Learning to play the piano

[Carl Carlson IV]

I bought a pretty nice keyboard in June which has basically been collecting dust. I played it a decent amount for the first few weeks, now lately it's been once biweekly, if that. I absolutely love the piano and the music that can be created, so I must learn it.

I'd like to learn it on my own, although lessons aren't out of the question. The main reason I don't want to get lessons is basically financial, but I could find a way to afford them if it comes down to that. I can read notes, and know what notes are on the piano, but still need some time to be able to play something. I can't just print a sheet of music and play it, I usually have to sit down before hand and write A G D E B B above the notes (probably a bad habit I should stop doing at some point).

Does anyone have any tips? Suggestions? Know of any good websites? (I Googled and couldn't come up with much). Has anyone learned an instrument on their own? Should I just suck it and up and see if I can find an instructor?

[Wanderer]

Hey, I just wanted to add that I'm in a similar situation, having recently brought a pretty keyboard, and not really sure how to progress, I found some free sheet music online printed that out, and started playing, which is pretty easy and free, some sites e.g this one give you i based on level 1, 2, 3 etc. so you can progress through the levels which could be useful. The most important thing is to practice lots though, am sure if we do that we will persevere.

Free Piano Music!

Thats the site has probably a couple of hundred of free pdf downloads, if you worked from the first to the last and got them all good, you would improve a whole lot. Now just set an aggressive time scale, I'l race you if you want to see who can get to the end fastest? hehe

Also I can't afford an instructor, but have several friends who play, and am sure you do too, so if you ask people nicely they may help you with tricky bits, that's my plan anyway. And I may also print out the last piece as an aspiration, I think I will try and get them all done by Christmas... that is if you want to race.

4th and final edit lol, the last piece is 30 pages and is Pathetique, which sounds awesome if you listen to the midi, if I can play that by Christmas I would be very happy.

5th edit, so I lied, he also has workbooks available, which may help you with learning to read music, which would probably be fairly important, I'm ok, but will probably do the workbooks anyway just to increase my understanding and stuff.
Also I'd like to just note that I am in no way affiliated with this website, and there are probably dozens of others which do the same thing, I just found this one first.

[backpocket]

Well I did learn the guitar by myself, mostly through books, listening, persistence, and getting tabs online. I learnt the keyboard a bit, managed to play silent night and ode to joy, but then I got bored of it. Thought I'd just stick with the old guitar.

Finding an instructor wouldn't be such a bad thing, because you'll learn faster and won't have too many bad habits, but it's not necessary. I know a few who just thought themselves.

Here's how I'd do it though if I were you:

1. Get a For Dummies Book.
You'll get some basic info on the keyboard, how to sit, how to hold hands, some theory, etc.
I can't tell you how helpful it was for me when I just began learning the guitar. Even thought me how to change strings. Yay! Or find a friend to teach you the basics. People are surprisingly helpful.

2. Have a basic idea of what songs you'd like to play, and how good you want to get.
So you'll know where the hell you're going and why you're practicing. Classical or more contemporary music? Very demanding pieces or just some simple tunes?

3. Spend some time on it.
I'd recommend at least 30 minutes a day. If you're lazy, split it into 15-15 or 10-10-10. A little bit everyday is way better than a lot once a week.

4. Be patient with yourself, and start as slow as you need
Your fingers haven't really memorized the movements, so when you just start, just move your hands really slow. Don't try to rush. A good thing to remember is that precision can't be added to speed, but speed can be added to precision. So just increase the speed incrementally, and enjoy your snail paced version of songs. It's only temporary, so don't be disheartened.

5. Fool around with your keyboard.
Try to figure out some simple melodies on your keyboard. Just use the white keys for this.

I think that's pretty much it. And remember to enjoy it. That's why you're learning to play, right?

[Marth]

Same here, I'm starting. I'm just using some tutorials from youtube vids. Working out okay, I bring the laptop to the piano & go from there.

[wolfgang]

practice with a metronome!

record yourself and listen back

once you can play a piece through at a certain tempo, play it even slower a couple times and then at the target tempo. playing it at a slower tempo more often than the target tempo.

to practice moving your hand/fingers into positions, set the metronome really slow, play the first position, move your hand/finger way ahead of time to where the next note(s) is then wait for the right time to play the note. this makes it so you hand gets used to being in position before playing the note, otherwise you can end up rushing your hand into position and not really being on target when you try to up the tempo.

if you are playing through a piece with the metronome and make a mistake, keeping playing, do not stop and repeat the section. you need to be able to keep playing in the face of mistakes. otherwise you'll end up having a studder in your playing. but do go back to the section and work it out afterwards. it is ok to replay sections if you are just figuring out the notes with no metronome going to get hand positions/fingerings sorted out.

also, once you can play a piece through, let the metronome click and look at the music and imagine playing it and hearing it in your head.

learn music theory. that will open up improvisation. you could just play chords in the left hand and find notes/lines/melodies in the right hand.

[wolfgang]

Curious what keyboards you all have?

I just recently picked up the Casio Privia px-320 that is portable and has good hammer action feel like a real piano. Great bang for the bucks. I have difficulty playing it with headphones though. I think I need to feel vibration in the keys or something.

[GhostGoat]

Wow, that's great advice Wolfgang. I only play keyboards a little, but I play a couple of other instruments and grew up with a piano in the house. (I have a crappy Yamaha keyboard, not sure of the model but its a cheapie).

Anyhow to take Wolfgang's statement about learning music theory to open up improvisation a little further, here's how I approached this subject, based on what musical knowledge I already had.

A lot, if not most, of rock music is in the keys of E and A, so the following is directed with that in mind. Once you are comfortable playing the E and A major chords with your left hand, learn the pentatonic minor scale in the key of E. Its a simple five note scale, all white keys:

E G A B D E

The pentatonic minor is basically the blues scale (minus one note), but it also is a big part of rock music, and all pop music in general.

Noodle around with that scale with your right hand, while you play the E chord with your left (tip: start out your right hand phrases with the E note, which is the tonic note of the key you are in). After a while try alternating playing the E and A chords with your left hand while continuing to play notes in the E pentatonic minor scale with your right. (Starting out, I'd just concentrate on a one or two octave area with your right hand, before playing way up the keyboard).

(There are many left hand patterns to be learned later, boogie woogie shuffles, walking bass lines, etc., that sound good and are easy to play, but for now I'd stick with just the regular chords for the left hand).

Once you are comfortable with the E pentatonic minor scale, learn the A minor pentatonic. Its also all white keys:

A C D E G A


Practice this scale primarily with your left hand playing the A chord, then try mixing the D and E chords in.

Also, try alternating between playing the E chord with the E pentatonic minor, to the A chord with the A pentatonic minor scale. Go back and forth between the two and really get comfortable playing them.

To play in the country scale, just transpose the scale 3 notes down on the keyboard (don't forget to include the black keys as you are counting keys). Always start the scale with the root note of the key you are playing in.

For instance in the key of A, the country scale is:

A B C# E F# A



In the key of E, its:


E F# G# B C# E

Now you may not be interested in playing country, but the scale is actually used a lot in rock music too (Stones, the Dead, Eagles, etc.). And when you mix the country scale and the pentatonic minor scale together, you get the rock scale, as used by everyone from Chuck Berry to AC/DC to Metallica:

Key of E:

E F# G G# B A B C# D E

Key of A:

A B C C# D E F# G A

When playing these, concentrate on emphasizing the notes found in the minor pentatonic, particularly your root tonic notes (E in the key of E, A in the key of A). Use the notes from the country scale as passing notes (filler notes between the notes of the pentatonic minor).

Well I hope I didn't confuse anyone with this, I hope some of you gain from my shortcuts in learning to improvise. To be sure, there is a wealth of musical joy to be found in more advanced chords and more exotic scales, but it all pretty much starts with this.

Good luck!

[allen080105]

I've been playing piano/keyboard on and off for about 15 years. Done closing acts for huge recitals, played for churches, school plays, romantic interests I was really forced to do it early on which was completely frustrating. I barely practiced and would often have to repeat the same lesson multiple times. There's really so much out there now, I believe you can definitely teach yourself. Through our lessons we really just used Alfred's Piano Course Books, and looking back I think I could have gotten to where I am now by myself especially with those books because they pretty much lay it out for you. The problem was personal development lol. I had no desire to do it, didn't focus on the end goal, didn't know how to break down big problems into smaller ones, no time management skills to be able to set aside some time to practice etc....this led to me quitting for years, coming back, hiring different teachers, being frustrated and practically dragged to lessons, parents wasting a lot of money...etc. I absolutely love it now though. I spend hours a day just listening to stuff I create. I guess what I'm trying to say is if u know the success process it really doesn't matter what you want to do. You can achieve it.

[JimOfferman]

I think you can get quite far on your own, but there is one thing that is important to learn correctly early on: how to move your hands across the keyboard. It will be easy to get right now, but very hard to fix later when you have to basically unlearn a bunch of stuff. I'd recommend taking a few lessons for this, but if you want to try for yourself:

Start with the thumb of your right hand on the central C and your right hand fingers on the four subsequent tones (D, E, F, G). Your fingers should arch graciously on the keyboard. From this position, we'll start playing the C scale by first pressing down C (thumb), D (index finger), E (middle finger) and then you move your thumb underneath your fingers to the F key and press down. Next, your fingers move up to G (index), A (middle), B (ring), C (pink) and then you continue the scale by pressing those keys one by one. This is how you move up the on the keyboard.

Going down, you start with your pink on C' (that is one octave above the central C, exactly where your pink ended in the previous exercise). The sequence now is C' (pink), B (ring), A (middle), G (index), F (thumb). At this point your middle finger moves over your thumb to the E and presses down. Then your index finger presses down D and finally your thumb lands back on C. This is how you move down on the keyboard.

Once you can do this smoothly within the octave, you can extend the sequence to cover the whole keyboard. For your left hand, you have to mirror this (PM me if you need explanation).

You don't have to learn this technique, but if you don't, you'll create a glass ceiling for yourself. Some music will simply be unplayable if you cannot do this properly.

[sk8joyful]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Hey, I just wanted to add that I'm in a similar situation, having recently brought a pretty keyboard, and not really sure how to progress, I found some free sheet music online printed that out, and started playing, which is pretty easy and free, some sites e.g this one give you i based on level 1, 2, 3 etc. so you can progress through the levels which could be useful. The most important thing is to practice lots though, am sure if we do that we will persevere.

Free Piano Music!

Thats the site has probably a couple of hundred of free pdf downloads, if you worked from the first to the last and got them all good, you would improve a whole lot. Now just set an aggressive time scale, I'l race you if you want to see who can get to the end fastest? hehe

Also I can't afford an instructor, but have several friends who play, and am sure you do too, so if you ask people nicely they may help you with tricky bits, that's my plan anyway. And I may also print out the last piece as an aspiration, I think I will try and get them all done by Christmas... that is if you want to race.

4th and final edit lol, the last piece is 30 pages and is Pathetique, which sounds awesome if you listen to the midi, if I can play that by Christmas I would be very happy.

5th edit, so I lied, he also has workbooks available, which may help you with learning to read music, which would probably be fairly important, I'm ok, but will probably do the workbooks anyway just to increase my understanding and stuff.
Also I'd like to just note that I am in no way affiliated with this website, and there are probably dozens of others which do the same thing, I just found this one first.

Thanks! for sharing this site

[runningbird]

Originally Posted by Carl Carlson IV

I bought a pretty nice keyboard in June which has basically been collecting dust. I played it a decent amount for the first few weeks, now lately it's been once biweekly, if that. I absolutely love the piano and the music that can be created, so I must learn it.

I'd like to learn it on my own, although lessons aren't out of the question. The main reason I don't want to get lessons is basically financial, but I could find a way to afford them if it comes down to that. I can read notes, and know what notes are on the piano, but still need some time to be able to play something. I can't just print a sheet of music and play it, I usually have to sit down before hand and write A G D E B B above the notes (probably a bad habit I should stop doing at some point).

Does anyone have any tips? Suggestions? Know of any good websites? (I Googled and couldn't come up with much). Has anyone learned an instrument on their own? Should I just suck it and up and see if I can find an instructor?

I have been watching this guy's videos: YouTube - #9 Circle of fifths tutorial; How to draw a circle of fifths (circle of keys)

Over ten hours of teaching I'd say. I thought he was a pretty big dork at first but he can be pretty funny. He starts really slow but you'd be surprised what you can forget. I'm on lesson 9 if you follow that link.

[Carl Carlson IV]

It's been quite a while, but I've had some success. I haven't dedicated as much time to this as I would have liked, but I'm happy with my ability up to this point. I tried watching some videos online for training and what not but nothing really helped.

As for learning songs I found what worked best for me was printing off the sheet music and writing C, C#, A, B, etc above the note and slowly learning each section. I still can't pick up a sheet of music and just play it, but I'm slowly getting better.

I find it more enjoyable to just freestyle and create my own stuff. Nothing is very complicated that I have came up with, but I find it much more fun than destroying the timeless tunes of others! I have come up with a couple of jingles mashed together that are fun to play, so if you want to learn the piano one way to go at it is to just start pushing keys, see what sounds like what and what goes together. It's pretty simple to create a neat sounding melody!