Beginner - Where to start ?

[4ndrew]

I have a piano in my bedroom and often play around on it. I also have a musical background already, achieving grade 2 on trumpet and I have played the guitar on and off for a number of years. I can read music to a fairly basic standard.

I have learnt some chords and scales on the piano but the problem is the resources I am using are not really benefiting me. I have learnt some things from a beginner book I own but it is just to simple; the same goes for a DVD library of piano lessons I had on my computer and online lessons, everything I have tryed is so long winded and I am not really learning from these resources.

For example, a 45 min video just teaches me something I could of figured out myself in 10 mins. The people in these videos just repeat themselves over and over it is such a slow and boring learning experience. I would very much appreciate it if a few people could recommend me some useful books, websites and video lessons that are not so slow paced. Thank you in advance.
P.S. - lessons are not really an available option for me (too expensive)

[nocturneop2]

https://www.youtube.com/user/Lypur#p/p

This guy has a whole series on teaching piano basics and music theory. Give him a shot, if notm you could try Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course books. Those worked for me.

Best of luck to you.

[pianoplayjl]

From the beginning.

[jimbo320]

4Andrew,
Welcome to the forum.
If it's a website teacher you're interested in here's a friend of mines' website.

Good luck to you...

[pianoplayjl]

Sorry mines was a load of s!@#. I reread the thread. I think you can start around grade 4-5.

[jaggens]

Hi,

I have a free piano learning course. It is not a crash course but step by step instruction and also includes piano technique. I would compare it to a real music school, because I provide feedback to my students. Link: https://playingpianoblog.com/learn-to-play-the-piano/


Best wishes,

Jaak,
classically trained pianist and an experienced piano teacher

[robpina]

I'm pretty new to piano too. I know that the lessons are expensive but I would highly recommend taking at least a few. Its a lot easier to understand what's going on when someone can show you hands on. Maybe just pay for 1-2 introductory lessons and then work on some pieces on your own... then every once in awhile when your stuck throw in another lesson. They are expensive but my teacher around here is like $20 for 30 min. and $40 for 1 hr. which I think is pretty reasonable. If I skip a few meals out I can usually scrounge up the cash for a lesson here or there.
Best of Luck

[rmbarbosa]

If you are really interested in piano playing and cant have a teacher, you may download "the groundwork of Lechtiwsky method". It`s a little book that teaches from the beginning, with photos of Lechtiwsky hands showing how to play the exercises. After some weeks with this book, you may try 2 voices Bach Inventions, wich are very important not only to develop your technique but also to musical theory. After Bach Inventions - four or five are enough, I think - you will be able to play a lot of musics.
Hope this may help you.
Best wishes
Rui

[Derek]

depending on who you are you may want to try a totally different approach altogether. In my case, for whatever reason I really wanted to make my own music. Basically all I did to start out was painstakingly pick out a few melodies, not knowing what key I was in or anything, not understanding technique etc.  Beyond that, I used a scale chart to figure out that one of the melodies I was playing was G# minor. Then, I just started making up riffs. Over the years that kinda blossomed into full out improvisation. It became "personal" improvisation, unconstrained by style. I met friends here on this site who helped me develop it. If that sounds interesting to you, head on over to the Improvisations child board and see if you like what you hear by some members there. If not, no harm done, if so, well then consider sending somebody a message.  Learning from a real person rather than some kind of cut and dried course, i've found, almost always works out better in the long run, if you're receptive to learning what someone has to teach.

[pianomatrix]

It seems like you are looking for something to get you interested in playing more.

Anyway I think good music is always good motivation to play music.

Since you play guitar, you already are aware of how guitar tabs help you to play more difficult music
relatively easily. So what if something can help simplify reading sheet music? And this allowed for more selection of music to play. This will hopefully create more motivation to play.

Not to toot my own horn, but I have been working on simplifying reading sheet music, kind of like guitar tabs.
But it's not piano tabs. I have published the piano music in an alternative to sheet music format in eBooks.

I like to consider this format a complement to sheet music, because this format allows someone to consider playing difficult music without being scared off by the complicated music that shows on sheet music format.

But since this site sells sheet music, I'll just recommend searching on youtube for things like "Top 10 best piano music."