Jon Broderick asked:


Learning piano for beginners is not easy. Not just pianists, but for any musician learning a new instrument the beginning is the hardest time. Piano lessons can help big-time, but still the fingers just won't do what the mind tells them. It takes a while for real dexterity to come along.

I should know, I have been playing guitar for over thirty years, but have just recently started working on playing piano. I haven't taken piano lessons (who has the time?), but I hope I can work it out myself. I do have a really solid music theory background, which I think makes a big difference. I look at the piano keys and I know what they are and what to do to build chords and scales, and create beautiful music. But...the hands! They just won't listen. So I play simple piano scales and exercises that sound boring but are useful to get my skill started.

I would like to have something to show for my efforts besides these simple patterns, and I found something today that is just thing: a showy trick that even a beginner can do to give a glimpse of what the future might be like if I keep practicing the piano.

I am a webmaster by profession and recently created a website with a friend who is a piano teacher. His name is Christopher Schlegel, and he has put some great lessons together on the site, which is called PianoTricks.com. One lesson in particular is called "Chord Arpeggiation Trick" and it is available at this url:

http://www.pianotricks.com/lesson.php?input=28.

The lesson includes a video example, and some explanation. The lesson is totally free and available without website registration or anything like that. The great thing about this lesson, and the reason I am writing about it, is this: it takes the simple skills that I as a piano beginner have, and lets me show off a little bit but doing something the pros do: arpeggiate a chord.

Before you get scared, arpeggios are the same as chords, except in an arpeggio, the chord is played one note at a time, instead of all notes at the same time. This makes a very fluid sound, but also very consonant, because the notes flow together (they are part of the same chord "family"). This also makes it a little easier to play, since you don't have to time all the fingers hitting at the same time (like in a normal chord).

The trick you will see in the video is that Christopher plays a simple major chord with both hands repeating the same chord up the piano octave by octave. The end result sounds like a flourishing move that expert pianists make; only it is so easy to do. Try it yourself and see. It has really made my day as a beginning piano student to try this lesson. I hope you get a lot out of it too.

How to learn to play the piano

Duane Shinn asked:


When learning how to play piano, free opportunities present themselves all over the Internet. Most notably, many websites offer quick step-by-step lessons, as well as free online sheet music, which beginning pianists can use to learn how to play piano at no cost. Obviously, like any free service, these should be approached with caution, and many should be taken with a grain of salt. After all, they are free for a reason. In spite of everything the Internet has to offer, most of the best ways to learn piano still involve paying money to a highly qualified professional instructor of some kind.

Whether you are learning how to play piano using free lessons, or you are using a pay service, any high-quality learning process begins with the fundamentals. It is one thing to show a few diagrams and to instruct the beginning pianist where to put her fingers; it is quite another thing to instill in the pianist's mind a real understanding of the structures, systems, and theories that every great piano player must have internalized.

Thus, when learning how to play piano, free or through a pay service, make sure that the instructions use real musical terms, rather than downgraded proxy terms. That is, for example, an instruction shouldn't refer to notes on the piano as numbers or as fingers; instead, the instruction should use the actual names of the notes -- C, D, B flat, G sharp, and so on.

In other words, a beginning pianist wants to internalize the fundamentals of music as early as possible. If you feel like your ability to play music is proceeding faster than your actual knowledge of piano and music, then there is something wrong with your instruction. Both the skills and the knowledge should go hand in hand.

When starting out, the budding pianist can expect to be assigned a lot of repetitive tasks. She will have to play a lot of scales, arpeggios, and simple songs that are designed to help piano students master the complex methods of keyboard fingering. This is normal, and in fact, it is necessary. Any piano lesson program that doesn't involve a lot of repetitive tasks is probably not the best way to learn how to play piano. Free lesson plans are often guilty of this.

This repetition is what leads a lot of beginning pianists to give up very early, but for the more persistent, things do get better. After a while, when you have internalized the fingering techniques that every pianist must master, songs will grow more complex, and then the repetition becomes a joy. For pianists who are a little further along in the learning process, there is nothing more pleasurable than opening a book to a seemingly incomprehensible notation and working at it until it becomes a beautiful piece of music.

For now, though, most of the songs played by beginners are relatively simple and straightforward, not involving a lot of sharps or flats, and not requiring the pianist to move her hands around a lot. In fact, most songs will be in the easiest key -- C major -- and won't deviate from standard hand positions.

Of course, this will all change when you begin to learn about more complex chords, more difficult keys, and more convoluted melodic structures. Once the basics are learned, it won't take long before these fun elements come into play.

In short, what I have been driving at is that starting to learn the piano rarely offers instant gratification. When learning how to play the piano, free services tend to offer unrealistic, quick goals. In reality, learning piano is a gradual process that involves lots of practice, lots of repetition, and a strong commitment on the part of the pianist.

D.J.Hough asked:


There are many and varied reasons to have piano lessons. It is a beautiful instrument with a beautiful look and a beautiful sound. It can be a soloist's instrument or a group instrument. It sharpens the mind and body. The gift of music is therapeutic. There are many careers that require piano skills. The list goes on and on.

1.One quality that the piano and not many other instruments share, is that you can play more than one note at a time. It is polyphonic. Thus, unlike instruments like the flute or violin, you can play pieces with complex and rich harmonies when playing alone. That makes the piano a dynamic solo instrument. At the same time, the piano sounds beautiful accompanying other instruments. So, whether you are introverted or extroverted, the piano will suit your style.

2. Playing the piano also develops a high level of manual dexterity. While it may seem very simple to just push the keys, learning to perform complex pieces with precision AND emotion needs a little time and a very human touch. It has also been noted that co-ordination skills increase when you have piano lessons.

3.Research has shown that children who have had piano lessons do far better in scholastically than their fellow students. Not only are their artistic and musical skills above the norm, but also their language and mathematics skills are also improved. While this benefit is sometimes difficult to measure, piano students also receive a very tangible benefit. Many high schools are recognizing the achievements that children make in piano and reward them with high school credits when they pass certain grade levels. (In Alberta, Canada, passing a recognized piano exam level/grade 6, 7, and 8 is worth 5 credits each for a total of 15. When you consider the fact that one needs only 100 credits to graduate high school, this is a huge recognition)

4.Pianists also learn some basics in posture which can reap huge rewards. For one thing, the basic hand position required for the piano is also the one required for the typewriter/keyboard. Considering how vital the computer is these days, learning this technique is invaluable. With the proper hand position, one can avoid carpal tunnel syndrome that is plaguing our modern-day offices now that computers are being used so extensively. At the very least, the basic concept of sitting tall in a chair will help with basic posture and back pains.

5. Anyone aspiring to be an orchestral or choral conductor is required to study the piano. Learning the piano trains the pianist to understand and hear the interplay of the various harmonic lines in each piece of music. This is a vital skill for a conductor who must hear and guide all the instruments of his/her orchestra and voices in his/her choir. If you go to colleges which teach music, or if you are applying towards a degree in music or you want to learn to master an instrument at a university it is necessary to take a year or more of piano. Piano is a really good music classroom teaching tool and is the key and basis to learning music theory.

6.Since the piano differs from the guitar or wind instruments (in which the person usually memorizes finger paterns) the piano uses both hemispheres of the brain, requiring your ten fingers to be controlled independently! This might sound hard but with practice and time you'll be able to even do more than one thing simultaneously. A piano player who decides to play drums, if skilled enough can pick them up more easily than someone who hasn't had the experience to play such instrument.

7.There are many jobs and careers for people who have had piano lessons. One can be the piano player in a lounge, on a cruise ship, in a church (mass, weddings, funerals), or in a band. One can be an instructor with a college or university or teach out of a home studio. One can accompanying vocalists, choirs, violinists, and others as they perform for competition or for an audience. One can compose movie scores or commercial jingles or orchestral pieces.

8.The ability to play a musical instrument and to express one's self with a musical instrument is very healthy and therapeutic. Stresses can melt away. The piano is always there, ready for you to pour out your soul. It is a most patient and agreeable companion. If you're upset, go ahead and thunder away on the keyboard. And when you're done and feeling better, go ahead and pick up a more languid or cheerful piece.

The Internet is the best way to find good piano lessons (no geographical barriers/ no re-occurring fees and no stranger in your house). The best piano lesson learning tool that I have found is here.

Learn piano gospel

Duane Shinn asked:


Proper piano instruction is an element extremely vital to learning the instrument well. Though it's very possible to be a self-taught piano player, piano lessons can really increase the speed and efficiency with which one learns the instrument.

That's not to say that great piano instruction makes great piano players overnight; even the most naturally talented pianists still play for years before they consider themselves advanced. But proper piano lesson instructions will maximize those years to the fullest and ensure that the student is learning the correct techniques.

Though teaching styles always vary from instructor to instructor, piano instruction generally covers the same basic areas: fingering, music reading, scales, technique, and sight reading. The early lessons will cover fingering and posture, making sure the student knows how to hold his or her hands and where to put them on the keys; series of scales practiced repeatedly will be the basis of this area. Piano instruction will then move on to notation essentials, starting with the basics of notes and key signatures and time signatures and then moving forward to more advanced concepts in rhythm, tempo and dynamics.

Many of these concepts are introduced into the piano instruction while the student is learning to read music, a practice that runs through the entire course of the piano instruction. Teachers will assign short, easy pieces to kick start the student's music reading knowledge and eventually move forward to more advanced pieces. Sight reading, the ability to play a piece of music without ever having seen it, is sometimes placed sporadically throughout the piano instruction, after a student is fairly well-versed in reading music.

One crucial element of piano playing that is often left out of traditional piano lessons is the study and practice of chords and music theory. To learn to read music without understanding the theory behind the music and the chords and chord progressions that form the music is almost like teaching a surgeon to cut without understanding the human anatomy and it's interrelated parts. The student will be able to play the piano from a piece of sheet music, but take that music away or have it blow off the piano and he or she is immediately in big trouble.

There is a famous anecdote about a lady who was a concert pianist and could impress people with her playing, yet when asked to play "Happy Birthday" at a party had to decline with great embarrassment because she didn't have sheet music for the song handy. To be tied to the written music is a shame, when learning chords and music theory adds so much to the value of piano instruction.

Given a healthy dose of music theory and chord instruction mixed in, all of the other elements of piano instruction eventually begin to work hand in hand. Piano instruction then becomes an intricate web of gaining bits of detailed knowledge little by little and understanding the music that's being played without fully realizing that it's being gained.

Playing the piano then becomes more fun and a joyful event that can be shared with full understanding of the music theory and form and chord structure that lies behind each song.

Paul Tobey asked:


One of the greatest thrills a pianist can have is to be able to sit at the piano and just play; without music and without thought. Unfortunately many pianists never learn to do this. They are closely tied to their music because that’s not only what’s comfortable for them that’s the way they learned.

However, what if I were to tell you that in as little as ten piano lessons you could be playing your favorite melodies without music and also be able to improvise as well? Would that be something you’d be interested in? Take a moment and picture you sitting at the piano at a party and just playing. How does it feel? Great, that’s what you need to feel if you’re going to do what it takes to learn properly.

Let’s get started. In our first piano lesson, you must understand how music is structured in order to be able to improvise. Most western music is based on what we call tertian harmony, which simply means chord structures that are based on intervals of three. For example a C major chord is made up of the notes C E and G. Each of these notes is spaced a third away from the next.

So, assuming that all chords are based on tertian harmony, then next thing you need to know is where do the notes we choose for our chords come from? Well, they come directly out of a major or minor scale. For example; let’s take a C major scale which is C D E F G A B and back to C. When we build chords on top of each of the notes of a major scale we would build them in intervals of 3 and the quality of the chord (major or minor) is determined by the scale.

That means just like our C major chord which is C E and G (notes chosen from the major scale), our F major chord would be F A and C, where A and C are notes from the C major scale. We wouldn’t use for example Ab or C# because they do not come from the C major scale. Likewise for a G major chord, G B and D, the note B and D come also from the C major scale.

The number of the chord is important as well. Since our C major chord is built on the first note of the scale we call this one (1). The F major chord is four (4) because it is built on the 4th note of the C major scale. And, the G major chord is five (5) because it’s the 5th note of the C major scale.

Coincidentally, the chords C, F and G or 1, 4 and 5 are what most classical and popular music is based upon. The vast majority of songs use the chord progression 4, 5 to 1 which is the most common chord progression there is.

Understanding the 4, 5, 1 chord progression is essential to understating how to improvise. Knowing that 4 is followed usually by 5 and then resolving to 1 is of high importance if you wish to be able to play your favorite music without using sheet music.

In our next piano lesson we’ll discuss how to substitute richer chords for the 4, 5, 1 progression and how to choose our melody notes so as to create and improvisational theme.

Learn piano playing