How to learn to play piano options

1. Learning to Play
Piano
Learning to play made easy
Jackie Clark ABRSM • 2/5/2011

2. Jackie Clark ABRSM
Playing Piano is an interesting and enjoyable pastime. As a
percentage of a countries population, those that play form a small
select group of people.
Let you and I make sure you are one of them
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3. Jackie Clark ABRSM
Learning to Play Piano
Learning to play made easy
Playing Piano is an interesting and enjoyable pastime. As a percentage of a
countries population, those that play form a small select group of people.
Learning to play piano is not difficult, especially in the first few months.
Progress is rapid and you should be playing your first song within a few
hours. Within weeks you will be able to play a mixture of songs by using
music and by using your ears to make up your own songs.
So what steps do you need to take to learn to play piano?
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4. Jackie Clark ABRSM
• The first of course is to acquire a piano or keyboard. Both instruments
use the same keys but pianos tend to have a greater number of keys.
Which you choose to learn on doesn’t matter as a beginner. Later you
will need a piano if that is what you wish to play in the long term.
Pianos generally tend to cost more than keyboards.
• Second step is to learn the notes of the piano. The number of keys can
appear a lot but they are arranged in an octave containing 13 notes
each. One note per key. Every 13 keys form an octave so the number
of keys is immaterial. A whole song can be played in one octave. The
white keys are whole notes named A,B,C,D,E,F,G and the black keys
are in between the white notes and are half notes. These are called
sharps or flats. As an example the note between A and B is half way
between them in sound and is called A# (A sharp) or can be called Bb
(B flat) The black notes have two names.
• Third step is to learn music. This looks daunting but it is quiet easy.
An octave consists of 13 notes. So 13 notes is all there is to learn. No
more. The music on the printed page is exactly the same as the notes
on piano. The music paper has a number of lines arranged
horizontally across the paper A dot with a vertical stick is placed on a
line or a space between the lines to represent the note to be played.
The names of the lines and spaces are exactly the same as the names
of the notes on the piano. A,B,C,D,E,F,G A sharp sign# or a b sign is
used to name the sharp and flat notes. Music notes can be long or
short in time. To show the length a note should be held for the type of
dot changes on the page so a standard length note will be a sold dot
with a stick. A shorter note will be the same as a standard note with
the addition of an angular stick attached to the stick. A longer note
will be a circle rather than a solid dot with a stick or without a stick
the note is played for an even longer length of time.
• There is a lot more to music than that above but the above forms
quiet a lot of the basics.
• To summaries, to learn to play piano you will need;
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5. Jackie Clark ABRSM
o A piano or keyboard
o To learn 12 notes on the piano
o To learn 12 notes of music
o Decide on the type of lessons that would suit you
From that you can start to read music and play the piano. Very easy; yes?
• Once you have your piano you will need to decide on the type of
lessons you will wish to take. Some people can learn to play
themselves but not many. Usually it is necessary to take some form of
lessons.
Lessons fall into several groups.
• Traditional lessons with a teacher on a one to one basis. The
advantage of this type of lesson is that it is one to one and your
mistakes can be rectified before they become bad habits. Your
progress will depend on your ability and usually the teacher will
require you to take exams to prove your progress. The disadvantages
of this type of teaching are the rigid timetable to attend lessons and
costs can be high. You will however learn to play and play well.
• School Lessons. These can be cost effective and learning in a group
can be fun. Students who are not so fast can be embarrassed if they do
not learn as fast as others.
• Buying a piano teaching course either from a music shop or on the
internet. Many of these courses are extremely good and quiet cost
effective. Progress is at your own pace and can be flexible in when you
do lessons but also require self discipline in how you apply yourself. If
you cannot discipline yourself to do the lessons then you will probably
waste your money on this type of course. It is also easy to jump to the
later lessons and miss out the intermediate lessons which will prove
vital later on.
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6. Jackie Clark ABRSM
• Joining a membership site. The membership site sits between the
formal lessons of the private teacher and the outright purchased
teaching program. The advantages are that lessons are arranged to be
drip fed to you to ensure you do not jump to later lessons missing out
the earlier ones. Support is available on line from your tutors.
Depending on the type of lessons being received and membership
levels support can be by email, exchange of audio files or by personal
telephone mentoring. Some also offer master classes, webinars or
other means of contacting groups of students. Of course because the
teacher can deal with several pupils the costs are much lower. Also
several members of the same family can use the same membership.
This makes the costs of a family learning to play piano much more
affordable.
• Free lessons from the internet, family or friends. The advantages are
that they are free. The disadvantages are that they are not complete or
coherent that means large parts of the necessary knowledge is missed
out.
Should you wish to take lessons from Jackie Clark Music or to be kept up to
date with all courses available to you click this link
In any case please keep visiting Jackie Clark Music for advice or other
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