Playing Piano Affects Your Whole Life

Beverly Cashin is a professional musician and educator who teaches Piano lessons online. Learn more on her Lessonface profile.

There is a book called "Note by Note" by piano teacher Tricia Tunstall, which I read many years ago. She commented that kids start piano lessons thinking it's going to be fun to play some songs.  But there always comes the moment when they realize that there's really some work involved!  And it's true.  

There is work involved, and that's why it's so valuable. Here's how I see it:

There are various activities we can be involved in, and some are more complex than others.  Baking cookies is a little bit complex;  building a house is very complex.  Playing piano is fairly complex.  The combination of finger movements and mental processing is something we learn over time.  A baby falls down over and over as it learns how to walk, and we make mistakes over and over as we learn to play a song on the piano.  The baby has to learn to combine the right muscle movements, and in piano we have to learn to combine the right finger movements.  Every time we learn a song, it's the same process as a baby learning to walk!  We play it over and over until we get it right.  And just as babies cry when they fall - but they don't give up - we may get a little flustered when we're learning a song, but if we don't give up, we become a strong person.  It's because we repeat that process so many times, over a period of years it becomes part of our personality.  

I read once that becoming mature involves, among other things, increasing our ability to deal with frustration.  When I first started playing piano, I clearly had a long way to go in that department!  I really liked piano, but if I was learning a song and was having trouble with it, I would get so mad that I would throw the book across the room and stomp around shaking my fists, having a big fit!  Sometimes I would even yell.  Then I would plop myself down in a huff and try again.  And again.  And finally I would get it right.  At some point I realized that I always got it right eventually.  So if I was still making mistakes, I just had to keep playing until it snapped into place.   Then, since I knew I would get it sooner or later, the temper tantrums started to fade away.  After awhile, if I was still stuck in a certain part of the song, I would say “that's alright.  I've practiced a lot today, maybe I'll get it right tomorrow.”  I became able to practice calmly and steadily.  

So, as a result of playing the piano for many years, I've become a person who doesn't give up easily.  

I have a great deal of perseverance, and it affects every area of my life.  If there's something I'm aiming for, and I don't have it yet, I just keep going and I'm able to stay calm about it.  This has served me very well in certain parts of my life.  People comment on how patient I am, and it comes directly from the piano world.  

There's another aspect of playing piano which has directly affected other areas of my life.  The process of learning to play a song correctly is basically a process of taking care of all the little details, one by one.  Once you polish up every detail, you've got it.  It's like putting together a puzzle or a model airplane.  You work on each area until it all comes together.  Every detail counts.  Here's one example of how that has affected my life:

At a certain point in my adult life, I worked in corporate accounting.  I was so good at noticing the details that I saved the company a lot of money.  Throughout my work day I would notice lots of small mistakes that were being made throughout the company, which would add up to a lot of money being lost.  Because I noticed the mistakes and corrected them, I saved the company a lot of money.  They were very happy about that, and I got a good-sized bonus every month because of it!  The attention to detail that I applied in that job was a direct result of the habits I developed in learning the piano.  

So what it boils down to is this: to a large extent, the direction of our lives are determined by the small decisions we make every day, and by the habits we have as we go through each day.  A person who keeps trying will have a much different result than one who walks away when the going gets tough.  A person who takes care of the details will be a person who stands out on the job as a valuable worker, or who will be able to succeed at starting their own business.  Learning to play the piano creates important traits in the personality, and those traits lead in a good direction.  

Plus, you get to play songs!  Now, that is fun, and your friends and family will love it.  There's something about actually playing a song – a song that you learned yourself – well, you just have to have the experience so you'll know what I mean!  Time to get practicing!  

--Beverly
 

ABOUT BEVERLY Hello! I've been playing and teaching for several decades, and I can show you how to have fun with the piano. If you're a beginner, I can take you right from step one and have you playing familiar songs by the 1st or 2nd lesson. If you already have some experience, I can add to it.  > Book a lesson with Beverly

Beverly's lessons are rated five stars in 63 verified student reviews, like this one:

Beverly's great- super observant, thoughtful about the lesson plans and clearly comfortable with the varying motivations people have for taking piano lessons. I am happily surprised by the progress my son and I have made over the last 6 months : )

-Maike Bokkers, review from April 5, 2021