Learn To Play The Piano (In a nutshell):

You can learn to play the piano.

At the start, you might find it helpful to have an overall understanding of what it takes to build a strong foundation of piano playing skills.  You can find just such a blueprint in the new e-book: Piano Player... You. (see link below, or on the navigation bar in the lefthand column.)

For immediate encouragement, check out the introduction to the book.

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Learn how to sit at the piano (important!)

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Learn to play the piano: finger numbers

Then, learn your piano finger numbers.

(You must practice!)

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Next: the keyboard

Then, learn the layout of the notes on the keyboard (keyboard geography).

(You must practice!)

Tunes, exercises (scales & chords), music reading, memorizing...

Then, learn some tunes by rote or by ear, to increase your familiarity with the piano keys. (Go to "Free Piano Lessons" for all of the above, plus some good tunes to learn, even if you cannot read music yet.)

(You must practice!)

Then, to learn to play the piano, start playing some simple exercises, followed by learning the scales and chords. This will help you develop a confident “feel” for the piano keyboard and begin building a piano playing “technique”. (Go to "Piano Scales" and "Piano Chords" to begin learning these elements.)

(You must practice!)

To learn to play the piano, reading music helps tremendously. Then again, the piano is easily the best instrument for learning how to read music…a match made in heaven.

To learn to read music, get a piano method book series and work your way through, from the beginning to the end. (Do not try skipping around. Piano method books are usually well-organized and follow a definite progression of learning.)

(See "Reading Music" for details on how to read music.)

To learn piano, you should always be working on a good piece of music at your level, memorizing and mastering all the notes, rhythms, fingerings, and articulations. As your skills grow, the pieces you learn will become more and more complex and your skills will grow more and more. (You must practice!)

Also, listen to tons of great music, and aspire to play the music you love the most. If the actual music is not in print, perhaps you can learn it by ear. This is only possible if your piano skills have developed enough to handle what it is that you are hearing.

(You must practice!)

For help with how to practice the piano, go to "How To Practice Piano" and apply the methods described there to your practice of all of the elements listed above.

As you can see, from all that is listed above, you are going to need a lot of time, dedication, instruction, and perseverance. But let me tell you... IT IS WORTH IT!

Practicing and playing the piano will be one of the truly satisfying parts of your life, as long as you realize you must enjoy all of the elements it involves.

"Enjoying the journey" is the only way that learning to play the piano will be worth it to you.

Good luck!

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Music Theory

-click here for a trip to Wikipedia's awesome music theory page-

Return from "Learn To Play The Piano" to "True Piano Lessons"