Memoirs of A Secret Pianist by Robert M. Fells

As an adult piano teacher specialist, I am always very interested in auto-biographical books written by older piano students learning to play or re-play the piano. The books that I have read in this genre all paint very different pictures with respect to the pianists motivations and self-observations. This reflects my own experience in teaching adult students. They are all very different and as a teacher, you need to meet them on their own terms and be very flexible in your teaching methods.
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with this particular slim volume. I love his introduction where he discusses "learning to play a musical instrument is one of the best ways to keep the ageing brain agile and retentive." I also very much appreciate his observation that "you don't have to be very good at it to derive enjoyment from playing." (I would add a caveat that "good" piano playing is a very nebulous term.) I also totally agree that learning play the piano should be fun. Mr. Fells advice on choosing an instrument, though basic, has some good points. I agree that digital keyboards are very useful and that if you are going to buy an acoustic piano, you should love how it sounds.
Once we get to Chapter 2 however, Mr. Fells tells us that "the basics of piano playing are so simple to master that it seems almost wasteful to hire an instructor to explain them to you." And I guess I would agree if you just want to explore the piano entirely on your own for financial reasons or because you can't seem to find a teacher that fits your needs. However, as an adult piano teacher, I would ask; why not take advantage of a teacher's expertise on how to avoid common injuries, how to practice effectively, what are the best and fastest learning strategies, what's a good curriculum for you personally, to have help finding enjoyable literature, and help finding safe performance opportunities with other adult students? I also find in this small volume several misconceptions about music which bother me quite a bit. For instance in this chapter, Mr. Fells states that increasing the tempo is allegro and slowing it down is adagio, but that is incorrect. Allegro means lively and fast and Adagio means slowly. Increasing the tempo would actually be an accelerando and then ritardando for decreasing tempo.
Mr. Fells also talks about how he learned to play as an adult through adult group lessons, which can be great, but I have to admit I'm not a big fan of the old and stale John Thompson method when there are so many more new and interesting method books available for adults. Many of these method books include CDs so that you can hear each piece as well as have access to accompaniments giving you a backing band as you are playing. Mr. Fells also attributes a well-known quote about practicing to Vladimir Horowitz, ie. "If he skipped a day of practice he could notice it in his playing. If he skipped two days the critics noticed it. And if he skipped three days, the audience noticed." I've seen this quote attributed to many people, but never Horowitz. Usually its attributed to Paderewski, but upon a little more research this quote may have originally come from Listz, but certainly not Horowitz. Anyway, its a bit of an indication of sloppiness in his writing.
I also disagree with his idea that its helpful if he calls his practice, "rehearsing". For me rehearsing has a very specific meaning and its what I do when a piece has been practiced thoroughly and I'm preparing for a performance. However, once again if it helps him to "practice" the piano by calling it "rehearsing", then I'm glad it works for him.
Then, its back to what I love about this volume. Mr. Fells strongly urges you to learn only works that you really want to play. I totally agree with this idea. You need to love the music you are trying to learn. But then he spoils it by talking about "Head Bobble syndrome", where the pianist hasn't taken the time to learn their notes or their way around the keyboard very well and so they have to constantly look at their fingers to figure out where the notes are located. Mr Fells doesn't mention little helps like steps, skips, and leaps which can help pianist with their kinesthetic movement around the keyboard. He also doesn't mention in this section that many great pianists do look down from their sheet music to check the geography of the keyboard for larger leaps. Its quite acceptable to have an occasional "bobble".
And so it goes with this volume. I find sections I totally agree with and then hit something that is quite jarring. For instance, I don't think Chopin deliberately wrote his compositions with complexity to simply showcase the dexterity of the performer. Chopin agonized over every note in his compositions trying to get them to sound exactly right to his ear and one of my favorite quotes by Chopin is: "Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art." Quite a different sentiment than the idea of Chopin writing his compositions simply to showcase a performers dexterity.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed reading this volume and getting a sense of Mr. Fells observations about piano playing. However, I don't think I would give this volume to one of my adult students, unless they would like to read all my handwritten notes avidly agreeing with some sentiments and strongly disagreeing with others.