Sue

*raises hand*

I've been playing for 14 years now. Don't know what I'd do if I didn't have my piano... it's a joy and a stress reliever for me.

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rhaevyn

I've been playing for 15 years, took lessons for about 14, but I didn't practice nearly enough as I should have, so I'm not that great. It IS a great stress reliever, though.

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~Alex~

You've come far, and though you're far from the end, you don't mind where you are, 'cause you know where you've been.

raveneye

Yep, studied classical for 15 years, now I play jazz and blues, mostly improvisational, gigging a couple times a week with various lineups, sometimes solo.

Lak

I bought a random piano for $250 (US$140ish) a few months ago. All the keys work! It was so out of tune, the tuner said that to wrench it all the way back into concert pitch in one go would warp the insides. So its now in perfect tune with itself.... a semitone and a bit flatter than all my guitars... oh well, I only have to wait for what, six years?
I'm having great fun tho, wish I'd got one years ago now.

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ignorance really is bliss.

amonkie

Been playing for 17 years - my poor upright has been played so much the strikers no longer can play stacatto. I've very glad I made the choice NOT to pursue a degree in piano performance - I'm like Sue in that it is my stress relief, and didn't want it to be the cause of my stress.

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Calling from deep in the heart, from where the eyes can't see and the ears can't hear, from where the mountain trails end and only love can go... ~~~ Three Rivers Hare Krishna

Sue

I find myself not really able to play any type of fast or rock song. My hands are so small I can barely reach one key past an octave! LOL

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ratbastid

I've been playing since I was five or so. It was classical for a long time, jazz for the last few years.

For the last few months I've been playing piano for a high school comedy improv troupe. Fun stuff!

TheShadow

I've been playing since the same age as ratbastid. I'm still taking lessons from probably one of the coolest teachers you'll ever meet - cool guy, just inherited a good sum of money, so the lessons might end soon.

Basically, I play casually - mostly classical. I 'finished' all the piano grades and such a while back, and now just play songs that interest me.

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amonkie

Sue - I feel your pain ... I can get in an octave and 2-3 extra notes, if I'm lucky. So frustrating!

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Calling from deep in the heart, from where the eyes can't see and the ears can't hear, from where the mountain trails end and only love can go... ~~~ Three Rivers Hare Krishna

raeanna74

I've been playing for about 18 years. The last 2 years I've hardly gotten to play much at all. When we moved a few years ago we had to leave our piano behind that someone had given me. I gave it to a friend there. I wish to this day I hadn't because now I can't even get people to help to go pick up one that someone was GIVING away. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever have another piano to play. I want to teach my daughter to play as well but that's hard to do without a piano.

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My Karma just ran over your Dogma.

raveneye

Raeanna, I'm teaching my daughter right now to play, using a little portable Casio keyboard that she loves. The acoustic piano keys are really too big for her little fingers (she's 5), but the Casio is just right and she loves it.

I taped colored smiley faces on each key (one color per note letter, C for example is yellow in all octaves) and I translate her favorite songs into colored dots written with a felt pen. She loves following the dots to play her songs.

As she gets older I'll probably get her an adult keyboard with weighted keys like a Yamaha P88, which is lightweight, portable, and a good learner keyboard. That way she'll have her own keyboard that she can use for practicing with headphones, and of course she'll always have the acoustic that she can play anytime she wants.

roachboy

i've been playing a long time--something like 35 years (criminy). initially standard classical and ragtime--later jazz--now i dont know what this stuff i do is called. its fun. it makes me laugh.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

vanblah

I've been playing piano for about 25 years - mostly self-taught. I started out on the violin when I was 7 (about 30 years ago) taking classical lessons. I started translating what I learned on violin to piano shortly after that. I switched entirely to piano at 16 because I had joined a garage band. Currently I'm in an indie rock band playing keyboards.

Don't sweat barely being able to reach an octave. I have a friend who can play the HELL out of anything from rock to classical. He can't even reach an octave. It's not about reaching anyway ... my daughter's piano instructor tells her "you have to make a rainbow to the next note."

quadro2000

Wow, I'm so excited that so many TFPers play piano, and still play!

I've been playing for somewhere around 20/21 years. Did classical from age 7 to 15, and then dabbled in jazz for the later part of high school in the jazz band. I didn't learn much past a blue-note scale in B flat and maybe F, but thankfully the majority of jazz charts were in B flat anyway!

Since I left high school I've been playing in...I dunno what you'd call it, but it's the Billy Joel/Elton John style of playing - not really following note-for-note anymore, but following the chords and improvising the placements and occasional additions of 6ths, 7ths, etc. I don't have a lot of technical skill at this point - left hand is lazy and sight-reading past chords had gone down the tubes - but I do have a lot of internal feel for what sounds good, which gets me by in performance situations.

I do hope to eventually take some blues/jazz/rockabilly lessons. I'd love to get myself to a point where I can do real improvised solos. My only drawback is I find myself playing the same stuff over and over...I'm in a bit of a rut!

Sue, I know exactly what you mean about it being a real stress reliever. The first thing I do when I get home from work is either pick up the guitar or sit at the piano. I like to play "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" because it starts off slow, and builds and builds until it's flying, and then cools down again...it's pretty much an aerobic workout for my hands and my head!

Raveneye, I am such a fan of teaching kids piano when they're young - what you're doing sounds great! Raeanna, like Raveneye said, a lil' keyboard can work...for the first few years, they're usually playing only an octave above and below middle C anyway, and it's more about them just getting familiar with the keys and the sounds they make. Although I think 7 or 8 would be a good age to start on weighted keys - I have a non-weighted Korg and it makes me so incredibly lazy!

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You have to laugh at yourself...because you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't. - Emily Saliers

raeanna74

That would be so cool to do. I unfortunately don't even have a cheap keyboard. I'd found a nice one last summer at a rummage sale for only $25 but before I could go borrow the money from my mom it was sold. Someday perhaps. For now I'm teaching her the recorder - I happen to have two of them. She's getting the hang of that at least. Until the tooting and marching around the house gets on mom's nerves.

__________________
"Always learn the rules so that you can break them properly." Dalai Lama
My Karma just ran over your Dogma.