Practice obstacles

[Taurus]

With this i dont mean the ordinary obstacles we encounter while practicing.
In fact, most of you probably have to go back in time a bit for this.

How was your practice when you still lived with your parents/family? Brothers and sisters and parents can be an awful obstacle.

I have left the next and live on my own now, but i remember i thought many times i could have gotten so much better if only if only if only... :wink:

Brother comes home, after school or work, around 18:00. That musta been the time that you (around age 15-18) just finished your highschool homework. And so you finally could spend some time with the piano/keyboard. But then HE had to study and everything had to be quiet..
Ok no problem, you think, headphones on problem solved.. Or not? Brother hears you pressing the keys because its the room next to yours...
You try to play extremely soft, hardly even touchign the keys to minimize sound. A few months later you notice its totally messing up your technique. :roll:

Or maybe your other brother studies on the attic and still hears the sounds of the weighted keys being pushed.. THey make even louder sounds. :oops:

WHat about your sister? She throws open the door of you room yelling in her high-pitched voice while youre in the middle of a 24th take on a recording youre doing. SCREWED!!! 'omg it was such a perfect run!!' :x :lol:

5 minutes later... Oh bummer... now you hear poor Chopin immitations combined with the latest hits of Nsync. :shock: :lol:

Maybe your dad would have taken a shower at 20:00 and turn up one of those old radios out loud with Roy Orbisson-music. You know, the LO-FI ones with an extreme volume of mid-frequencies. :x

22:30. Your family goes to bed, if youre lucky you could have stayed up a bit longer even. But have you doing anything productive today at the keyboard? :?



:lol: Now your flashbacks...:

[Keyplayer]

I really understand what you mean. I'm 17 and I still live with my parents, two little sisters and brother, and there allways SOMEone who start yelling when I even look at the piano. But, a bigger problem are the neighbours. They often let my parents know they can hear the piano through their entire house, but never complain really. Except that time this summer when my parents where on holiday and I was home alone for a week, AND THE NEIGHBOURS KNEW THAT. And then they start complaining to me. I really hadn't played so much that week because I was recording music with my synth the whole day, and they just waited for the moment when I was playing once, and then they rang the bell and said that they really disliked my pianoplaying, because it was so so much noise and played more than once a day and blahblahblah....
And when my parents came home, I played more than before, and I haven't heard them anymore....

Typically...

Daan

[amopae]

Well, I don't have that problem, in fact, when I don't play piano, my neighbours start knocking my door to see what happened to me, hehehe.
And my parents are really supportive with my musical career, so they have no problem with me practicing piano, even if I'm playing Prokofiev or Stravinsky, they don't care.
The only problems I've ever had, have been with my little sister, she's 13 but she also plays piano, and we're always arguing about who's going to practice first, now we've solved it, because I have an upright piano in my bedroom, and we also have a 1/4 grand in the living room, so we can study both at the same time :D

[merijn]

I really understand what you mean. I'm 17 and I still live with my parents, two little sisters and brother, and there allways SOMEone who start yelling when I even look at the piano. But, a bigger problem are the neighbours. They often let my parents know they can hear the piano through their entire house, but never complain really. Except that time this summer when my parents where on holiday and I was home alone for a week, AND THE NEIGHBOURS KNEW THAT. And then they start complaining to me. I really hadn't played so much that week because I was recording music with my synth the whole day, and they just waited for the moment when I was playing once, and then they rang the bell and said that they really disliked my pianoplaying, because it was so so much noise and played more than once a day and blahblahblah....
And when my parents came home, I played more than before, and I haven't heard them anymore....

Typically...

Daan

Hey Daan, een hollands trekje :wink:

[Keyplayer]

Haha, ja ik denk het!

[Taurus]

Laten we't ma engels houwe

rough transl.:

*'must be a dutch thing'
*'yeah i know all about it!'
*'lets keep it english'*

:)

My neighbours never had that much influence in my playing. But they DID when it finally came to either ordering a realpiano or an eletrical clavinova.... We already had everything arranged for the acoustic piano, untill the point that they found out that there was gonna be one in my room (wich is next to their sleeping room). They didnt want it to happen, even if we'd put it in the garage.. so my mother decided not to let the buy go through, instead, it was postponed so i could look for a clavinova...

Fortunately i didnt regret it, bought a Yamaha CLP-990 not long after that, and it kicked ass.. But still..
Going through all the trouble... we had even arranged a big crane to put the acoustic piano inside through the window.

[ChrisMcCoy]

I'm 37, married with 1 pregnant wife and a 3 year old daughter. Lots of obstacles. Luckily I work 2 miles from my house, so for me the practice solution is to spend my lunch hour practicing at home. Can't do this at night or really any other time because we're so busy. I'm lucky my job is close to home, or I'd probably never practice. :shock: