Restarting my piano practice

13 Apr 2026

The pandemic changed many things, for a lot of people. Personally, I bought a treadmill. And I decided I would learn the piano on my own, no teachers, just me, a book, and my musical geniality (ahem!). Of course, everybody decided to do exactly that, and for a brief period between 2020 and 2021 there was a global shortage of all kinds of musical instruments!

My beautiful digital Yamaha Clavinova CLP-735 arrived in my front door on January 4th, 2021. The Faber Piano Adventures' book had arrived a couple days prior. A month later, I signed up for an online course as the piano was harder than I expected, turns out.

Still, I opted for a (pre-recorded) course and not teacher lessons. I know I would have progressed so much more with a real teacher but the course format suits me. I like figuring things out on my own, at my pace. I like when my victories and my challenges belong uniquely to me. This also means there is no one to force me to practice and sit at the bench on a daily basis.

My first year, I was in love. Suddenly, music was all around me. I could see it, feel it, hear it. I progressed super fast, I was eager to learn, I loved practicing. I recorded videos of my progress. Then my real-life job got more demanding, I got a bit burned out, I started feeling embarrassed by my beginner status. I started feeling the videos were taking too long to record. I started checking out... and then I dropped it.

From mid-2022 to now, I've tried several times to get back to the piano bench. I'll get excited about it for a month or two, then slowly abandon it. I get frustrated at how long it takes to polish a piece. I want to rush over things, and then I get upset when I finally record myself and realize it sounds terrible.

I'm tired of feeling sorry for myself and my lack of progress. In all truth, I could be an intermediate pianist now, probably playing pieces of grade 5 already. Instead I'm still at late grade 1 / early grade 2, and that's 100% my own fault. I simply have not logged in the hours, done the hard work.

Today, I'm promising to myself to restart my piano practice. I will show up for 30+ minutes a day, 5+ days a week. And I will post my progress videos¹ here, for the world to see! 🎹

piano