Tips on starting out right

[polyphile]

Hi everyone!

I'm entirely new to the piano, starting at age 18. I have had experience with music, but I'd like a little bit of advice to make sure I'm starting out on the right foot with piano.

First, let me give a little background. I learned clarinet privately and played in band for 7 years on a fairly advanced level as well as participating in choir and one-on-one theory lessons, but dropped out of it during high school. I've been playing handbells and singing in choir at my church for several years, but over all I'd say my musical ability has atrophied since giving up the clarinet, so I'm *mostly* looking to build it back up again and become more able to read music written for handbells, choir and piano.

So, I pulled out the old keyboard my mom used to use and bought a book called The Piano Handbook by Carl Humphries. I think I've had good results so far - inside of two weeks I'm able to play independently with both hands on pieces like Greensleeves and "Morning Hymn" in the book, something I never thought I would be able to do, and I'm entertaining thoughts about someday buying a real piano.

But, I'm a little concerned about the way I'm learning. I'm fluent in the treble clef from clarinet, but even years after I stopped playing it I still find myself finding it difficult to associate the notes with something different. When I look at middle C on sheet music, I don't think "C", I think "left-hand three fingers and thumb down", as it would be on clarinet. This slows down the recognition for me. By the time I learn the piece, I find that I have memorized it and don't even need to look at the music anymore - but to me, this does not seem correct, since it precludes any possibility of sight reading new music that I might come across at, say, one of the church's pianos.

Please let me know if this is a normal/acceptable way of learning a new piece for a beginning pianist. I'll go slowly through the piece until I'm fluent in one hand, and then I'll do the other one (the bass takes much longer since I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable in bass). But, I can't really play the piece well until I entirely commit it to memory. I cannot sight read for the piano. After "learning" the music, I only look at the notes in order to remind me how long each note is. I know I'm still extremely new at this, but I'm worried that I'm never going to get away from this tenancy. Is this normal or should I be doing it a different way? I hope I'm expressing what I'm trying to ask properly, because it's a little hard to explain. I just want to make sure I'm learning the correct way so I don't make it harder to change farther down the line.

All of the piano players I know have had it as their first instrument, so maybe I could get some perspective from others who started out on something different and know where I'm coming from. Like I said, I'm happy with the progress I've been making as far as actually being to play, but I want to make sure I'm on the right path as far as correctly reading the music.

Thank you!

[sheena]

Hi,
You seem to be making fast progress, after only two weeks of playing. 
I don't think you need to be worried about memorizing the piece as you learn it. In fact, it is only a good thing to quickly be able to play from memory, something I always strive for from the very beginning when learning a piece.
Learning to play a piece as good as one can by thoroughly studying it is completely separate from sight reading. You can train your sight reading ability by reading through very simple unfamiliar music. Learning a piece by repeatedly sight reading it is not very efficent. Sight reading a piece only works a couple of times, because eventually you start to memorize and then it is not really sight reading anymore.

When I look at middle C on sheet music, I don't think "C", I think "left-hand three fingers and thumb down", as it would be on clarinet. 

Make sure you know every name of the notes on the keyboard very well. Use the group of black notes to identify the location of the white notes. You can also use the touch of the black notes to feel with your hands where a note is located. Then play for example all c's on the piano and say "c" as you play the note. Do the same with the other keys. This is to improve the keyboard orientation.

Going slowly and playing the hands separate are good practise habbits. Not being able to play a piece well until it is commited to memory is normal, since one cannot play a piece at tempo without mistakes at first glance if it is too hard to sightread. Then one must work on memorizing the piece to incorporate it into the memory. Muscle memory is necessary to be able to play a piece fast, but we shouldn't only rely on our muscles to do the work while we don't have a clue what is really happening in the music.
Hope all this makes sense. Feel free to ask if I wasn't clear enough or would like more details 

[chris08]

Hello, Polyphil,
these practice hints by simon_horsey  (written in a thread in March 09 about "playing in front of a teacher) are worth GOLD, I wish I had known them when I was younger...
www.essential-music-practice.com/practice-performing.html

I am sure THOSE will help you a lot.

Kind regards
Chris