The Agony and Ecstasy of ANDRAGOGY

‘The life so short, the craft so long to learn,’ said Hippocrates. It’s unlikely he was talking specifically about students who start the piano later in life, or those who return to the instrument after many years’ absence, mainly because the piano – unluckily for him – wasn’t invented until roughly 2,000 years after his death. But it’s as if he had a crystal ball, for nowhere does his famous apothegm have such bite as when applied to these two groups of learners. ‘How I wish I’d had lessons as a child’, and ‘How I wish I’d kept it up’ are common refrains we all hear again and again from friends and acquaintances