What advice would you give your beginner-self?

My advice would be to approach piano and music with as much simplicity and humility as possible, and to avoid conflating ideas unnecessarily.

What advice would I give my beginner-self? 

1)    Be patient.  Master the basics first and resist the urge to jump ahead to a level you are not ready for as a student.  Accept the fact that initially, for many years or decades even, a large part of your life will only be devoted to learning how to play (technique) as well as just learning notes (repertoire).  This work will never cease but at some unknown time way in the future it will shift from being the main job to becoming subservient to the joy of musical interpretation.

2)    Begin with the end in mind.  Understand that music is more than just the ability to play all the notes you have learned and play technically well.  Although this is already an admirable skill in itself, this is only the prerequisite step to even scratch the surface in approaching true musicianship and artistry.  Playing the piano can be taught.  Interpreting music and artistic vision cannot be taught and is innate to an individual.

3)    Practice more!  Spend more quality time at the piano; not less.  As an adult learner, trying to catch up and make amends regarding the first two points above it seems clear to me that you might only reach musical nirvana once you have truly spent an enormous amount of time (decades?) working at technique and repertoire.  Once you are at a high level this finally frees your mind to then go beyond the mechanics that once limited you to actually making music.

4)    Do not practice all day!  Have a plan for devoting time away from the piano to reading about your favourite composers and the world in which they lived.  For inspiration, travel to these places they lived and walk on the ground they may have walked on.  Visit the homes, churches, concert halls, museums, cemetaries and other areas they were associated with and learn everything you can about them.  Learn other instruments or use your own instrument and learn how to sing etc.

5)    Do not underestimate the importance of a good quality instrument.  Be thankful and use what you have happily but set your sights on the best acoustic grand piano you can afford as soon as possible.  My four-year-old self wishes that his parents would have had the good sense to start him off on the right foot by providing a Bösendorfer Concert Grand 290 Imperial piano to learn on.  It would have made all the difference in the world.  ;-)  Seriously, there is no replacement for an acoustic grand action and touch.  Also, music is really about sound.  The more beautiful it is, the more intoxicating it becomes.  Avoid digital pianos like the plague, if at all possible?

6)    Do not listen to recordings (or at least limit yourself).  Listening to professional recordings and music competitions and so on could be informative and interesting to a point when you are starting out but unnecessary, counterproductive and problematic as you progress in your own education and journey.  That is unless you want to sound like everyone else and not take any ownership of or contribute to the outcome.  The score and your own talent and imagination is all you should need for motivation.  It literally amazes me how much blind confidence everyone seems to put into learning directly from famous recordings (myself included in the past) without ever actually referring to the score as their guide. 

My mostly beginner self as a young adult who couldn’t actually physically play or practice anymore decided that the next best thing would be to learn the music by listening to recordings.  It is all fine especially if you are just a listener (and not actually playing).  So, I am (was) very familiar with how the world thinks this music should sound and be interpreted as.  A year or two ago once I finally could start learning this music at the piano it became abundantly clear that what I thought was the standard was often not what the score testified to (my opinion only).  This traumatized me deeply actually because this was my world that I thought existed but once I started studying the scores deeper it became clear how many tricks and deceptions are being passed off and sold to everyone.  Have an inquisitive mind and find things out for yourself.  Recordings are commercial products and they have a vested interest in selling you something.  They will never take a risk and gamble on something that likely would not sell to the masses.  Likewise, with competitions.  They virtually sanitize music and only a narrow view can exist.

Music is a creative art (at least it should be).  If you are just mimicking something you heard you are being the opposite of creative (which is OK if you want this).  One has to have ideas, vision, and passion about music in their mind and follow it without apology (in my opinion).

7)    Teachers!  🙂  🙃 You pays your money, you takes your chances!  When one is a beginner, I believe finding the best teacher is vital.  You will benefit profoundly by having technique and the basics taught to you the right way from the start.  It is very difficult to undo the damage a poor teacher can inflict on a beginner.  Ask me about this because I know this first hand.  So much more can be said about this but today, after learning the hard way, I would definitely “interview” any prospective teacher first (just as they are assessing you).  If they put you down, cannot or will not answer simple questions, or are dismissive towards you then it is clear this person is problematic and not qualified.  They might refer to how many degrees they have and from where and who they know in trying to impress you (or assert some sort of phony power or position).  Again, a red flag.  If you are musical and know what you want the best thing after a short conversation is to find opportunities to listen to the teacher actually playing themselves.  Bonus would be to try to listen to their students at a student recital.  This would tell me everything I need to know about their character and what they believe in and whether I could trust or respect this person as my musical guide.  Their artistic vision should match my own musical sensibilities and intuitions.  If every student and the teacher sounds the same, this is not a good sign.  If you don't assess this, you will also end up sounding this way too so you better agree with it before signing up.

8)    Respect those above (and below) you that have earned your respect.  Put in the hard work and always be open to learning and seeing different points of view. Do not blindly trust the views or opinions of someone just because they have degrees or a perceived status of some sort.  Music is a free gift to all who seek it and put in the blood, sweat and tears.  There should be no gatekeepers.

9)    Always stay true to yourself.  Never follow.  Have clear but realistic musical goals and ambitions and do not allow soul crushing individuals into your circles or give them one second to influence you in a negative way.

10) Develop a thick skin (or do not care what clowns say).  Do not worry about the naysayers as there will be many.  Believe in yourself but be humble enough to learn from criticism (tough love) if it comes from someone who has earned your respect.  This is a gift.  Know the difference between advice from those who give it selflessly and want to help build you up and those who would keep you down because they are weak, pathetic and afraid of losing their power over you.

11) Stay humble.  There is no endpoint to be found in the pursuit of music.  You can never say you have arrived.  I have so many unanswered questions and the challenges seem to be virtually daunting and insurmountable but I can think of no better place to be but at the foot of the mountain looking up into the expanse of the universe in pursuit of the answers and learning the secrete language of music.

If I could offer advice to my younger self at the piano, I would begin by saying: Learn how to practice, not simply how long to practice.

Of course, much of what we now understand about the science of learning, memory, and effective practice wasn't available to me as a child. But I would encourage my younger self to become curious about the process of learning itself. Practice doesn't have to mean spending endless hours at the keyboard. Two hours of focused, intentional work—perhaps three at most—can be far more productive than an entire day of mindless repetition. Know what you want to accomplish before you sit down. Practice with purpose, and remember that more is not necessarily better.

I would also tell myself to become a more curious musician. Don't just learn a composer's piano works; listen to their songs, symphonies, operas, and chamber music. Read about their lives. Discover the worlds they inhabited, the people they loved, and the circumstances that shaped their music. Sight-read every day, and play more Bach and Scarlatti, even if your heart belongs to the Romantic and post-Romantic repertoire. They will give you a technical and musical foundation that will serve you for a lifetime.

Find teachers who inspire you, but never surrender your independence of thought. Explore different approaches to technique. I wish I had discovered the Taubman approach much earlier, but I would also caution myself against becoming devoted to any single method. Remain open, inquisitive, and willing to learn. Let curiosity, rather than dogma, guide your development.

Above all, never allow your imagination to grow stale. Remain whimsical. Cultivate a rich inner world of images, stories, fantasies, memories, and emotions. Music needs that inner life just as much as it needs disciplined fingers.

And play through everything life brings you. Play when you're happy. Play when you're heartbroken. Play when you're angry, lonely, exhilarated, or uncertain. Allow the piano to become a place where your emotional life finds expression. The more intimately you connect those experiences to music, the more authentic your playing will become.

Play for other people as often as you can. When you perform, turn your attention away from what the audience might be thinking. Focus instead on what you're feeling, what you're communicating, and, when necessary, simply on the choreography of your hands. Learn to trust the physical and musical work you've done.

And finally, learn to love playing slowly. Play at a tempo where you can hear everything, where mistakes disappear, and where movement feels free of unnecessary effort or tension. Don't sacrifice musical expression simply because you're practicing under tempo. Let even the slowest practice be beautiful. Speed will come.

Perhaps the most important thing I would tell my younger self is this: Let that voice inside you, guide you. Technique, scholarship, discipline, and curiosity are all essential, but ultimately they exist to give that inner voice the freedom to speak. Never lose touch with the wonder that first drew you to the piano.