Dear Friends,
A few weeks ago I had lunch with a former student of mine who finished her master’s degree a couple of years ago. I hadn’t seen her in a while, and I was looking forward to catching up and hearing how things were going.
It was wonderful to see her again. And what I was especially glad to hear was that in the short time since graduating, she is already sustaining herself through a full, active, and varied professional life as a musician, while at the same time continuing to practice the piano daily.
After the lunch as I was driving home, I experienced a mixture of pride and what I can only describe as relief. It’s not like I was worried about her or anything, but I just know how easy it is for one’s individual practice to be the first casualty of a busy schedule.
Shortly after that lunch, I had a conversation during an online lesson with an adult student who is herself a piano teacher with decades of experience.
She had just played a chamber music concert, and we had spent the weeks leading up to it working together on her preparation.
In that first lesson after the concert, rather than being tired and in need of a break, she was energized and buoyant, and wanted to spend our time together talking through a long list of pieces she wants to play next.
She told me how glad she was to have practiced and performed, even though it was so much extra work alongside her teaching. As we were debriefing from the recital, she remembered some advice she gave to a younger colleague who was just starting to establish herself as a piano teacher:
Do not stop practicing. No matter what. Keep going.
I thought it was quite inspiring to see this teacher living out her own advice: here was someone with a full teaching schedule and a busy life who had just presented a concert that took a great deal of extra time and effort, and the thing she most wanted to pass along to a younger teacher was the importance of prioritizing your own time at the instrument.
I decided to write about this today because I know many of you are struggling with this exact issue. I hear from so many people who share with me that they love the piano deeply and practice when they can, but they find it difficult to do so.
It’s tempting to tell yourself you’ll earn your practice time by freeing it up when you complete something else or reach a certain goal, but unfortunately that’s not how practicing works. For most people, practicing is something you have to shoehorn into the rest of your life. And even then, you have to protect and guard that precious practice time.
Now, I understand that it’s not quite so straightforward! Life has seasons; sometimes the piano has to wait.
But there’s a difference between having to step back for a time and gradually drifting away from the piano in a way that you might not have even noticed or intended. That’s what my online student was warning her younger colleague about and what she herself has decided not to let happen.
And so that's what I wanted to tell you today.
Don’t stop. Don't let it slip away. Keep going, even if it’s hard and even if you don’t get as much time in as you wish you could. You’ll be so grateful you did.
These days I'm practicing extra-hard as I prepare for my upcoming recording session on June 8-9. So as you’re practicing this week (or contemplating practicing), if you find it helpful or motivating in any way, just know that I’m out there somewhere practicing too, as are thousands of other pianists all around the world, all of us making the time for it as best we can.
👋 Happy practicing,
Kate