Any professional pianists or musicians here?

[Victor_c3]

Last edited Thu Apr 16, 2015, 01:18 PM - Edit history (1)

I am leaving work due to disability and I am seriously thinking about going back to school to pursue a 4 year degree in music (mostly to focus on classical piano performance). I already have a degree in chemistry, but I'm done with that field.

I am fortunate enough to not have to worry about providing an income or paying for college (I am a disabled vet with various benefits) - so that is not a concern of mine. I'm just looking for something to give my life a sense of purpose and fulfillment and I plan to mostly donate a lot of time playing the piano in various hospitals and old folk homes. I have been playing off and on since was 8 (I am 35 now). I need a lot of practice, but pieces like to Chopin's etudes and Fran's Liszt's Hungarian rhapsodies are within my reach.

I only ever took about 10 years of lessons when in was a kid from an old lady use the street from me so it's not like I have any"real" piano training.

Frankly, I love playing the piano and I play for hours at a time and love every moment of it. However I am worried that if I go to school for it that I might kill the fun for me. For professional musicians out there, is it still fun when it becomes a career? Or does it become just another job?

Also what sorts of things should I have down technique and exercise wise to better prepare myself for studying music in a college setting? Are there any books I should work through? Would piano lessons really help me at all?

I'm not trying to get into a stellar school like Juilliard. I'm looking to get into a local state school or the like.
For what it's worth, I'm hoping to apply about this time next year for the fall of 2016. So I have about a year to get ready.

Thanks for any help I can get!

[magical thyme]

1. it's 40 years since I minored in music

and 30+ since I broke up with my concert pianist boyfriend.

I had a couple years piano lessons and was otherwise self-taught when I went off to college. My experience is that they will be open to anybody who loves music and wants to learn.

As far as piano goes, I think the most important thing to have (which I totally lacked due to my sketchy background) is solid technique.

Don't worry so much about playing the big showy pieces at first as working on technique. It's harder to unlearn wrong technique than get it right to begin with. Start with Mozart -- if you can play that well, then move on to the showier stuff. You can guess how I figured that one out, lol.

Yes, if you want to play piano then lessons will help. I'd be willing to bet that there are teachers within the music department where you want to go to school that also teach outside the school system on the side. That would be a good place to start, and give yourself a head start.

You shouldn't have any problem getting into a state or community school system -- they are hungry for students.

Music theory is important as well, and includes ear training, sight reading and musical dictation. Sight reading is a very important skill to develop.

My concert pianist ex-boyfriend never made it big in the performing world, but has continued to perform to this day, as well as teach piano. I recently found a video of him playing...it was pretty sad to see how far his skill has fallen. But he does still love performance and enjoys being the "big fish" in a really, really, really tiny pond (where he bills himself as world-renowned um, no).

So good luck and enjoy! Here are a couple of the showy pieces I worked on in my senior year:

[mainer]

2. Go to school for fun. But you don't need a degree to play for hospitals and retirement homes.

Just a spirit of generosity. My (very) amateur Scottish music group played in nursing homes all over the county. We were really pretty awful, but the residents loved it, and we kept getting invited back. Don't worry about how good you are -- the residents just love the entertainment. Also helps to have a songbook of tunes they may know from their early years, so they can sing along. They love singalongs. I'm not sure classical music would be as popular as some old Beatles tunes.

[magical thyme]

5. very good points. nt

[DeSwiss]

3. ALWAYS follow your heart.

- And your intuition.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

4. Many years ago I tried to make it in music

in the jazz field on guitar. In my youth I took lessons from famous guitarists including Johnny Smith, Ron Eschete, and Horace Hatchett (a former student of the great Eddie Lang, recognized as the first jazz guitarist). I backed soul singer Nancy Hyde. But people including club owners and agents kept demanding that we play schlock. I ended up hating it because I could play more original and satisfying music as a hobby while holding down a day job. I finally went to law school and passed the bar while still having jam sessions on the side. I discovered that I loathed being a lawyer so I then went to UCLA film school and got a job in the movie business, working for Dino DeLaurentiis. That job, sitting in on creative development meetings was not satisfying either, because most of the executives wanted to make shitty films. How our studio ever gave the green light to the original and creative Blue Velvet was amazing, considering the other turkeys DeLaurentiis Enertainment Group produced. Anyway, the studio went under and my only option was to go back to the law which I have continued hating as a profession.

Much of my professional life therefore has been trying to find beauty, creativity, and satisfaction in a world that seems totally committed to bad taste and compromise. As far as I'm concerned, it's better to keep music as a significant hobby. Making it professionally to me seems like one of the biggest uphill struggles you can undertake. I'd at least study music theory very thoroughly if you plan to enroll in music school.

Unlike myself, my cousin Marcel never gave up the dream. He left college in his youth to pursue music and he never looked back. Now in his late 50s, he's had to travel around the country to pursue rare live gigs in jazz clubs. His longtime girlfriend is pianist and singer April Spain who has garnered a nice little following. But he has always lived on the very edge of poverty, making it from month-to-month and hoping he has no medical or car problems to make his life miserable. He did what I couldn't do and he's happy even though he has no material wealth. He and April are now in Houston but who knows when the live gigs down there will dry up? Here he is playing a nylon string Ovation guitar in the April Spain Quartet. That's not him you see at the start. He comes on at the 2:30 mark and he's sitting, wearing a gray jacket.