So You Were a Gifted Pianist When You Were Young and Now You’re an Emerging Adult Who Just Knows How to Play Piano

by Jonah Goldberg



The first thing to understand is, you are not alone! This author attended Washington University, where approximately 15% of the student body identifies as formerly gifted pianists and 35% use a similar label but for a different instrument or precocious skill. If this pamphlet seems too specific for you, consider reading my more general guide, “So You Were a Gifted Student and Your Parents Constantly Told You that You are Brilliant and Now You’re Reconciling with Not Being the Best at Everything Because Talent Eventually Loses Out to Deliberate Practice and the Work Ethic You Were Never Encouraged to Develop Until it was Too Late.”



In short bursts for 1-2 weeks, separated by months of feeling 88 kinds of guilt every time you pass the tilted table. Every few weeks you find a song that you would love to learn, and should be within your level, and you have to calculate whether it is better to get the fingering by brute force, or put in some upfront technique practice to bring your fingers back to being capable of playing any trill, so that the hard measures of this song flow naturally. Most of the time, the answer is to sight read the melody for 20 minutes and then never touch the song again.


Others might not understand what is so difficult about starting a habit of pulling out Hanon’s The Virtuoso Pianist - In Sixty Exercises and playing it for just ten minutes a day, so that you don’t have to feel like you’re starting from square one with every new song. For their reference, please allow me to reproduce the first paragraph of Hanon’s introduction:


The study of the piano is now-a-days so general, and good pianists are so numerous, that mediocrity on this instrument is no longer endured. In consequence, one must study the piano eight or ten years before venturing to perform a piece of any difficulty, even at a gathering of amateurs. Now, how few persons are in a position to devote so many years to this study! It often happens, therefore, that for want of sufficient practice the playing is uneven and incorrect. The left hand gives out in passages of slight difficulty; the fourth and fifth fingers are almost useless for lack of special exercises for these fingers, which are always weaker than the rest; and when passages in octaves, in tremolo or trills occur, they are usually executed only by dint of exertion and fatigue, so that the performance is very incorrect and wholly wanting in expression.



You’re an introvert. I know this, because if you were an extrovert, you would have at some point in high school or college completed a graceful metamorphosis into playing “keyboard,” and would now be successfully masking the other insecurities that stem from being a gifted kid by playing keys in a band with a few friends. Thus the bulk of the time you spend playing is at events, from holidays with extended family to formal dinners in ballrooms, because playing piano is fun for you, soothing for everyone around you, and a fantastic way to not have to engage in conversation for as long as your memorized repertoire will carry you.


Here is the most beautiful thing about the piano: it is the only instrument for which it is socially acceptable to just sit down and start playing in the middle of a social event. Try bringing your trumpet or even your guitar to Passover seder, and it’s unlikely you can get away with asking if everyone would like to hear you play. The bass-stringed bookshelf, on the other hand, is already there, and any host will be overjoyed if you ask to play it. Sometimes they become the one that’s insecure! “Oh, you’re welcome to, but it’s a bit out of tune.” That’s alright, dear relative or patron, anything is better than those outdoor pianos where half the keys don’t work and the remaining ones make it sound like your right hand is playing the discordant neighboring key from what your left hand is playing. Outdoor pianos are our porta-potties, used primarily when we are desperate and have nowhere else to go nearby (yes, there’s that really nice restaurant one block over, but they won’t let you use theirs).


Do not feel any reservations about playing any and every piano you find. After the first few events you survive, you become a proficient building safety inspector, entering a party venue and immediately checking for unobstructed access to two exits, a fire extinguisher, and an ivory igloo to snuggle into (preferably one mounted on wheels so that you can carry it out in case of an emergency).



With audible insecurity. However, this conversation always unfolds the same way, so you just need to steel yourself for one question, and then it’s over and you can ask them about their hobbies.


When someone finds out that you play piano, they will unavoidably ask, “How long have you been playing for?” Truly. Laws of physics have been derived from the stability of this question following that reveal. Not that it’s in any way a bad question to ask. It’s just a hard one to answer. Imagine meeting someone who has been working at their craft for 17 years. Imagine possessing that kind of skill! Lesser musicians would write songs about me! And I would completely rework them and call it my own, and they would thank me! I don’t dare set anyone’s expectations that high, especially if this conversation started because I was standing over someone else playing the giant hammer box and hoping to rotate in.


One common approach to tackling this question is just lying. Recently, a friend of mine, while on a first date in Paris, answered “How long have you been studying French?” with “Four years,” instead of the accurate seven-and-a-half. And wow, was she a smooth speaker for only four years! It’s okay for your answer to be the number of years you were actually practicing, minus one to three extra, if it means you won’t have to pull the fire alarm to escape the conversation. 


That said, finding a comfortable way to phrase the truth, and practicing with low-stakes strangers, like your relatives’ friends at dinner parties, before rolling it out to people you are hoping to get to know, will end up feeling better in the long run. Today, after a lot of growth, I can take a deep breath to collect myself, smile, and answer, “I started when I was five, but I haven’t practiced seriously since middle school.*”









*I was still putting in effort in high school.