Learning to play the piano can be challenging. Here are ten helpful hints and tricks to make the experience much more manageable and enjoyable.
Learning to Play the Piano is a challenging experience. Here are ten helpful tips and tricks to motivate and inspire your endeavor. Follow them, and you will find that learning how to play the piano really isn't quite as intimidating as you may have thought.
1. The First Few Weeks are hard and you will be tempted to quit. Don't do it! Learning to play the piano is a beautiful and rewarding experience. Keep at it, and you will be blessed with a lifetime of enjoyment.
2. Figure out how you are going to start learning. Will it be with a music teacher? In this case check out the classified ads in your local paper. Sometimes local community colleges might be a cheaper alternative. Or maybe you might want to consider taking an online course. After all these are much more affordable, and are especially good choices for those of us who learn better on our own.
3. There are electronic devices out there that can help you along your learning path. The Piano Maestro for instance, is a strip of lights that you lay out on your keyboard. When the light comes on, play the key. Pretty simple huh? But also very effective, and definitely worth checking out. Also various software online, some available for completely free can greatly enhance the learning experience.
4. As well as learning the techniques of playing the piano, make sure you dedicate at least some time every week to surrounding yourself in the culture of piano. This can be anything from learning about the history of the instrument, watching documentaries, to just listening to your favorite classical or contemporary artists.
5. Speaking of dedicating time, this is super important. You must, absolutely must, figure out a practicing regime for yourself and stick to it at all cost. No excuses. Either before work or after. Early morning or late night. Set up a schedule that you keep day in day out. Practice playing the piano two hours per day maximum, or else you will burn yourself out. One hour for practicing the techniques, and one hour for reading, theory, culture, etc.
6. Start with easy songs. Try learning something by one of your favorite contemporary piano musicians. Then, push yourself to harder and harder material. Even if your goal is solely to play popular modern music. If you strive to learn some challenging classical piano pieces, soon playing those contemporary songs will become a piece of cake, and your confidence will be through the roof.
7. Here are some pointers to learning a new song on the piano once you have mastered a little technique, and learned how to read music. Sight read the piece. Try to imagine what it will sound like in your head. Look out for any particularly difficult passages. Then go through the song with the right hand first. Next go through it with the left. Once you are starting to get comfortable with both, one at a time, combine them, and just see what happens. Now slowly try to work through each phrase until you've mastered it, and then move to the next.
8. Do your best to not repeat mistakes when learning piano. If you find a particularly challenging phrase, practice it until you can nail it every time. By simply moving on to the next, thinking that you'll get it eventually, you are simply reinforcing failure as an option, which just leads to sloppy piano playing technique. If you truly want to master piano, you must learn piano the right way from the start.
9. Know which notes you are playing on the piano. By this I mean, that you should be able to not only play the piece by reading the sheet music. You should also be able to play the piece from memory, and furthermore, you should be able to recite each note individually, as well as have some grasp of how each note will sound. Not all people are capable of perfect pitch, however, imagining piano music in your mind will improve your technique a great deal. Give it a shot.
10. The Final Tip to Learning Piano Successfully is discipline. Yes, learning to play the piano is not going to be easy. There will be many challenges, many of them mental and psychological. You are going to have to overcome your desires to give up. The end result is a marvelous achievement, the pleasures of which most people will never know. But you will. Stick to your routine, follow the hints in this guide, and you will successfully learn how to play the piano.
Thanks for reading this helpful little guide. Hopefully you found some useful information, maybe a few ideas, and hopefully a little inspiration. Once again, good luck on your journey to learning the piano.
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