Learning piano

So…my mom taught piano lessons as long as I can remember. She even tried to teach it to me when I was a kid. However, video games were more important back then. Then sports became more important. Sports gave way to drinking and womanizing, which were still more important than learning the piano.

Now, at 36, I wish I could play the piano. I can (kinda) read music. I know what a flat and a sharp are, I know what notes on the keyboard correspond to the lines on the sheet music, etc. I just really suck at putting it all together in a fluent motion.

There’s got to be a “piano-teaching” app somewhere out there on the iPad or something. Anybody know the best way to teach yourself how to play the piano, if you have a basic understanding of what you’re looking at?

Is your mom still with us? Would have to be better than an app, not to mention the brownie points.

Yeah, but a 230-mile drive for a weekly piano lesson is a bit far.

There is probably no complete real substitute at the moment for a real teacher. However, if that is not an option, I would look for some piano tutorials on YouTube. It probably helps to see + hear the lessons and engage all your senses, as opposed to just reading some book. At the same time, you should find some music pieces that you actually want to play, and try to play those to build your skill.

I played for a long while. Just get a cheap beginners learn to play book and learn to play through it. Most of it is just spending time playing. Once you get the basics you can probably get some good bang for your buck from a handfull of lessons. You tube might be ok, but really I think the book will probably cover it.

The people at the music store (where they have pianos) will likely be able to point you towards a few.

skype

Kayaking, gun shooting, piano player. I like it.

^ultra marathoner

^Survivalist

BS, how good we talking were you on the piano, was it like on the level of a Bill Evans or a Lang Lang?

I was exactly where you are 15 years ago. Played a bit as a kid, quit, then got older and wanted to relearn. Get a good teacher that can pick up where you left off and can use what you know already as a starting point. I learned more in my first 5 lessons with my teacher than I did in 2 years as a kid doing it the old-fashioned way. 15 years later I have the same teacher. I look forward to my lesson every week. We talk about music, musicians, jazz, pop, etc. Oh and we play some too.

I should be better than I am, but I have fun and it keeps my mind working. Step away from your desk for 30 minutes every week and get a live lesson. You will not regret it.

I started when I was 6 and played pretty seriously (weekly lessons, etc) until I went to college at which point I got distracted and didn’t play for about 6 years. I wasn’t ready to play for large crowds in a classical setting or anything, but I was pretty good all things considered.

What really kept me from being a standout the most was that I was growing up in a very rural farm area in the 90’s and piano was just an extremely uncool thing to do. None of my friends played instruments really outside of a few Greenday imitators with Gibsons so I just didn’t see it as something that could take me anywhere. In hindsight, knowing what I know now I would have approached it differently.

I do have a ton of hobbies, but that’s mostly just because I was given a ton of opportunities growing up and I have a constant desire to explore and master things. I enjoy the process. In some ways, people who live in the city are very limited in what they can experience because things are expensive and doing outdoor pursuits is a real PITA. Our neighbors owned a rodeo and their son was on the PBR tour, everyone hadguns, ATV’s and dirtbikes and kids could drive tractors and trucks around the farms. We had a ski mountain 20 minutes from our house and when we turned 16 my friends and I all had season passes and many of my friends were in a lake community 10 minutes from my house and had boats for water skiing etc. So in a lot of ways it was just a fortunate place to grow up.