New Year's Resolutions 2025
New Year’s Resolutions 2025: Let’s Make This Year Musical! 
Happy New Year, tonebase pianists! As we kick off 2025, it’s the perfect time to reflect, dream, and set new goals for our piano journey. Whether you're aiming to master a challenging piece, tackle scales with more precision, or simply find more joy in daily practice, we’d love to hear your resolutions!
Here are some ideas to spark inspiration:
Learn a dream piece you’ve always wanted to play
Improve sight-reading or ear-training skills
Dedicate time to consistent daily practice (even 15 minutes counts!)
Record and share more of your playing with our supportive community
Share your goals in the comments below and let’s keep each other motivated throughout the year. Together, we can make 2025 our most musical year yet! 
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Hey Everyone!
Just thought I would share some of my New Year's resolutions with you!
Repertoire-wise I want to learn:
Chopin's "Heroic" Polonaise
Gershwin's "American in Paris"
On a personal level:
Improve and become more fluent at speaking Korean!
I am really curious what your goals are: please share!
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Dominic Cheli
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I recently started taking piano lessons again so I hope I will eventually get working on bigger or more intricate pieces.
Top of my bucket list this year is Brahms Intermezzo 118 2.
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Priya Viseskul Let’s chat soon!
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I have an ambition to learn some Debussy compositions and perform for neighbors and friends. My event would be "A Taste of Debussy While Sipping French Wine".
My greatest challenge is to finish with "Reflets..." but the 64th arpeggios are killers. Thank goodness we have an arpeggio lesson.
Rodney Anderson
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I am really grateful for this topic being put up here. It's a great reminder to think about plans for the coming year. Thanks, Tonebase!
My intentions are to regain my former technique. This includes revising two pieces I learned years ago; they are Chopin's Etude Op. 25, No. 12 and his fourth Ballade. Also on the list, are to learn two new Bach Preludes and Fugues and a piece by Debussy (undecided as yet) and to bring up to speed Beethoven's Sonata, Op. 31, No. 3 which I learned last year. Personally, I want to regain fitness after several years of not having great health and to improve my German. Good luck to everyone with their New Year's resolutions!
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My New Years Resolution is to make the effort to learn jazz and improvising. Not just reading the books and stumbling through fakebooks, I'm going to actually apply what I know. And yes, I have a teacher. (I'll let you know how successful I am around this time next year...lol)
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For 2025 I want to focus more on music theory and the rhythmic/ear training that I've been dabbling in throughout 2024 (rhythmic solfege, TAKADIMI, is a blast!).
I have no idea what pieces are around the corner this year, but my goal is to approach them with curiosity and try not to get overwhelmed by how much there is to learn.
I also started voice lessons this past month - something I NEVER thought I'd have the courage to do. And I really enjoy them. So I plan to continue vocal lessons for fun.
One of my largest goals for 2025 is to have more fun - to play more.
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After focusing on learning the Chopin Ballades and preparing them for Tonebase Zoom recitals in 2024, my piano goals for 2025 are:
1) Find opportunities to practice performing the Ballades in-person / not on my own piano
2) Focus on learning some of Liszt's works this year, specifically Un Sospiro, Hungarian Rhapsody #11, Transcendental Etude #11 (in order of realistic-ness
). Lay the groundwork for learning Mazeppa (TE #4) 3) Incorporate more imagery / practice away from the piano
Personal goal:
Train for our climbing gym's "Footloose" campus competition (climbing without feet) in May, so I can try hard without hurting myself!
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Judy Kuan This "footloose" competition sounds intriguing and intense! Good for you!
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Michelle R Haha, it's a lot of fun, but definitely tough on the shoulders without proper training! Here's a video someone made from the one my husband and I participated in a couple of years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfcD1eRsv70
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Judy Kuan This sounds amazing...and quite scary!
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Judy Kuan Amazing to see how you are able to do that and then play such delicate passages at the piano!
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Priya Viseskul It was a huge source of stress to balance the two, until I realized I just needed to spend more time warming up before playing piano, and not climb for 36hours before performing/lessons :)
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Judy Kuan Hi Judy, I've really enjoyed your sojourn through the Ballades this past year. An impressive feat indeed to get through them all. I think you should also make an 'album' of permanent recordings of them once you get them finished and polished to your satisfaction, so that you've captured them as they emerged from this period of immense effort and concentrated study. good luck with your 2025 goals.
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Peter Golemme Thanks for your kind comment and suggestion! You actually motivated me to start repracticing the Ballades yesterday
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It's inspiring to see what others have posted!
My rep goals:
- polish up Chopin's Ballade no 1 and record it 'live' with no edits
- complete learning Ballade no 3 to final tempo, polish and record it
- assemble Ballade No 2 and play through at whatever tempo I can sustain
- Get Ravel's Sonatine out of mothballs 35 years after learning it
- Address my Debussy deficiency starting with Claire de Lune
- Gershwin! (Any smaller pieces, Rhapsody in Blue will wait for some other year.)
- Bach French Suite no 5
- something by a still-breathing composer - I'm open to suggestions.
I'm starting up with an in person teacher this month. I was 20 the last time I had one. I feel like I'm going on a first date again in my 50s!
Personal goals: Run and cycle again, get back to reading poetry, and do more writing. And get back to Adamant!
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Ken Locke still-breathing composer: Stefano Bollani, 18 Preludi coming soon printed by Hal Leonard Europe. Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/7q0043PyxGAwfaCOFu5dx0?si=okxpFDqPQlmxag97tyTDKw
Ciao!
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Ken Locke Geeze Ken, have you given up your day job? Great list and I, too hope to return to Adamant. How is the new piano?
I had many years back memorized 2 of the Ballades. Was pretty hard focus and I spent a full year just doing nothing but one of them. My very patient and supportive wife had to nudge me off that or I may never have left that focus. The "feel" of those are just so incredible. I got addicted.
On living artist suggestions: I am working on more Philip Glass Etudes. Stephen Hough, that was at the NYC piano camp, has written lots of interesting works as well as transcriptions. Try this album? I'm working on Albéniz: España, Op. 165: V. Capricho Catalan · Stephen Hough · Isaac Albéniz now.
And the composers represented here on tonebase have posted a number of pieces in the Composer's Corner in hopes people may sample.
And selfishly, I appear to still be breathing. I posted my entire catalog here. No pressure but would love any feedback.
Best of luck with your goals for 2025. I have no doubt you will achieve all this and would be great to hang out at Adamant with you again. Cheers to 2025 and progress on the piano.
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Jack vreeland Hi Jack! No, the day job is still there, the piano is the yin to the yang, or maybe the other way around. I started with Ballade 1 when I was 17. To give a point of reference, that was the peak of the hair metal band period, not that those 2 things are related. (I did have a mild mullet then though.) Anyway it got to a performance standard a few years later then eroded over subsequent decades. I've been gradually resuscitating it. The Ballade 3 was something I read through now and then. Finally I guess it felt like I should stop flirting and get serious with it so that one is the active learning agenda.
I noted that the first theme of Ballade 2 also doubles as a voicing exercise, which I often use to warm up. Yes, I am aware of how weird that sounds. I'm hoping one day to play the whole piece at least MM=40 all the way through. However it's a bit of a dream right now.
Got my piano tuned today, and pedals adjusted the way I like them. It is a wonderful instrument.
Thank you for posting your compositions! I will be sure to try them. And thanks for guiding me to the tonebase composers. Happy new year!
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Letizia Thank you! Will check it out.
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Ken Locke Oh, almost forgot to mention. My lesson went well, the teacher has an extensive background in the Russian school and has started working on my arm weight. Dominic Cheli , as you might predict, it's paying off immediately! Very exciting.
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Looking forward to this year, pianowise and beyond. I have a lot to improve on, mainly memory, music theory, practice habits and technique.
The one piece I want to have learnt and best case memorized is Mozart‘s Fantasie & Sonata c-minor KV 475/457.
Personally, I hope to brush up on my French and Polish and spend lots of quality time with my kids.
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Nadja Oooh, I love that Mozart!
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I am preparing a program of all 20th century music. I hope to complete that and perform it in recital sometime this year.
