Should You Always Play Solo? Find out the Benefits of Playing the Piano with Others.

Have you ever thought about how much time you spend alone when you're playing the piano?

For most players, especially in the beginning and early intermediate stages, the only human interaction that is experienced is with one's teacher. Recitals and other performances provide opportunities to play in front of others, but you're still playing by yourself and not creating and making music with another person or group. 

​We all seem to start out as soloists, even though we probably don't think of it that way. We kind of get used to playing "behind closed doors" and feel most secure and comfortable just having ourselves as our audience. 

There are great benefits to this. This 'solo' time provides all of us with:

• greater self-discipline
• greater self-awareness
• increased confidence
• increased growth in all other areas of life

The one thing that can add to this amazing list of benefits,  is learning, playing, and creating music with others. 

Music itself gives us a large hint, that it is meant to be more than just a solo endeavor.

Harmony is the clue. The nature of harmony is that it is more than one: a chord. Chords are made up of more than one note. It can be any number of notes, as long as it is more than one. 

What does harmony add to a lyrical line of music? Texture, color, depth, emotion, and many other things. It adds a special beauty to the music, that otherwise wouldn't exist. Even with the solo line of music being beautiful on its own, it still isn't quite as lovely as it is with some harmony added in. 

Apply this same concept to playing your piano with others. You're doing great on your own solo time, but what would happen if you added in some 'harmony' to your piano playing?

Some of the great benefits of playing the piano with others in 'group' time are:

• improved listening abilities
• more openness to others
• better communication skills
• greater empathy for others
• improved team-member skills
• increased confidence
• objective feedback from others

As you can see, there are many!

The main difference in 'solo' and 'group' playing time is that the solo time is focused on you, and the group time is focused on you-as a member of a team. Both are important to incorporate into your overall piano studies. 

Look at it as a balancing act. The scale may lean to far over to the 'solo' side if you are always alone when playing your piano. You may have never even thought about trying to play with others to help grow your piano playing skills. It's time to start thinking about opening up and allowing yourself to create music with some other musicians. 

Our musical learning process always reflects life and how it works to us. If we did everything in life alone, it would be very, well lonely. Think about all you would miss out on, if you didn't have your loved ones in your life. 

What kinds of color and depth do they add to your life? When did you do something better, because you did it with someone else instead of alone? 

It's the same with music. There are amazing things that will come into your life, when you start making music with others, on your piano. 

How can you do that? Let's look at a few ways.

• If you are a beginner, ask your teacher to play with you at your lessons, so you can start getting used to playing with someone early on. There are some wonderful harmonies written for Suzuki Piano students and many other beginning methods. Also ask if your teacher or community offer group piano lessons. They are a great way to meet other budding pianists and their families.
• When you get to an intermediate level, it's not too early at all to offer to accompany another teacher's beginning students. The music will be fairly easy and it's a great way to start learning to listen really closely to another musician while you are playing. 
• Reach out through social media, Craig's List, or other community publications to other musicians in your area. You can easily find great folks to play with, that are learning themselves and won't be critical of your playing and learning process. They'll even help you learn faster!
• Think about offering to play at your local place of worship. A lot of times you can end up with wedding gigs from this, which will give you even more experience playing in front of others and with other musicians. 
• Is there an "Open Mic" night in your community? Check and see. There are more and more of these popping up all over the country and they are a fabulous way to connect with other musicians right in your area. These nights open the stage up to any local musician to play for the public, and sit in with other musicians and jam with them. If there's not one in your area, you might want to think about starting one!
• Since the Holiday Season is upon us, reach out to family members and see if anyone wants to perform or play together during family events. What better way to connect with family!

If you feel a bit intimidated by the thought of playing with someone...maybe because you don't think you're good enough, or you're afraid of how people will react, congratulations! That means that you're a human being, and a musician. :)

We all feel that, so just accept it as part of the package, but realize that most of the package is filled with incredibly fun and rewarding benefits that far outweigh those few pieces of coal in your present. The fear in itself is a wonderful gift, because translated, it means, "you're growing"!

You're already receiving the great results just from studying and learning how to play the piano. Adding in this aspect of creating and /or playing music with others, will multiply those benefits 1000-fold.

It's like taking a Vitamin C with Magnesium because it increases the benefits of the Magnesium in your body. You get some of the benefits of the Magnesium taking it alone, but it's so much better for you when you take it with Vitamin C. 

Playing the piano with others, boosts the benefits of your own solo practice and playing time. You will grow faster as a pianist and a human being, by sharing your musical journey with other musicians.

Is it time for you to venture out of 'solo' time and add in some human harmony to your piano playing? 

Stay Tuned to LessonsOnTheWeb to learn much more and achieve your dreams of playing the piano!