The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Playing Piano [1st day noob]
4rch3nemy
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I want to learn how to play piano.
I own an 88-key midi-controller but I basically can't play a single thing, at ALL. I don't know the theory. I don't know which keys are which. I don't know how to read sheet music. I don't even know if there are such things as piano tabs. I don't know a damned thing.
I want to play Final Fantasy stuff, classical stuff, Moonlight Sonata stuff, etc. I want online resources. I want any tips at ALL.
Sooooo.. I'm here. 8)
TL;DR: Noob wants to learn how to play classical piano and doesn't know ANYTHING.
I own an 88-key midi-controller but I basically can't play a single thing, at ALL. I don't know the theory. I don't know which keys are which. I don't know how to read sheet music. I don't even know if there are such things as piano tabs. I don't know a damned thing.
I want to play Final Fantasy stuff, classical stuff, Moonlight Sonata stuff, etc. I want online resources. I want any tips at ALL.
Sooooo.. I'm here. 8)
TL;DR: Noob wants to learn how to play classical piano and doesn't know ANYTHING.
4rch3nemy on
0
Posts
If you can't find anyone, music shops should have flyers, listings, etc.
Diamond Friend Code: 0043 9432 1473
I wanna do it the DIY way and learnz from the interwebz!
The point I'm making is that if you do teach yourself, you'll be fucked later on. Let's face it, you can only go so far with self-teaching. Once you do decide to take lessons, you'll be at a serious disadvantage. Work smarter, not harder.
Diamond Friend Code: 0043 9432 1473
The piano is probably one of the easiest instruments to start learning (don't have to worry about being in tune, or how to blow/bow correctly) but possibly the hardest to perfect.
Anyway, here's what I can tell you:
W = white
B = black
The keys go W-B-W-B-W-W-B-W-B-W-B-W
Look for this pattern near the middle of your keyboard. The first white key in that pattern will be middle C. Middle C is called middle C because on piano music, it is the note in the middle between the bass clef and the treble clef.
Here's a more in-depth explanation with an accompanying diagram:
http://members.dancris.com/~bfraser/etc/DomainRules.html
The 'second piano lesson' is one you want to concentrate a lot on if you want to start reading music. The third one is a little too in-depth right now.
Some tips -
Keep your fingernails short. You also do not want to play with 'flat fingers' - a very bad habit; it'll make playing well much harder later on. You want to keep your wrist and palm off the piano, curving your hand as if there is a little mouse under your hand.
Many piano pieces will come with little numbers above the notes - 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5. These are fingering marks. 1 = thumb, 5 = little finger, etc. Pay attention to these! They're in place to make the piece as simple as possible to play.
Rather than trying to learn lots of notes all at once and then learning the other things that go into piano playing, try and learn all of them together, but slowly. For example, if you can learn phrasing and dynamics early on, it will come more naturally to you and your playing will sound much better. Hitting the right notes is only half the battle. Some notes are played smoothly, and some notes are played short and sharply. Some notes need to be played loud, and some quiet. Piano music (and music in general) is riddled with these kind of directions. You might be able to find a small phrase book that lists these directions and terms - it'll come in very useful. Most of the terms are Italian.
Practise scales!
EDIT: This really isn't even touching the tip of the iceberg. Seriously, please do consider lessons. Seriously.
If you really want to learn to play, take lessons.
2. You cannot learn how to play the piano on a MIDI keyboard, even the best ones on the market. It's like trying to learn the harp by twanging on a rubber band. Touch, technique, action, feel, everything that matters is completely wrong - they play like an organ, not like a piano.
3. You can learn where the notes are and where to position your hand for chords on a MIDI keyboard.
4. Buy a book on music harmony, and get learning. To read music you will need to know this, and to learn anything from anyone else you will need to understand what they are saying, ie below.
5. Nobody ever wants to hear this, but the best way (and in the long run, the quickest way) to learn the piano is to start by learning every common tonic chord in every major & minor key (about 96 of them) for every note of the scale, and the scales & arpeggios for the same, until you can play them forwards & backwards with your eyes shut while dead drunk and holding an indepth conversation with a world expert on the socio-economic policies of Burundi while you do the 9467.3942 multiplication table in your head.
Since you can do the chord part of this on your keyboard - and this is where you need a basic understanding of harmony - you can start by:
First, with one hand. Learn the full major triad chords (I, III, V, VIII, those 4 notes for each chord) from middle C up an octave then down again, so:
C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, Bb, B, C.
Do this until you are fluent in both directions.
Second, do the above with two hands.
Third, with one hand, learn the full minor triad chords the same way.
Fourth, with two hands, the same.
Fifth to infinity, learn 7th chords, 6th chords, diminished chords, augmented chords, etc etc etc.
Then find a real piano, and start doing the same for scales and arpeggios (you need a real touch for those, if you learn on a MIDI keyboard, you will a) be a terrible, terrible piano player, and b) have to unlearn it all at a later date if you ever want to play the classical stuff you mentioned.
The trick is this: learn those chords until you can literally do them blindfolded and your fingers automatically find the correct place on the keyboard, just as they probably do while you were typing your inital post. Once you can do that, every piece of music (which in some form uses those chord structures) will be a thousand times easier to learn & pick up, as your fingers will know where to go, even if you aren't thinking about it. The downside is that rote learning chords & scales is not the most exciting pastime in the world.
Infinity+1: Really, take lessons.
[EGO ALERT!] Qualifications for telling you this: i r classically trained pianist & play this stuff [/EGO ALERT]
PS That link above reminds me: there are plenty of books / methods on learning piano which vastly overcomplicate the whole process and dive straight into obscure terminology for chords (which, by the way, varies all over the world, so a UK book will call everything different names to a US book) and so on. They also make ill-advised generalisations about piano playing - ie that page saying 'in piano music you play chords, not scales', which is patently untrue; as any fule listening to any jazz pianist or classical concerto can tell, you play both. A lot.
The best advice, in my opinion, is to ignore all this, and work it out for yourself. Learn the harmonic basics so you can identify chords and notes on a page. Then sit in front of a keyboard while you are learning chords and so on, and work out the patterns. Whether you do this by certain spacings, or by listening to it, or by technical harmony, or by the maths behind it, doesn't matter - you need to work it out for yourself. Once you have your own way of understanding the system, you will be able to play and understand music a hundred times better: trying to mentally work out what notes to play for a D#m7(r3) chord within the space of a millisecond is a lot more difficult than instinctively knowing the pattern to play for that sound.
I can't play for SHIT. And that's not a lack of musical talent on my part, I've taught myself bass, drums and other percussion, and can pick up most instruments fairly easily and play something basic without much trouble. But piano is something else. Unless you are a genius, then learning from piano tabs (which are fucking wank, by the way) is a horrible move.
www.rockmidgets.com
The piano is subtle and analogue while the midi keyboard is digital and therefore lacks subtlety. Think the difference between writing the letter A and typing it on a computer.
Also lessons are probably a must unless you are a genius as there are so many bad habits which can be picked up on the piano
but still, good luck, the piano is a damn good instrument to learn and will make learning other instruments in the future a damn sight easier
The piano is awesome for theory because it's extremely easy to see. Take lessons, and stick with it for awhile, couple years I'd say. Eventually you'll probably hit a fork and decided lessons aren't of much benefit anymore, and you'll go off on your own.
If you do decide to strike out on your own, to at least get started (after all, if you decide that you dislike piano and are more interested in another instrument, it's OK to try it for yourself for a while), there's 3 things you should keep in mind in order to actually progress with learning, rather than simply plinking around aimlessly:
1: learn to read music. It's not hard, it just takes practice. Learn what the notes on your keyboard are, and how they match up to what's on the page. You can use Wikipedia for this part.
2: play with a metronome. With any self-taught musicianship, you need to focus on playing in time. That means starting with quarter notes and half notes and working on increasing tempos, and then moving up to more interesting pieces. But without a metronome to force you to play in time, you'll end up sloppy.
3: practice. if you have lessons, you're forced to play at least once a week or every 2 weeks. And since you're paying for them, it's excellent motivation to practice in between those lessons. Without lessons, you need to keep a similar schedule, and should practice a variety of etudes.
I decided a little over a year ago that I was going to learn how to play upright bass, but as I knew nothing about it, I quickly decided that I should find someone to take lessons from. I found a guy at the local music school who's very friendly but definitely knows his stuff, and the lessons are one on one. And as I'm not with a bunch of other people, and he knows my skill level, getting started was actually fun, rather than demeaning.
Now I've got a good amount of muscle memory built up, I'm far more confident and comfortable bowing, and I can learn short pieces relatively quickly. He currently has me working on slurs. I *know* I wouldn't be this far along if I had simply let myself be the teacher, simply because there's things you can't learn by yourself, such as proper posture.
As for practical playing purposes...there are two main things you need to concentrate on. The first is just basic technical skill. For that, you're going to want to do all major, natural, harmonic, and melodic minor scales in all 12 keys (except in reality there's only 9 distinct keys; three of them are enharmonically the same) plus some basic modes (like mixolydian and dorian). You'll want to be able to do these in every single octave, going in both directions. Once you master that, you're going to want to do them in thirds, then fourths, fifths, sixths, and sevenths (i.e. instead of playing the notes in the scale 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, you'll play [in thirds] 1-3-2-4-3-5-4-6-5-7-6-8-7-9-8). Doing scales in thirds et al. really, really helps with coordinating movement of your fingers and reinforcing good, clean technique.
In addition to scales and arpeggios, you're going to want to learn all your dominant sevenths (also called major-minor sevenths). When I was really serious about bassoon, these would always give me fucking trouble. Basically, you take the dominant note in any given scale, V, and then you construct a broken chord (arpeggio) from it; however, you have to be aware of certain harmonic particulars when you do this. In a minor scale, the mediant of the dominant chord must be raised (sharpened) one half-step, since the mediant of the dominant is actually the supertonic of the tonic chord. If you don't do this, you're breaking a rule of harmony and you'll sound like shit. Oh, a sidenote: in jazz, a dominant seventh is just a scale in the mixolydian mode (i.e. has a flattened seventh). The two dominant sevenths are unrelated in all but name.
Let me illustrate.
We start with the chord of C minor (C-Eb-G). You want to construct the dominant seventh from this chord, so you take the dominant note, G, and you construct yourself a chord (G-Bb-D). However, if you play the second chord, you'll be altering the key in which you are in (since the key of C minor does not include the note of Bb). So you have to raise the mediant note (Bb) by one half-step, to B natural. The dominant chord ends up sounding as a major chord, but everything remains kosher because you haven't violated the original key.
The second area of practical playing is much more applicable to jazz than it is to western art music, so, it's not exactly critical like learning your scales is. My teacher always called it melody playback, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a melody. Basically, what you want to do is get either a friend who can play an instrument or a recording, and have them play something - anything. Then what you have to do is hear that, and then play it back to them. When I did it, I was told the key and given the chord before the actually melody was played (since I don't have perfect pitch, it was basically a requisite). But if you get really good, you'll only need one reference pitch, and you'll be able to repeat anything.
Not only does melody playback really tune up your ear, but it can make you a better player in general. It forces you to hear the relationships and intervals between notes (oh, that's another thing, you should work on identifying intervals by sound. It's not that hard with practise), which can make sight-reading much, much easier.
I had several years of piano from a strict teacher, when I was in my early teens and i'm seeing it's benefits now, even today, since I started learning how to play the guitar. Guitar lessons probably would have been of benefit, especially for fingering but because of the previous Piano lessons, picking up theory for the guitar has been pretty easy.
Hell, even just knowing the notes and how many steps it is to each note from the previous has been of huge benefit. It's been a fun excersise to visualize say a chord on the piano and transpose it to the guitar. All my piano knowledge feels very engrained in my head, and I owe it all to strict lessons.
I would again suggest taking lessons. There are "abridged" versions of songs, and if you have a good teacher, they'll be able to help teach you what you'd like. You may have to start off with some simple basics, but don't rush things. Being able to play songs well can take time...if you really want this to happen though, it can. Just work at it!
If you had any inkling of an idea what you were doing, I would say that "yeah, maybe self-teaching isn't so bad".......but the issue is you don't know anything. You have to learn absolutely everything yourself. You won't know when you've made a mistake, because there will be nobody there to tell you. There will be nobody there to tell you you've gotten this note wrong, or this tempo off, or these notes are held too long, etc etc etc.
I know the idea of being self-taught seems very exciting and such, but if you really don't know what you're doing, it will be an extremely difficult process that could end in you making a few big mistakes...and learning bad habits you really shouldn't have to begin with.
So I would say write, even if you only write shit to start with. Learn keys and scales so that you can improvise along to music.
www.rockmidgets.com
Putting that aside, I recommend two things:
Lessons. People talk about maybe not needing these after two years. Unless you are really dedicated, they are wrong. There is a shitton of stuff to learn about the piano. The later you start, the longer you'll take just improving your coordination and dexterity to the point where you can play classical music. And then once you're there, interpretation is a whole new ball-game. I've finally reached that threshold to some degree, and I started playing in the seventh grade (3rd year college now). I have a one-hour lesson, once per week, and it's always at least half taken up with the subtleties of artistic expression and technique on the piano, rather than the mechanics of just being able to play the goddamn piece (and even easy classical stuff can be a total bitch believe you me). I might get a piece down mechanically in a month, and easily spend the rest of the semester getting it to sound right. It's no small subject.
However, there is one other component that has been absolutely invaluable to me: theory. I only took a year of theory in high school, but it's served me incredibly well over the years, and I haven't really needed anything more advanced. A lot of times lessons will tend to be quite weak in the theory department, and it is absolutely essential to intelligent piano playing. It can be self-taught and understoof on one's own terms, but that's the hard way, honestly. Once you've got theory, you can improvise and write music, and break down pieces to gain a better awareness of what's going on at any given point. Very helpful in every way when trying to learn a piece.
Also, if you have the opportunity, any kind of music listening or appreciation class can go a long way toward improving your ear for subtleties. I thought I was a music enthusiast to some degree in high school, but after I took appreciation - even a class filled with dilenquents and a teacher who was not tremendously effective - in high school, my ear was 100% better. It's not something readily apparent, but I'm not even that good and sometimes people are amazed at what I pick up on just because they have no clue how to really listen. And playing an instrument is as much about listening as manipulating things with your hands. I guarantee those self-taught friends who suck that we keep hearing about in this thread could stand to improve their listening skills. I don't take guitar lessons, but I sure as hell can tell the difference between me and, say, a real guitarist. Every now and then I have a brainwave and figure out a way to improve my technique, but it's slow going and even though I can play some fast and cool solos, I don't pretend that I can can make them sound right - even if I'm hitting all the notes. And the reason I can hear the difference is I took appreciation.
Anyway, where you are now, find some lessons. You can learn some stuff on a midi keyboard, but you'll probably outgrow it inside a month. Once you have the feeling like you want to stick with it, for god's sake learn some theory somehow. If you find a good teacher, the rest should take care of itself. (There are a lot of mediocre piano teachers out there though. After ditching my first one, I had to completely relearn how to press the keys for example, since she never taught about proper finger shape to any length.)
Actually, that last remark brings me to my one beginner tip that can save a lot of grief when starting: Do not ever let your knuckles collapse no matter what. Any self-teaching method will adequately describe proper posture and the fact that one must keep one's knuckles (and I'm talking about the ones closest to your finger tips) convex at all times (i.e. not bent backwards), but if you continue to fool around without any input, pretend like you've got bubbles in your hands or something. This is sometimes a bitch to learn even if you haven't ever touched a piano, since your natural thought is to stick your fingers straight out and let the knuckles do what they will. So don't tool around with collapsed knuckles, and you'll save yourself some annoyance.
They have everything you need to know to learn how to play the piano-- you can actually self-educate yourself by going along with their guides.
Another beginner pitfall: trying to play too fast. Always learn a piece by playing it slow and correct. Absolutely as slowly as you need to be so that you don't miss a note. If you just keep missing notes while you're practicing, it's the same as practicing the wrong notes. Also, practice very heavily so that it gets into your muscle memory quicker. Finesse can come later.
If you miss a note, slow the fuck down.
No they can't. The most advanced lesson of that guide is the most basic stuff, a third of the lessons have nothing to do with classical music (as OP asked), and none of it has any technique. It's essentially a picture guide to learn where the notes are.
But if you want to take that advice over all the other people here who have said it's important to get lessons, go for it.
That's a really good point actually, I used to be terrible at going too fast too soon, it's a very hard habit to break.
I actually knew a top concert pianist who would always practice large parts of his repetoire at reduced speed, and only play at tempo when performing.
In the meantime, before I set that up I will have a daily 30 minute routine of learning the basics as you've all said. I'm at a disadvantage in that I don't have a real piano but that just isn't feasible anytime in the near future.. Unless someone donates me one.
A note about my MIDI KEYBOARD.. should I get a foot pedal for sustain or does that shit, once again, come afterwards?
I'd say I'm musically skilled (not gifted.. skilled) in that I can ear-play lots of things and tinker and just be content with 2-fingering for a long time.. but I'm not going to do it this way. This is so against my nature. I learned guitar self-taught, and I know I have really really shitty form and a zillion bad habits to break.. so I'm considering getting guitar lessons as well. ALAS, that's a tangent we don't need to follow..
I love you guys. I love your honest (even if it's not quite the answer I was looking for) responses.
As for practicing routines (to get started) .. I haven't read into the technical posts you've all made yet.. do you have any tips on how to plan a 30min/day routine? Any MUST HAVES? Like metronome, sheet music, etc?
EDIT: A comprehensive list of queries for the aforementioned prospective piano teacher would be great. A list of questions to weed out a bad teacher, per se?
Note that you'll have to read sheet music (or piano "tabs..." tabs are a guitar thing, pianos use staffs and notes). Pianonanny has basic notation as part of its course, which is all you'll need.
A metronome is not necessary unless you have issues with timing and keeping a beat. It will help you later on, but for right now just concentrate on accuracy over anything else.
I would get a sustain pedal ASAP, or at least as soon as you start taking lessons. It's one of the major parts of playing a piano, and learning how to use that pedal in conjunction with your fingers is crucial.
Gah, no!
A sustain pedal is pointless for a MIDI keyboard, because the whole point of why they are awful is that they have their own sustain.
The action of a keyboard is like an organ, when you pass a point depressing the key, the switch will flick and play the one associated sound. No matter how you press the key, the sound will be exactly the same. More expensive keyboards try to compensate for this by faking a touch, but all they do is judge the relative power with which the key is struck, and choose one of several associated sounds accordingly. In the first type, you take your finger off the key, the sound stops. In the second, it has a built in sustain / reverb or even nothing at all (it's the worst feature of them). Essentially, the action is digital / binary; it's 1 or 0, nothing in between.
The action of a piano is mechanical. You are directly translating the strike of your finger on the key, through a hammer hitting a string, to the sound produced. You can, for example, press a key so softly that there is no sound, because you just rested the hammer on the string (something that is impossible on a keyboard). Similarly, how long /short you keep the key down affects the sound of the note all the way through, as well as the sound of other notes close by (through vibrations of the string and through the soundboard). A sustain pedal keeps the hammers in the air after they have been struck, and thus stops the sound being dampened, which is neccessary for various reasons, but most obviously to give a sense of flow when playing short fast running passages and so on.
A sustain pedal on a keyboard just amplifies an unalterable sustain which is already present. It will fake the sound of a piano playing pedal, but you will have no actual control over what it does, and thus get no sense of how to use a pedal properly. Moreover, it will blend a lot of what you are playing, and cover mistakes, so you will become a sloppy player.
Most students learning on real pianos are banned from using the pedal for a good long while, if their teacher is any good; please don't get one for a keyboard.
By the way, it's possible to get a rubbish upright piano very cheap - much cheaper than the $1000 keyboards mentioned above which are the only ones that even come close to being playable. If you get into it, the single best thing you could do to improve is fork out a few hundred dollars (auctions are best) to get even a crappy real piano, because it will be a hundred times better than the keyboard.
I can't disagree with this more. As a longtime trumpet and guitar player, as well as someone with a number of years of classical piano training, your metronome will be your best friend. Of all the instruments I have experience with (a bit of woodwind and percussion as well as the aforementioned 3), the piano is one of the easiest to get out of rhythm, especially once you start doing some more complex things with both hands. Get a metronome, use it when you play your scales, arpeggios, chords, warmups, exercises, when you're learning your pieces, when you practice your pieces, all the way up to the performance. If you get that metronome inside your head now, you won't have as many problems with it later.
The key to good practice is intelligent practice. A good teacher will teach you how to do this. (My first couple never did.)
For a routine, I recommend hitting the scales, chords and arpeggios first thing, and then moving on to whatever song you're trying to learn. It's a good warmup, and gets the most boring part out of the way first.
Many of the important principles apply in both cases: namely, play slow, accurate, and with a metronome so you don't gradually speed up within a single playthrough. Playing with a metronome is a hugely difficult, yet necessary skill. I cannot overemphasize that the one single technique that has helped me learn over the years more than any other is slow practice.
Hanon exercises can be of some use, but ultimately it's very similar to playing scales IMHO, and you won't be crippling yourself too bad by forgoing them if you're aggressive about learning scales by heart (though they do promote a few valuable skills other than linear motion). Playing scales smoothly and quickly requires the utmost dexterity and control (not to mention a certain amount of technique - which is why you need a teacher; some things can only be learned if you have someone right there to point at your fingers and show you exactly what you're doing wrong).
When it comes to learning an actual song, don't just blunder into it. Note the key signature, different parts, and how it all fits together. Just understanding the layout of the piece will smooth the process quite a bit, and put you well on your way to memorizing it (if that is a goal of yours). Once you've played through it a few times, you'll begin to notice that some parts you're fine with and some parts are a total bitch and you can never get them right. Circle those parts with a pencil, critically analyze exactly how you're supposed to play them, and practice them ten times as much as the easy parts. Should be nice and easy to start, with the kind of half-page pieces you typically learn when you're starting, and the habit will serve you well.
And that's most of what's meant by intelligent practicing.
Apparently there's a piano hero game if you have an MIDI keyboard you can hook up to your PC.