There are millions of adults who took piano lessons when they were kids, and would love to start playing again, but dread the idea of starting over again and taking lessons. To see how easy it is to get started again, take a look at this blog on Piano Chords & Chord Progressions.

It’s true that you never forget certain things that you learn as a child, like riding a bicycle. Playing piano is another example. A minimum of two to three years of piano lessons is enough to instill an indelible knowledge of piano basics. That knowledge will likely be remembered throughout adulthood.

However, some adults who have been out of practice for several years may find returning to piano lessons challenging. Re-learning piano as an adult can be intimidating. Starting piano lessons again can be fulfilling though for those prepared to tackle the challenges.

One of the biggest challenges of re-learning piano as an adult is changing methods. Adults who took only a few years of piano lessons as children may have initially learned to play by rote. Playing piano by rote focuses more on memorization and mimicry than on learning to read music and understand chords.

Children tend to learn very quickly by rote. Children who learn by this method appear to progress quickly. Eventually though, as pieces get more difficult, learning tends to slow down significantly. Grasping new skills becomes increasingly difficult. This method is becoming less and less favored by piano instructors today for this reason.

Another hurdle to clear when re-learning piano as an adult is chords and theory. This is especially true if an adult took only a few years of piano lessons as a child. Adults who had five or fewer years of piano lessons likely didn’t learn chord theory. Even adults who learned to read music as children frequently have trouble grasping chords.

Learning anything (piano or otherwise) is always harder in adulthood than childhood. It’s not impossible though. Anyone with a foundation in music is at an advantage when re-learning piano as an adult.

Are you an adult trying to brush up on old piano skills or learn new ones? Here are four things to consider before you start:

1. Be willing to put aside old habits. The piano hasn’t changed since you were a child. Teaching methods may have though. Don’t discount a teaching method just because it’s different from what you’re used to. Compare different learning methods before deciding which one is best for you.

2. Be prepared to start from scratch. It will be easier for you to ease into piano lessons simply because you’re familiar with a keyboard. That doesn’t mean it won’t be challenging. Don’t expect to play a classical sonata in the first month. Take things slowly, perhaps even starting with a refresher of the basics (i.e., scales).

3. Be committed to rehearsing your songs. Remember your mother nagging you to practice as a kid? Mom’s not around now, so it’s up to you to push yourself. Piano lessons are only as good as the effort you’re willing and able to put in. Make daily practice time a priority.

4. Find the right teacher either in person or online. There are many excellent courses on the web you can take that allow you to progress at your own pace. Check out  PlayPiano.com and PianoLessonsByVideo.com. Getting the right piano instructor makes all the difference in the world. Look for a teacher who is experienced with working with adults.  He or she will then set you on the right course for re-learning.

Re-learning piano as an adult can be very rewarding. Not only will you improve your piano skills; you’ll stimulate your brain too. This will probably help you improve other areas of your life. Adults who take piano lessons often report a better ability to concentrate. Many also realize a greater aptitude for learning other new skills. These things carry over into other parts of adult life, from work, to hobbies and even raising children.

My next door neighbour, Clare, is what you would call a ‘big’ girl. She loves her fast food, chocolates, biscuits, crisps ….in fact just about anything that adds the pounds and kilos to her weight. And to make matters worse, she hardly ever walks anywhere but prefers to drive instead.

So it’s not surprising that about 3 months ago, she felt that her weight was getting out of control and she needed to do something about it.

Did she take up jogging? Or go down to our local gym? Nope – she decided to buy a Wii console!

She claimed that because the Wii had some new-fangled controls that didn’t just involve pressing buttons like other games consoles, but that actually required you to put in some effort to play games, then she’d lose weight.

Needless to say, her husband and I were not convinced and thought that this was just another one of Clare’s mad ideas (that she does have a reputation for coming out with!).

With her Wii console, she also got something called a Wii Fit that looked like one of those step blocks used in gyms for step aerobics. Clare said that this connected to the Wii console and came with a Keep Fit game that had her doing various exercises every day.

The software also kept a record of her weight, body-mass index and improvements in her performance of doing the exercise schedules.

Clare stuck to her new “exercise regime” and I would often pop round for a chat in the afternoon and find her red-faced and breathless from having just completed on of her sessions.

And the result?

Well, in the past month, she’s lost an impressive 14lbs (6.4 kilos for those of you who’ve gone metric) and it’s very noticeable. We are all impressed (even though she does keep saying “I told you so”). You can find the Wii Fit for sale on eBay at bargain prices. I’m definitely going to get one to get fitter and in shape.

Let me say a few words about .tar files. .tar is a truly old file extension. It harkens back to the good old times when hard drives were a pricy oddity and tapes ruled the field of long-term data storage. In fact, “TAR” is an acronym for tape archive. On the other hand, despite it’s telling acronym, it probably woun’t be considered a “real” archive by most contemporary users because it offers no compression. A .tar file is, in essence, just a bunch of other files strung together.

Since a TAR file offers no compression functionality by itself, the files are usually compresed with an additional archiver. Common examples include Gzip (extension .tar.gz) and the Bzip compressor, which produces .tar.bz2 files in turn. So sometimes you might need several applications to uzip a .tar file – for example, a rar converter is rarely needed, but sometimes required.

Lets get down to the important question. To extract a “plain” TAR archive on a Linux-like system, use this command line : “tar -xvf filename.tar”. This will unzip the contents of the file in the current directory. In case the archive has been compressed with gzip (.tar.gz), you need to add the “z” flag to the aforementioned command; like this : “tar -xzvf filename.tar.gz”.

If you’re running Windows, have no fear – most popular archivers can deal with .tar files. For example, WinRAR (shareware) and 7-zip (open source) can both extract .tar, .tar.gz, and several other file formats easily. With WinRAR extracting a TAR file is as easy as right-click + “Extract here”.

The techniques explained in this article should be enough to deal with most .tar archives you’ll ever come across. If you encounter something that wasn’t addressed here, there’s always Google, ready to answer every query.

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