One obstacle in my ongoing practice of learning the piano is that I have a bad tendency of hitting the key adjacent to the one I want. The problem is especially acute when I’m going left with my motion. My hands and fingers aren’t particularly big, so I’m not sure what’s going on here. All I can do and have been doing is stop and start over every time I hit a key errantly.
I don’t remember having this problem back in high school. We all had to take a year of art classes, so I chose the piano. Perhaps my fingers weren't as mangled as they are now, with an additional decade of knuckle cracking and surely ligament damage. Trying to learn the piano in my thirties was always going to be a challenge vis a vis the condition of my fingers. Much like learning a language, it’s far easier to do when you are young and malleable.
But then again I taught myself Korean in my late twenties, so it’s not impossible. It’s all about the amount of hours put in (read: a lot). It took me about five years of studying to be able to listen to Korean language radio station and understand about 80 percent of what they are saying. I’m only on year two (pandemic years, no less) of my piano learning journey, so I’m not too worried about my bad tendencies just yet.
If I have to practice a simple piece for a whole week just to play it perfectly, so be it. I’ve got all the time in the world. Besides, I’ve spent way too much money on this Yamaha keyboard to give up so quickly. Money is always a good motivator!
Majesty.