New Year, New You – Piano Goals for 2025

Anyone reading this is unlikely to need much incentive to sit down and play the piano. However, we all need a little encouragement from time to time. Perhaps we’ve become stuck in a rut playing the same composers or we spend hours practising but never actually playing. Perhaps we leave too long between piano-tunings so that our piano is out of tune and has lost its shine. Perhaps we’ve been playing alone for too long and we need the stimulus of others’ musical company.

These and many other things can nibble away at our motivation and enthusiasm. With the help of this 10-point plan for a more musical 2025, you could begin to get to grips with those problems and discover how to play the piano better and for longer.

 

1 Go to a summer school

© Dartington Summer School

You could sit on a beach or go on a cruise; you could do 101 different things for your summer holiday in 2025 – including going on a summer piano course. It’s not the most obvious way to spend some much-needed downtime but the change could do you good. You’ll be a better pianist for it, and you’ll gain experience that will sustain you over the long winter months.

Many music schools and colleges put on summer courses, among them Chetham’s School of Music, in Manchester. The late Jeremy Siepmann was a tutor on the school’s course. He told me how, remarkably, the students’ love for the piano not only survived but flourished. 

‘Three reasons explain this,’ he wrote. ‘Firstly, a sense of community in which faculty and students were united in the mutual pursuit of excellence; secondly, a degree of unforced informality which put everyone at their ease; and lastly, a thirst for learning which banished all the baser, competitive instincts which blight too much of school and concert life. What made it special was the joy of unfettered aspiration.’

 

2 Form a chamber group

© Nicolas Brodard

No man is an island, said John Donne (he meant women too). No pianist, either – but it can be all too easy to become just that. When every musical colour you could wish for is at your disposal in those 88 notes, why would you need to play with anyone else? Because playing with other people is stimulating and fun. 

Benjamin Frith knows this all too well. He began his career as a soloist but gradually found himself gravitating towards chamber music. A member of the Gould Piano Trio since 2006, he observes that ‘as a pianist in a trio you are three people: a soloist, an accompanist and a chamber musician. It’s a great way to learn about music and being a better musician.

If you want to give your musical life a boost in 2025, form a chamber group, says Frith. ‘First, though, you must enjoy the repertoire and love the instruments you’re playing with, but you must also have a sense of humour, be open to ideas and be able to listen to your colleagues as well as yourself. 

‘Good timing is essential and you must all be emotionally in tune, although you don’t have to be of the same temperament. Play with people who are on your level in terms of technique. Settle yourselves in with simpler repertoire such as Hummel and go from there. You won’t look back!’

 

3 Attend a masterclass

© Chris Christodoulou

Witnessing a great pianist sharing their insights into a piece of music with a talented student can be hugely inspiring. 

Most music colleges open their masterclasses to the public. The Royal College of Music’s classes are extremely popular. Recent ‘masters’ have ranged from Russian professor Mikhail Vosresensky to concert artists such as Lang Lang and Steven Osborne.

‘Anyone who has a genuine interest in hearing how music is put together and performed, be they students, teachers or concert-goers, will enjoy a masterclass,’ says Vanessa Latarche, the RCM’s head of keyboard studies. ‘It opens one’s eyes and ears to an interpretation that the student or even the audience had not considered. When there is a distinct change in the student’s performance over the hour of the lesson, this can be extremely revealing and exciting to witness.

‘Sir András Schiff has given two of our most memorable masterclasses of all time. His playing and his ability to get right to the core of the music and bring the music out in the students, is absolutely mind-blowing. The players are completely transformed by his wisdom, as is the audience.’ 

 

Organise a charity recital

 

One of the best reasons to play the piano is to play for others. And yet so often we find excuses not to. Another year rolls by and the only people to hear us play are our family. But imagine how exciting and motivating it would be to organise a public concert – for charity.

You’ll know the deserving causes in your area. Having identified one and gained its support, you just need to make it happen. In January 2019, the then 18-year-old pianist Matthew Gray performed his second charity concert in his home town of Troon, in Scotland; his first, with a violinist, raised £1200. 

‘I’m raising funds for Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity,’ he told Pianist before the concert. ‘I was treated by the hospital 12 years ago, so it’s personal. I’m performing with Jack Williamson, a friend who is also a pianist. It’ll be an all-French recital and we’ll be doing a mixture of four-hand pieces and solos. 

‘My advice to anyone planning a charity recital is to choose the venue first, plan your repertoire and then blitz social media. We have chosen a venue that will seat 130 people and we’re asking for a minimum donation of £5 a ticket. But we’ve already had money from people who can’t even make the concert!’

 

Enter an amateur piano competition

© Richard Ecclestone

Like giving a concert, entering an amateur piano competition can be a motivating experience. Repertoire has to be learned and polished. Anyone who plays with a defensive attitude - example? – gets the motivation to think more positively about their playing. 

For one thing, imagine what success can do for you. One amateur pianist who knows what that looks and feels like is Dominic Piers-Smith. In 2007, he won the Pianist competition for amateur pianists. Since then he has since released albums and established a successful performing career alongside his day job. 

‘My main motivation for entering Pianist magazine’s competition was the chance to win a concerto appearance with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,’ he told us. ‘“No one else is having that!’” I told myself. I’m by nature a competitive person. It gave me a target and got me motivated.

‘I treat competitions like concerts. It’s another opportunity to communicate with an audience and, of course, play a better piano, in a great acoustic with a lot of people listening! What I’ve worked on since the competition is learning to control people’s perception of time, through the medium of music. We all lead such busy lives but music, played well, relieves us of that pressure, at least for a while.’

 

6 Listen harder

 

In our haste to learn the notes we can overlook one of our most important tools – our ears. 

The pianist and teacher Noriko Ogawa says we should make listening more effectively a goal for the year ahead. ‘Find the main melody line of each piece, section or bar,’ she recommends. ‘Next, identify where all the accompaniment is happening and split your hands into two ‘players’: a melody pianist and an accompaniment pianist. 

‘Now put these two players together and suddenly, you will hear the piece differently, hopefully with more understanding. You will begin to really listen. In turn, this reinvigorates your enthusiasm for playing. 

‘Next, think about dynamics. Take a specific piece and ask yourself: what volume is piano and what volume is forte? How much do they differ? Decide how much you would like the volume to change between them. Then broaden the dynamics and imagine them as a scale. Developing your listening skills will open both your eyes and your ears, I promise.’

 

7 Attend more concerts

 

First it was LPs, then it was cassettes and CDs – today it’s Apple and Spotify. There have always been good reasons to stay at home and listen to a piano recital – but none of them compare to being there, where it’s happening in front of you. There’s the sense of anticipation; that brief moment when, with the pianist’s hands poised above the keyboard, time stands still. Then the piece begins and you’re taken on a musical journey that is unique and unrepeatable. 

Attending a concert is a shared experience. You and your fellow concertgoers have travelled from far and wide to enjoy these next two hours; two hours that will, all being well and in some small way, change your lives for the better. So make 2025 the year that you get up from your armchair and go to a recital. Top of the tree in London are Wigmore Hall, the Southbank Centre and Barbican Centre – all featuring pianists at the top of their game, but listings websites such as Bachtrack will help you to find a recital wherever you are. 

 

8 Change your piano

 

We can all find reasons why we’ve never practised as hard as we should, and we often blame our pianos (rather than ourselves!). Might now be the time to find the piano of your dreams? Take a browse through Pianist's own 2025 Piano Buyer's Guide for inspiration.

 

9 Schedule regular piano tunings

 

Any piano loses its tuning over time. But it happens so gradually that it may take an outsider to spot that ours sounds little better than a pub instrument. So why don’t we jump on it sooner and get the piano tuned? 

As a piano tuner, Henry Trezise is familiar with customers who don’t have their pianos tuned regularly. ‘A piano should be tuned every six months but some of my customers have it done just once a year,’ he says. ‘In fact, I’ve just taken a booking from someone whose piano was last tuned seven years ago! What puts a piano out of tune are variations in temperature and humidity, as well as the state of the wrest-pins that secure the strings. 

‘Settling on a comfortable temperature and sticking to it, and placing a dehumidifier in the room to balance the air’s moisture content: these will help to stabilise the tuning. My customers’ eyes light up after the piano has been tuned. It doesn’t matter how well you play; if the piano is out of tune you won’t sound at your best and you’ll play it less often.’

 

10 Share the joy of playing

 

Is there a better tonic than sharing your skill at the piano with someone else and seeing their delight in playing the simplest melody for the first time? So many people would love to play but cannot. Just to pick out their favourite song would give them no end of pleasure – so teach them how to, while you harmonise it. 

Unless they’re in a tangle at this stage, fingering isn’t important but touch is and making a musical sound. Discovering how a different finger weight produces a different volume and tone can be part of this process. And then ask them to name another favourite tune and encourage them to pick it out for themselves. See their eyes light up as the music becomes real and attainable, not remote and available only to the chosen few. 

And then remember their excitement so that when you sit down and play, you feel it, too.