It's really tough for me to answer that, since I (like you) started playing at about age 4 (I'm just about 44)...

But I can say why I continue to play as an adult. I love music, and the piano is the most sonically complex instrument (I also play bass guitar, guitar, trumpet) so it has a deep intellectual component. There is also the challenge that I put before me to try and tackle some very advanced pieces - I know that my jack of all trades style and several breaks from playing the keys for years has left my technique proabaly beyond repair, I still try and press the boundaries to 1) learn more about how some of this great music was put together and try to apply those lessons to my own improvisations and compositions, and 2) sometimes I "re-learn" or "re-awaken" some old techical abilities.

I would gather that some adults start because they have the $ to buy a beautiful grand piano for their living room and feel obligated to try and learn, and some really feel like they missed an oportunity to learn how to do something they always wanted to do. It takes all kinds.

Hope this helps!

I began as an adult a little over a year ago. The motivation was simple - a love of music, and a desire to express my emotions through music. I simply lacked the opportunity to take lessons as a child. I would say better late then ever, and I would recommend it to anyone. I have not regretted by decision to start learning for a second.

My wife decied to start playing piano as an adult. As a child it was never offered to her. However, her first husband was a terrific piano player, bless him. Soon after marrying me she mentioned it would be nice to play the piano, and she has three to choose from, so lessons she got.

I think there are a lot of young people today who are not given an opportunity to explore music. Some because the schools do not present it anymore, some because the instrument they want to play they are nto allowed to play (so they give it up altogether), and some because their parents are ignorant to music. As these younger people interact with the world and the people in the world they become enamoured with what a given individual can do with a guitar or piano and develop a feeling of wanting to participate, even if it is just playing for themeselves at home.

glory of the sounds I can create

A lot of the time I feel that the music I present is at it's best when I am most mechanichal, and I am at my best when I recognize that the unstrument I am interfacing with is a machine.

It is a weird dichotomy. It has been interesting to read about a few adults getting into paying.

Edski,

You think you play best when your are most mechanical? Hmmm, perhaps you mean you are most exact, or most attentive, or most decisive. The piano IS a machine as is every other instrument. When I regulate a piano action I do so by strict measurements. If everything is correct and working well, then the action will worked as it is intended to. The machine/piano is set factory tolerences that the manufacturer has spent millions of dollars researching. Seldom do I vary from the manufacturer specs. Tuning is a bit different depending on what music the customer might like to play.

Also remember that music is mostly mathematic formulas, and they are very exact.

So, your 'mechanicalness' may be just you being exact with what you want to do and results in a beatiful expression of music.

John - maybe that's more correct, that it's the precision that I'm confusing with being "mechanical". As for Dr. J's comment - I usually don't use notated music, or if I have it it's often a crutch. If I am actually trying to read I do my best to do what's instructed.

The original comment stems from times where I can become too "enmeshed" in the sentiments of the song I'm playing and too emotional. It's not just a piano thing - recently a sister of mine passed away at too young an age, and I've written most of a song for her...when I tried playing with my acoustic guitar buddy I got choked up. Perhaps understandable, but it's not like I never played the song - I had already written it!

My brother-in-law bought a piano, he took 1 lesson and quit playing. For him I guess it just seemed like a good idea at the time, but not really something he was drawn to!

Dr. J - it's the same as I spewed at length about in the "Piano Memories" thread - the guy who gave up with one lesson didn't like the sound of his playing. He thought that it looked easy and was stunned to find out that it really isn't. A lot of people are averse to actually trying hard and taking the appropriate time to learn a skill. Turning on the iPod was far simpler and gratifying.

I would dispute, and I'd hope you all agree with me, that turning on an iPod is nowhere near as gratifying as actually making the music yourself. Easier, yes. More gratifying? No, definitely not. I love playing the piano, even though it's not my best instrument.

I've been playing music for most of my life (even paid the bills with it in the early nineties) but I lost my passion for playing and just stopped in '96. Sold my guitars, sax and went and got a real job. Didn't touch an instrument for 11 years and didn't miss it. Then one day, a couple of years ago, I was at an auction house and my wife saw this old Bulow upright sitting in the corner. I'd never played piano or keyboard before (in fact, I used to torment our keyboardist in the group I played in about having all the notes laid out in front of him!) but I went and had a little play.

That was all it took. I bought the piano (which is now the most used furniture piece in the house), had one lesson (just to get the basics on posture and finger positioning) and bought lots of books. I find I'm spending hours each day playing music again and am also considering going back to professional playing.

All due to a dusty old upright sitting in the corner of a warehouse!

As a kid I had piano lessons. I just didn't "get" it. The piano was an alien, I didn't grasp its language. I struggled through years of very poor progress in music lessons. Later in life I worked as a driver for a piano tuner. I learned a lot about the mechanics of the piano, and how expensive and difficult it is to maintain. My mom, when I was a kid, considered the piano tuner she hired to tune the piano the one and only time it was tuned after arriving at our house to be bilking her for money for the repairs and standard tuning schedule and rates. That piano was never tuned again in our house. Naturally, it sounded horrible when I tried to play a piece there. Playing the memorized music on other, maintained pianos I came across in churches and public places the music sang to me. But I didn't "get" it. Now, at 60 years old, I'm starting to get it. And I want to try a bit again, to play the music I once tried to play.

Reading sheet music, though, was a good step for me as I was able to read vocal scores and sing them without any accompanying voice or instrument. I could sing. Still not sure if I can play keyboard, though. I got an electrical keyboard to learn with. Its not as touchy as all that spruce, pine, and the wires and felts of a full piano.

i teach one adult piano. i reccomend starting at a young age but noone is ever too old to learn. She says "it is something i always wanted to do" i think it may also help prevetn alzenheimers

Well, I'm going on 70 yrs. of age and when I was a child I was not allowed to touch the piano but I would lie in bed at night listening to my mother play. As I grew older I asked for lessons and was told no, that it would not be of benefit to me and I had chores to do. I remember being in my teens and thinking: "I know that if I could have lessons, that I would be a great concert pianist." So that was what I wanted to be my whole life. Then came my late teens, marriage and 5 children.... you can guess that I did not have any time to take lessons then or even afford a piano. During the following years when I finished raising my children alone, not having any extra monies to purchase a piano, I would buy piano lesson books and tried to teach myself how to play the notes and do the timing on a cardboard keyboard. When my last child was out of the house and monies were my own, the first thing I did was buy my beautiful piano. Over the years I have purchased every lesson series and 'easy' note music that I could afford and I even began composing my own music as I found I had a very good ear. Well, to wrap this up -- I am now retired with bad arthritis but I am at long last taking weekly piano lessons from a very good accredited teacher who only lives 5 blks from my home. I may not be the concert pianist that I longed to be, but I can now play some of the classical music that I so wanted to play as a child. And, more so, I can now, at almost 70 yrs. old, play the music that is in my soul.

Hi,
I've started learning the piano a year ago now as an adult, I'm 33 years old. I've always loved the piano played a little in the early years of high school, but having changed schools they didn't have music as a subject.
I've now taken it up as a hobby for my own pleasure learning from scratch. I have had a fantastic opportunity to be taught by a great teacher.
It gives me great pleasure to be able to sit and play something, even though it's a simple piece such as Overture La Traviata which I got from 8 notes :D.