Posts Tagged ‘Learn To Play Piano’

Piano Lesson: For Piano Beginners

Friday, March 13th, 2009

Playing piano can be a wonderful experience. If you want to start playing piano sheet music you need to know a few of the conventions used in western sheet music notation. Let’s make a little journey through the music notation djungle!

First we might notice that the piano as we are used to play have been around for some time. Around 500 years or more. Playing keyboards is in other words a rather old art. This means that the conventions as to how to play keyboard instruments and how to notate the music have had some time to develop.

As you might know a piano has 88 keys. This means a full sized piano but you will find keyboards with a considerably less amount of keys. however, the order of the white and black keys are the same.

How can you learn to play piano?

Well, as you might know little children don’t have too much problem with this question. The just hammer on!

At least one thing you can learn from children. To learn to play you have to play. That is an important beginning!

Do you need sheet music in order to start playing the piano? Well, the before mentioned children have already answered the question with a definite no!

Some accomplished pianists have never used sheet music at all and play entirely by ear or by reading chords in songs. This type of pianists usually learn songs by listening to recordings or just by playing from memory. It works fine and many very fine musicians and pianist have used this approach.

Other pianist have always played sheet music and would feel very uneasy confronted with a keyboard without their music sheets. Maybe they have learned pieces by heart and have a large repertoire of piano solos but they have never improvised or played by ear. Even these pianists can create great music.

I would suggest that you use the best parts of both these approaches as you learn to play piano. Take time to develop your ear and improvise but also to make a conscious effort to learn to play piano sheet music.

One way to learn to read sheet music with a concentrated effort is to read a piano solo and trying to understand all signs and symbols in the music.

Try to tap the rhythm and as you become more skilled you can try to sing or hear the music in your head. This is a very effective way to really get into learning sheet music.

Here are some symbols you will find as you read a piece of piano sheet music:

You will find vertical lines in the music that divides the notes in groups. These lines are called barlines and the distance between two of these barlines are called a measure.

Sometimes you will find two dots at the end of a section and also a double bar. The two dots are called a repeat sign indicating that you should play the section twice.

The elaborated G is called the G clef and indicates the position of the note G in the treble note staff. It is also called the treble clef.

The left hand notes are mainly situated in the bass clef or the F clef because the two dots indicates the note F.

It will be a great help for you to study the sheet music before you play a piece of music, rehearsing the names of the notes and preparing yourself for a pleasant encounter with the music behind the dots.

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Piano Lesson: Six Tips On How To Create And Keep Your Motivation

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

How can you create and keep your motivation to play the piano? In other words, how can you increase and keep the joy of playing the piano? The cause that made you start playing in the first place!

1. Before setting goals

Sometimes the reason why we don’t keep our piano playing goals is that we haven’t been honest with ourselves when we set the goals. Before setting the your goals you have to decide why you want to play piano. Make an honest survey of your assets and wishes in the area of piano playing.

2. Setting goals

In order to set goals that you will actually work towards you have to be honest with yourself. Do I really want to accomplish these goals. Will I really feel good when I reach my goals?

3. Having a repertoire

One common reason for starting to play the piano is to be able to play the pieces of music you like. This means that as you learn to play piano, a goal might be to learn a number of piano pieces, let’s say five melodies, by heart so you can play them in any setting.

These five pieces of piano music is to be learned so well that you don’t have to worry if you are asked to play.

One reason for having a repertoire with piano pieces throughoutly rehearsed is that you can feel that you perform at the top of your ability.

4. Always perform

One great way to create motivation to practice on your piano is to always perform in front of other people in different ways. A way to creating momentum to practise your piano repertoire is to set up an informal concert with a couple of pieces in the setting of your own home.

Your family will be your public. There are many occasions for having someone performing music in the home and maybe you will stimulate others in your family or among your friends to play on their instruments in such a setting. Of course you have to plan ahead in order to suggest a performance and in order to prepare yourself.

5. But if you don’t like to perform?

You can actually practice the art of performing on your piano without people present. One way is to use your imagination and pretend that you perform in front of others. If you want to help your imagination a bit you can put empty chairs in front of you representing the audience.

On such an occasion you have to exercise self discipline and play those pieces in your actual program from beginning to end. If you would make a mistake in front of a public, what would you do? Probably you would want to minimize the effect of this mistake and just play on. This is what you have to practice even in this setting.

This will create self confidence in your ability to handle mistakes and will also help you find weaknesses you can improve upon in your playing.

This is also an excellent time to record your performance for later evaluation. The act of recording is like having a critic in the public.

6. Listen to piano music

You have to look upwards in order to climb to a higher level in your piano playing and this will be accomplished by listening to piano players on an higher artistic level than yourself.

At last a piano playing qoute from an unknown author:

“One man gets nothing but discord out of a piano; another gets harmony. No one claims the piano is at fault. Life is about the same. The discord is there, and the harmony is there. Study to play it correctly, and it will give forth the beauty; play it falsely, and it will give forth the ugliness. Life is not at fault.”

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5 Best Ways To Learn To Play Piano

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

Thinking about learning to play the piano. Here are the top 5 best ways to learn to play piano:

1) Learn From A Teacher

One of the 5 best ways to learn to play piano is to learn from an experienced teacher. A teacher is of sorts, a live database of highly trained skills. So having access to one is more than appropriate, it’s a gift! Of course the better the teacher — the better your skills. So one of your first tasks in learning piano is to find a *good* teacher. We recommend learning from a teacher who has a degree in music and who regularly performs somewhere. The degree will ensure that you’re being taught the basics, and the regular performances will ensure that your teacher practices what she preaches! After all, it’s one thing to “say” what we should do, but it’s an entirely different thing to actually “do” what we should do. A teacher who plays the piano on a regular basis therefore continues to learn, and the lessons that she learns will be passed on to you.

2) Learn From Piano Software Lessons

Piano software lessons are unique tools that hook up to a MIDI Digital keyboard/piano, and they give feedback during play. If you make a mistake, the software will let you know so that you correct it. This feedback makes these tools invaluable but not 100% effective. Some people claim that these tools are as effective as teachers, but their emotional-less qualities make comparing piano software lessons to physical tutors a bit far-fetched. Learning from this resource *will* teach you how to play and is great for busy people but don’t stop here. Using software without some form of follow-up with a teacher will only teach you to play like a machine instead of a human!

3) Learn From Multimedia Books and Videos

Multimedia books and videos are appropriate alternatives for those who keep unusual schedules or who live in remote areas. Being multimedia, these resources exist on the Internet and they can be accessed any time of the day. Some of these tools can be downloaded and accessed from your own computer, while other tools are accessible on the web. To get full use, you’ll need a computer system that’s up-to-date, equipped with a DSL Internet connection, and capable of displaying uninterrupted streaming data. There’s nothing more aggravating than trying to learn from a video that repeatedly starts and stops.

4) Learn From Playing Piano By Ear

Many accomplished piano players learned to play by ear and some have never swayed from it. We contend that playing by ear serves as an easy introduction to the piano. But it’s an introduction that should lead to reading sheet music — a skill that every pianist should have. After learning from both approaches, you’ll find that they’re seemingly inseparable. A large part of playing music after all, depends heavily on listening skills. Learning to play piano by ear first will thus refine your listening skills and eventually make reading sheet music a lot easier.

5) Learn From Chord-Based Piano Lessons

As one of the fastest ways to learn to play piano, chord-based piano lessons provide quick access to what could several months to learn. Bear in mind that chord-based piano lessons will teach you how to create accompaniment — not melodies.

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