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How to Learn Piano with Technology

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Re: How to Learn Piano with Technology

#11

Post by grinsekatze »

My main reason for learning to play the piano is being able to compose or better express myself through music. I was "intuitively" learning to play the piano for 2-3 years, going through periods in which I would just sit at the piano and play the keys I liked, find the keys that corresponded with the sounds in my head and just letting go and having my hands move in the directions they wanted to. I got pretty cool results and loved the depth of my music, but I realized that I needed a teacher to make the next step.

Being guided by a teacher was invaluable and I recommend it to everyone. Mine focused on improvisation and music theory and i realy loved it. I was moving forward much faster than on my own. Unfortunately I lost trust in my teacher, after finding a little song on his youtube channel (he has a channel on which he teaches stuff with synthesia videos) that he shared a week after my first session with him, which resembled very much what I had been working on at home and shown him. I was really bummed out, never had the guts to ask him how that happened and stopped returning, because he kept asking me to play stuff that I worked on at home...and eventually I stopped playing alltogether.

After reading this article I got excited again about piano playing. Just found this awesome channel with lots of high quality synthesia teaching videos, including one of my favorite songs (Ab Ovo by Joep Beving: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qRV68k3-jo )

Re: How to Learn Piano with Technology

#12

Post by philbarr »

grinsekatze wrote: post #11

My main reason for learning to play the piano is being able to compose or better express myself through music. I was "intuitively" learning to play the piano for 2-3 years, going through periods in which I would just sit at the piano and play the keys I liked, find the keys that corresponded with the sounds in my head and just letting go and having my hands move in the directions they wanted to. I got pretty cool res…

> I would just sit at the piano and play the keys I liked, find the keys that corresponded with the sounds in my head and just letting go and having my hands move in the directions they wanted to

this should not be underestimated. I've learnt piano from a young age but you can get "stuck" in your learning. this is a great way to free yourself and get back to enjoying it again

Re: How to Learn Piano with Technology

#14

Post by mhd »

truculation wrote: post #5

Finding the piece you badly want to learn next is important to learning the piano -- just as finding a Roald Dahl or a J.K.Rowling book is important to learning to read. Oh, and Bernhard's posts: https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,12590.0.html

The problem is that you probably don't have an exact idea how difficult each piece is and might pick Chopin after Chopsticks.

Re: How to Learn Piano with Technology

#15

Post by spunker540 »

ganzolo wrote: post #6

Also tried in learning piano on my own, and pretty fast ended up taking real classes with a teacher. Piano is like tennis, you can easily develop bad habits and they are extremely hard to remove.

I was self taught on piano for years, and when I finally started taking lessons I had so many bad habits to break that were holding me back.

Reading notes was not the problem, but my technique for how I was physically striking the keys needed a lot of attention. Legato, phrasing and dynamics are the real challenge and it’s tough to practice things with such subtlety on digital keyboards at all. I still do it, but every time I play on a real piano I have to recalibrate.

The author says he chose a piano without weighted keys, I think that’s ultimately not the right choice if you are truly interested in learning piano and eventually want your skills to translate to a real piano. Pretty early on the proper technique is based on weighted keys.

Re: How to Learn Piano with Technology

#16

Post by truculation »

mhd wrote: post #14
truculation wrote: post #5

Finding the piece you badly want to learn next is important to learning the piano -- just as finding a Roald Dahl or a J.K.Rowling book is important to learning to read. Oh, and Bernhard's posts: https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,12590.0.html

The problem is that you probably don't have an exact idea how difficult each piece is and might pick Chopin after Chopsticks.

Yes it might begin like that. Finding the first piece can be hard especially having just heard something awesome performed by a great pianist. Or encountering tepid elementary exercises in an educational-style publication. However, after you've got a few pieces under your belt then your optimism rises and your appetite tends to align with your present skill level. In other words the feasibility of a piece becomes a major factor in how much you want to learn to play it. (As with a novel, or a video game -- too easy or too hard are both boring.)

Re: How to Learn Piano with Technology

#18

Post by tazard »

RickJWagner wrote: post #13

I bet it's not as effective as an old lady with 5 decades of piano teaching experience. Every town has one.

Although I'm not totally disagreeing, I think a lot depends on the student/teacher relationship. Growing up I had piano lessons and the two people teaching me (not at the same time) were very nice/patient/encouraging, however they never really grabbed my attention the way goofing off and playing with the different piano voices, and following along with my pianos built in"tutor" songs did. I think my earlier more traditional lessons taught me a lot, however year without practicing later, the only songs I remember how to play are the ones that were built in to my piano, and a few others I taught to myself.

Re: How to Learn Piano with Technology

#20

Post by bumelant »

Piano is not about mechanics. Everyone can do that. Piano is not about playing. It’s about hearing! And no app can replace professional human being with ability to hear these tiny nuances. Sorry to say that but if you want to play music, not piano, get a teacher.
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