Posts Tagged ‘piano lessons online’

Learning to Play Piano Online

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

As a piano teacher myself, I have always argued that having a flesh & blood teacher sitting by you is the very best way to learn to play piano. They can correct you when you err as well as give you valuable tips from their own experience as a piano player. But private lessons are not always possible, so the adult who wants to take up piano can consider other ways of learning. (I never recommend that children learn online — they need a teacher sitting by them.)

Are you looking to learn piano playing without engaging in years of piano lessons? Do you want this method of playing your favorite tunes without learning volumes of music theory? If you answered yes to these questions, then learning to play piano online is for you.

Online piano education sites can teach you to play the piano in a variety of ways. One way is to learn to play by ear. Websites and teaching methods exist whereby the reading of music notes is not a requirement. Learning by ear involves recognizing sound patterns, the sound of chords and the sound of individual notes. This in no way diminishes the value of learning to read music. Learning by ear is an alternative to music reading and can complement music reading.

When you learn piano online by ear, you will also watch music played on a keyboard. With repeated exposure to a tune, you will learn to recognize melody and the accompanying harmony that supports the melody. By watching an online instructor play, you will develop recognition of hand positions on the keyboard. Watching and hearing a cluster of notes hit simultaneously will deepen your knowledge of chord building.

You will also learn to recognize which keys hit in succession form the melody of a song. Then you can sit at a piano and try to emulate the same hand and fingering positions. A picture is worth a thousand words. Online visuals of piano players playing can help you recognize the most popular keyboard patterns. Once learned, you can proceed to formulate variations of these patterns to lend uniqueness to your songs. In addition, you can pause and repeat sequences until you have them down pat.

You can learn to play piano online without years of piano lessons by learning easy to play written music. This type of music has simpler melodies and simpler chord constructions and progressions. This is music stripped down to its basics. After mastering this, a player can then add more elements to the music as their skill level increases. Many online sites employ easy play music systems.

Often, traditional piano teaching methods focus on more complex music theory and sophisticated arrangements of songs. For those who want to learn to play their favorite tunes quickly, this is not always the best method. Those who prefer the traditional classical music route via conservatory methods find this teaching suitable. Those who want to learn simple versions of their favorites for their own enjoyment often prefer the easy play method. It’s faster and less formal and demanding.

Online teaching methods offer much for piano students of all ages. A person can learn according to a schedule that suits their lifestyle. Are you a nighthawk? Then you can choose to study online at 3 a.m. if that works for you. Do you prefer a leisurely self-taught lesson spread out over a couple of hours or more? You can do this online easily. With personal in-home or studio instruction, the time limit is typically a half hour to an hour.

Learning to play the piano online allows you the convenience of all that technology offers. You can listen to notes as you click them on an online keyboard. While you play these notes, you can watch as they script onto an online musical staff. In this way, you immediately learn music notation as you play. You learn to see, for example, where a middle C note on the keyboard sits on the music staff. For those who want to learn music notation, this is very helpful.

Learning piano online can also give you access to a broad piano community. Many online sites enable students to engage in forum discussions with others learning the piano. With traditional music studio teaching, a person may encounter a handful of students. Online a music aficionado can have discourse with potentially thousands of people who share their interest. This allows for a great free flow of ideas and experiences.

If you wish to learn piano from home, at your own pace, check online piano teaching websites. They offer fun and quick methods for learning piano without the burden of travel and studio instructor costs. Learning to play piano online can save you time and money.

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Beginning Piano Lessons Online: Useful, But Beware!

Friday, July 18th, 2008

Beginning Piano Lessons Online

When learning how to play piano, free opportunities present themselves all over the Internet. Most notably, many websites offer quick step-by-step lessons, as well as free online sheet music, which beginning pianists can use to learn how to play piano at no cost. Obviously, like any free service, these should be approached with caution, and many should be taken with a grain of salt.

After all, they are free for a reason. In spite of everything the Internet has to offer, most of the best ways to learn piano still involve paying money to a highly qualified professional instructor of some kind.

Whether you are learning how to play piano using free lessons, or you are using a pay service, any high-quality learning process begins with the fundamentals. It is one thing to show a few diagrams and to instruct the beginning pianist where to put her fingers; it is quite another thing to instill in the pianist’s mind a real understanding of the structures, systems, and theories that every great piano player must have internalized.

Thus, when learning how to play piano, free or through a pay service, make sure that the instructions use real musical terms, rather than downgraded proxy terms. That is, for example, an instruction shouldn’t refer to notes on the piano as numbers or as fingers; instead, the instruction should use the actual names of the notes — C, D, B flat, G sharp, and so on.

In other words, a beginning pianist wants to internalize the fundamentals of music as early as possible. If you feel like your ability to play music is proceeding faster than your actual knowledge of piano and music, then there is something wrong with your instruction. Both the skills and the knowledge should go hand in hand.

When starting out, the budding pianist can expect to be assigned a lot of repetitive tasks. She will have to play a lot of scales, arpeggios, and simple songs that are designed to help piano students master the complex methods of keyboard fingering. This is normal, and in fact, it is necessary. Any piano lesson program that doesn’t involve a lot of repetitive tasks is probably not the best way to learn how to play piano. Free lesson plans are often guilty of this.

This repetition is what leads a lot of beginning pianists to give up very early, but for the more persistent, things do get better. After a while, when you have internalized the fingering techniques that every pianist must master, songs will grow more complex, and then the repetition becomes a joy. For pianists who are a little further along in the learning process, there is nothing more pleasurable than opening a book to a seemingly incomprehensible notation and working at it until it becomes a beautiful piece of music.

For now, though, most of the songs played by beginners are relatively simple and straightforward, not involving a lot of sharps or flats, and not requiring the pianist to move her hands around a lot. In fact, most songs will be in the easiest key — C major — and won’t deviate from standard hand positions.

Of course, this will all change when you begin to learn about more complex chords, more difficult keys, and more convoluted melodic structures. Once the basics are learned, it won’t take long before these fun elements come into play.

In short, what I have been driving at is that starting to learn the piano rarely offers instant gratification. When learning how to play the piano, free services tend to offer unrealistic, quick goals. In reality, learning piano is a gradual process that involves lots of practice, lots of repetition, and a strong commitment on the part of the pianist.

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