and digital speedometer and all the hundreds and thousands of seriously sweating hours on that dang thing, so, how could I give up all that investment for which I was so well recognized. I couldn't! And so I renewed my training with new and much increased vigor. As time went on, however, I got married, had two kids, and any chance of my continuing my bicycling career went out the window due to financial needs and career pursuits. If I had been much younger and seriously pursued my bicycle racing, maybe I could've been the "Lance Armstrong" of the world renowned Tour de France (although, Lance was / is one of a kind, so, I doubt I'd have ever replaced him on the podium), but I waited too long in my life, and so realism told me I'd never do anything besides race my imagined "Tours de France", so, I gave up my very stringent bicycling for a much slower pace. But I don't know how old you are, and I don't know what other plans you have in life. All I do know is that you are in that "falling out of love" period with your piano playing, and although "leftie1959" might have a more enjoying answer for you, I have a hunch, if you quit your piano, you'll, one day, be looking back on a piano you kept, or one you see in a music store, and reminisce, about what you could have been, what might have been, and the regrets will be endless. Pursue other things if you want, but, considering your achievements so far, DON'T LET GO of your piano. That could be one of your more serious mistakes in life. Again, some of your decision depends on how old you are, and other pursuits you have going, but, think seriously about whether you truly want to abandon what you've pursued so well, so far.

"brightey" has a great answer. God Bless you.