Overview

After doing something for 12 years, you tend to get pretty good at it. For me this was classical piano, I played from when I was 6 to 18. Then I went to university, where the black hole of an ECE major sucked up all my time. Also, I stopped going to piano lessons, so there was no more external pressure to practice. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed playing -- but I didn't enjoy it enough for it to cross the "I will do this with zero external motivation" threshold. Very few things cross that threshold for me.

It had been 4 years since then. I'd always intended on playing again once I had more time, but it was pretty low in terms of priority. One afternoon, I decided now was a good time to put it higher on the list (and actually start playing). The first thing was to figure out where to start. Most if not all of the software would still be there: sight reading, proprioception, musical feel, etc. What would definitely not be there is the hardware: finger muscle and tendon strength and endurance. Two separate problems, two separate fixes. To fix the hardware, playing scales. To improve the software, relearning an intermediate piece.

I was wary of accidentally giving myself an overuse injury; yes unloaded movements can still cause an overuse injury, e.g. carpal tunnel. So rather than jump back into hour-long practices at speed, I decided to keep the first practices to a few sets of slow deliberate scales and gradually ramp the volume and speed. After I'd gotten some finger conditioning back (guesstimating this would take ~3-4 weeks), Following that, I'd re-learn Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2; this was chosen as it's a piece that emphasizes musicality over speed or technical difficulty. From there, I would (hopefully) be in decent playing form.

The goal of getting back into piano wasn't to learn more classical pieces; I don't actually listen to classical (outside of playing it). The goal also wasn't to get back to being good; I have neither the time nor motivation that that would require. Instead I wanted to get back to being decent, i.e. in some sort of playing form, so I could explore other styles of piano, e.g. jazz.

This process felt worth documenting, since other than athletes recovering from a physical injury, there's very little written online in the form of "I was good at X, now I'm not, and I'm rebuilding".

Field Notes

Bullets of thoughts and observations per practice.

Practice 1

• Start slow on the Hanon exercises
• Since it's slow, be extra deliberate with pulling my fingers up before each note to rebuild strength
• Damn my hands are pumped already after one scale
• My wrists are not used to holding ulnar deviation
• When I'm lifting up a finger before pressing that key, my other fingers press down slightly or let go as well. Need to train this out asap

Practice 2

• Okay my hands don't get pumped as quickly which is good
• Need to concentrate on keeping fingers independent when loading them
• Going from the fingering on scale 1 to scale 2 without stopping in between is weird
• Fingers are starting to get more independent when being loaded (see last bullet in practice 1)
• I can probably get to a decent (not back to where I was) point in 4 weeks hardware-wise, without that much time invested