Trying to Start Working on Piano

[dupresapprentice]

Hi! I'm 14 and I've been studying cello for about five or six years now. Recently I've been pretty interested in piano, and I'd really like to begin learning to play. I took piano lessons for a year when I was about kindergarten age, but other than that I haven't really done anything with my piano other than tune my cello. The other day I got out an old "Piano Adventures" Level 1 lesson book from when my brother was taking lessons and played through it. Since I have a lot of music theory down my throat and can read music pretty well, everything seemed relatively easy to me. Other than that, I've just been messing around with chords and arpeggios and being generally pretty mystified by the sounds a piano makes. Anyway, I can't really afford piano lessons right now but would like to start working on learning how to play. Does anyone have suggestions on where I ought to start and what I should emphasize starting from here? Thank you.

[naumdar]

I will tell you what I do - since we are in similar circumstances, except for the fact that I am exactly twice your age, didn't play cello, but do read music well and have an academic background in it

The Alfred Method Books (1,2,3) would be good. They may seem too easy for you, but they are great foundation books.

Alfred also has a Masterworks series which I really like - they go to level 10 if I am not mistaken. These are more interesting pieces and have a suggested order of progressive difficulty in the beginning.

The Suzuki Piano Method series is also excellent.

I would simply find pieces and exercise books that interest you and play what you like. That's one good way to keep your momentum going in the future and as you get more serious and assess what gives you difficulty in pieces you can work harder at those parts.

Hope that helps a little.