I have gone back to playing the piano after mostly not playing for over 50 years! Now that I have retired and my ripping project is done (the past 6 years), I have the time. I find I can only practice for an hour or so before my fingers, hands and arms get tired. I learned classical music and have been relearning pieces that I played as a teenager. I play Bach, Debussy, Brahms, Chopin, Mozart, but only one or two pieces by each composer, so my repertoire is quite limited. So listening to my hi-fi gives me a much broader range and, of course, for a much longer time. So I listen much more than I play. However, when playing I can see what the composer is doing so much more intimately and clearly, subtle changes of key or dynamic changes that I would miss, even if I were listening following a score, which I almost never do. There are other major differences - the pros play much faster and don't go over the same section repeatedly to get the notes right or the fingering into their muscle memory (at least on their recordings).
Right now I have been relearning a quite difficult piece, the Chopin Ab major Polonaise. I played it in my senior recital in high school and after a couple of months, it is coming back (at the age of 70). There is great satisfaction being able to play it, although I will never play it like Moravec or Rubinstein. Practicing also helps my sight reading, so I can learn new pieces, too, although I have been mostly trying to get back the pieces I once knew. Funny, the neuron paths are apparently still there, but practice is clearing the pathways of the layers of cobwebs that have built up.
OP, thanks for the question,
Larry
