Help on learning the piano

[Magoo!]

So aye... I'm learning to play the piano beyond my normal finger pecking experience, but I'm having quite a bit of trouble with keeping my hands doing their own thing. I can play the right hand alone fine, I can play the left hand alone fine, but when I try to play them together, I wind up crying myself to sleep.

Any tips? Tricks? Beginning songs that make this easy?

P.S. A fun fact, I can't read music. Could probably learn easily enough though.

[Soar]

I can't really give any tips or partitions that would help a beginning piano player, as I myself never did more than a year of it before I <strike>gave up</strike> moved on. Not enough coordination to move across the keyboard in anything more complicated than Sur le pont d'Avignon.

On the other hand, having played the trumpet for nearly four years now, I can say this: Learning to read sheet music isn't all that difficult if you put some work into it. However, active reading - being able to read while playing and still play right - is developed through practice, practice, and more practice still.

Also, never let yourself be discouraged, even if it seems as if you'll never get any better. Been there, done that; there's never a point where you have nothing left to learn or nothing left to practice. Some things may seem easy when you listen to them, or when you look at the partition. However, thinking something is easy and then failing every attempt to play it doesn't mean that the musician is a bad one, simply that there is more practice to be had, more improvements to be made.

Finally, practice makes perfect. Like I mentioned, you can never cease to improve if you put your mind to it, and practice is the means that allows you to do so. Tedious, sure, but regular practice is the most effective way by far of getting better at whatever it is you're doing, and that is very true in music.

That's all I can say, really, considering how different our two instruments are. Still, music is challenging, no matter what instrument you play. Sometimes you can listen to something and think, "Hey, that's a piece of cake! I could do that myself!" When you give it a shot yourself, though, you may well find that it's much harder than it looks; not because of a difficult series of notes, but often because of the way it needs to be played in to fit the composer. Mozart is a prime example of this: You can listen to one of his compositions and think it to be very simple and clean, but when played there's a myriad of nuances and tones that are specific to him that need to be reached.

Grr, I was hoping to finish on that last line, but I babbled a bit too much. Oh well. Anyhow, good luck, and more importantly, persevere!

[ugliestmoose]

I highly suggest you learn to read sheet music. Even Stevie Wonder can read music and he's like, blind and all. Seriously though, it'll make learning ten times easier because you won't have to worry about committing every note to memory. Also, it's rather useful because if you want to do any piano exercises, you'll have to read them off of somewhere.

Other than that...it's kinda hard to give advice over the internet. Check out some Youtube videos for learning how to position your hands and such, and maybe some other useful stuff is on there. And remember to keep a strict rhythm - count out loud if you need to.

[pieguy259]

A tip: Your thumb is finger 1, your pinkie is finger 5. Index is finger 2, middle is finger 3, ring is finger 4.

That should make things a bit easier.

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[sempai17]

for getting used to playing both hands together, you should practice your scales. 1 time with the left, 1 time with the right, then 1 time together. then repeat. always start slowly then work you way up when you get comfortable with the speed.

take your time and don't rush. if you keep this in mind, you'll be playing with both hands before too long.

for sight reading: remember these acronyms (ALWAYS START FROM THE BOTTOM)
for the Treble Clef (G Clef):
Lines:
F ine
D oes
B oy
G ood
E very

Spaces: (spell face from the bottom space up)
E
C
A
F

Bass Clef (F Clef)
Lines:
A lways
F udge
D eserve
B oys
G ood

Spaces:
G as
E at
C ars
A ll

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[Magoo!]

Thank ye kindly, sirs, I'll try to put everything to work soonish so I don't lose what I've learned already, but I've got schoolwork, work work, a 'deadline' for a book, and other such nonsense. *sigh* Anywho, thanks again. I'll probably be back to explain how I hate the way the human mind was engineered.

Adieu, and thrice a thanking.

[Bass_masta992]

As far as songs go, really anything can help. Vary on songs you play as to not create habits when playing. It helps a lot with writing music.

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