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I haven’t made any public announcement yet, but I started to take private music lessons recently, in particularly on Guitar (August) and Piano (September). As of 10-31-2025 I had 10 guitar lessons and 8 piano lessons.
Learning music is not easy, that’s my 1st impression from last few months. For example, I didn’t anticipate the pain on my fingers (left hand) when doing the chords. Also, for piano, it seems my two hands don’t work well together 🙁
(Update 11-1-2025) not to complain, the fourth finger 无名指 can get a bit tender by playing the 1st string too much as well.
My goal
I don’t think I am musically talented now but when I was a kid probably at 9 or 10 years old, I thought I might be. Obviously at the time there was no piano 🎹 or piano lessons: it was 1980, 1981. I am guessing probably very few people in big cities such as Shanghai may have access to a piano. I saw real piano when I started attending Zhenhai Middle School in fall 1983, in the music classroom there. But debating whether I was talented musically or not is irrelevant now.
My real goal is two folds: learn some music; and hopefully help me age as I am seeing unpleasant aging experience from people I am very close to – I speculate “not having a good hobby and exercise one’s brain and hands” is one factor. That’s something I can make a change.
(11-1-2025) As I was playing piano just now (about 7:56 pm) I realized I need to read the music notes before deciding which finger to hit which key – my response time is not very good. This is similar to learning a language say English, and try to convert my thoughts from Chinese to English, and then say it out. I joked with my friend that our brain was wired in Chinese language and we do translation on the fly – thus slowing us down. But at the same time, as we learn, we can think read the music notes faster, or think in English instead of Chinese, and we will be faster playing piano or speak English too.
Rythm or pace
Now, about 10 years later, I also started to appreciate why my old daughter’s piano teacher Ms Mary Anderson always says “count, count” to my daughter, in the early days of her piano lesson (2015). Now Mr. Donald Petz my piano teacher would politely say the similar thing, or help me to count. Now I also recall Ms Anderson did the counting too, as my old daughter didn’t like to count out loud 🙂
For improvement on pace, I am taking advice from my guitar teacher: try to use metronome if possible. There are many metronome app in the App stores. Tempo (Tempo iOS App; Tempo Android App) is the one I use. I believe google has the metronome in its web site too: but an app or an actual device is nicer. Something worth to spend a little money on it.
Also, my piano teacher told me to slow down – make sure the strokes/keys, pace everything is correct first. This is applicable to guitar and any other musical instruments too. I saw my old daughter my older daughter uses metronome quite frequently when she practice on the Marimba: her main instrument for her percussion lessons. And now I know why :-). She takes the private lesson, as well as participating in the school band (again percussion section). One thing not as obvious, is she was reluctantly to play the drum set. We bought the drum set last school year, she played a bit, not a lot, and I speculate that she tries to avoid “playing the drum set in a concert” because potentially it has more pressure (because the audience will look at her). This is somewhat related to something I wrote earlier – Step out of comfort zone. But I don’t have a good way to push her that direction. Once I tried talking to her percussion teacher at the HS, re: this topic. It back fired a bit: because I told the teacher to keep it a secret and later the teacher told my daughter about it 🙁 Sorry somewhat off the original topic. I imagine if I was put in similar spot, I would be nervous too – I meant the drum set.
Anyway, back to my own music journey. I had a little music education when I was in elementary and middle school, as I recall. But not a lot. I forgot much of it too. I know the 简谱 and “Do re mi fa so la si do” (google search).
Instruments
We have bought an used piano for our older daughter about 10 years ago. And I bought Yamaha FG-830 guitar recently (made in China of course).
What I have learned so far (working in progress)
Guitar
Basics, 简谱 numbered musical notation 和吉他谱 guitar notes, “twinkle twinkle little star” (just learned there is a Chinese version of it), C scale, some chords (in progress, main sticking point is avoiding finger accidentally touching other strings, and left hand switching).
Piano
Basics, 五线谱 aka music notes (google, YT How to Read Notes The EASY Way You Weren’t Taught). I just started, mainly identify middle C 🙂 prep exercises, canon, lower elementary. Trying to coordinate both hands for some of the things are hard for me, will likely take a while because my left hand is not as flexible as right hand.
Overall, I felt my pace of learning is okay. Obviously, I can do more but at this stage of my life, I think I also start to appreciate the end results as well as the journey (the learning process). I don’t want to overwork (like I said it here and here),
Last but not least, borrow a slogan from Math Fact Scholars which I used to volunteer for: practice, practice, practice.
Some odds and ends
I recall when I was in elementary school, we used to have some sort of show time (dance etc.) and once I was a part of the show. They require white shirt and white tennis shoes (it’s somewhat like the Converse shoes here in the US nowadays, but without the high walls). I have the white shirt, but didn’t have white tennis shoes. My mom borrowed new white shoes from a girl student in my class, and the shoes were brand new. When we are done, my mom washed it and put white powders on it. So that it won’t look yellowish, I think. I am fortunate to say nowadays I can pay for those kind of shoes for my kids, if needed. But at the time, more than 40 years ago, in China relatively developed (or well-to-do?) rural area, we just didn’t have nice shoes all the time.
My kids music practice. My 2 kids are quite different in terms of their at home practice for their instruments. My younger daughter can be called the model student, also she benefits from a teacher who is very well organized. The teacher has a spreadsheet for daily practice. Everyday my daughter practices her violin, then color fill the paper spreadsheet. My older daughter is more a free spirit: she practices when she felt it’s necessary, before a class or an audition. And sometimes she would put her thumb up when I practice guitar. But in a few occasions, I noticed she practice her marimba on her own now. So this may be a side benefit of my taking class or practicing instead of doom scrolling. Kids or more precisely we all learn from examples. I need to be the good example 🙂
