Why indeed? There’s a lot of different instruments you can learn, let alone a ton of different skills or activities you could choose to cultivate. Although there are varied reasons to choose piano I would say three words encapsulate it best – fun, satisfaction, well-being.
Let’s face it, there’s a lot of fun stuff out there to try. Personally I get a lot of joy mountain biking, backpacking, playing soccer, fishing, and yelling at football players on my T.V. screen on Sundays… for me playing piano eclipses them all. At the piano the world is my oyster – I’m free to play anything and everything, to experience music with its limitless colors, emotions, and stories. I can play whatever I’m in the mood for be it rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, classical, or my own creation. I can improvise, read music, compose, or just bang out a tune I love. It truly is a never ending source of fun!
Piano is also immensely satisfying. A lot of sustained effort is required to learn a piano piece or develop technical proficiency in a particular area. Daily, focused work is a must. Yet at the end of all this hard work and especially in the midst of it there’s a continuing and palpable sense of satisfaction. You can feel yourself improving with each day, week, year and that growth is a thrilling and rewarding process. The final product of playing for yourself or for others is a type of satisfaction unique to music instrument lessons, especially piano.
Finally the general benefits of studying music, especially through learning a musical instrument, have by now been well studied and documented. These benefits include higher self confidence, increased ability to cope with stress, better sound recognition, language fluency, improved mood, increased creativity, strong academic performance, self-discipline cultivation, motor skill development, stronger social skills, appreciation for diversity, culture, and history, and a positive leisure activity. Whew, that’s a lot! I might have even left some things out. If you get a chance just go online and read through all the studies that have been done; all the benefits of music education are pretty amazing!