Learning from online sources, how long do I practice 1 lesson?

[branrx]

Hello, I just bought a new digital piano and will be attempting to teach myself piano through the online program "Rocket Piano" I used to play a little guitar so Im familiar with some sheet music basics.

My dumb question is this. The program doesnt tell you how long you should practice one individual lesson, so I tend to jump to the next lesson even if the previous lesson isnt perfect each time I play it. How should I attack this? How many minutes a day do I need for one small piece that lets say is two lines long? Obviously I cant play anything perfectly as I know it takes time for fine motor skins to naturally kick in. So when is a good time to move to next lesson?

Thank You
Brandon

[pianoplayjl]

When you feel like you have completed the lesson and play the small piece without mistakes from beginning to end. For a beginner practicing such a small piece I'd say you have to practice at least 30 minutes a day because in the practice session you will be working on counting, hands seperate, figuring out the notes, and hands together. It is best you practice with a metronome so that you don't confuse the rhythm.

JL

[roseamelia]

When you feel like you have completed the lesson and play the small piece without mistakes from beginning to end. For a beginner practicing such a small piece I'd say you have to practice at least 30 minutes a day because in the practice session you will be working on counting, hands seperate, figuring out the notes, and hands together. It is best you practice with a metronome so that you don't confuse the rhythm.

JL

true, That would be best.

[bustthewave]

When you feel like you have completed the lesson and play the small piece without mistakes from beginning to end. For a beginner practicing such a small piece I'd say you have to practice at least 30 minutes a day because in the practice session you will be working on counting, hands seperate, figuring out the notes, and hands together. It is best you practice with a metronome so that you don't confuse the rhythm.

JL

I can second the metronome part. I'm almost completely self taught, and play by ear. I had no absolutely no idea how sloppy my playing was until I started a few weeks ago practicing with one. Metronomes I'm finding, help with keeping time . I just didn't realize how much was involved with time... technique, evenness, tone exc.

[branrx]

 
I appreciate the input. And I do agree about using a metranone. I wish I would have had one when I was learning guitar as a child. I tended to speed up as I played. Might have been some emotional response, lol.

A couple more questions regarding my studies:
1- Right now in the Rocket Piano course Im learning 2nds,3rds,timing,etc...The book will introduce some basic pieces. Many times the treble clef will have a line of  notes that starts around middle C, or base clef based around G. It shows you RH1 on C, LH1 on G,etc. Then the piece begins. Under the different notes it it gives you which finger you should be using. Now this works great for me because I can just look at the line of music and play the piano without having to look down much because I know which finger to play. Now because Im not looking down much I wonder if Im memorizing notes to keys, if that makes any sense. Its still really early in the course, but is this normal to start learning by just playing the correct fingers?

2- My second question is this. So far while learning the basics in this book, they havnt given me anything to practice in terms of skill training. Scales, fingerwork up and down the keyboard. When I learned guitar, my teacher whould give me scales to do each week as well learn sheet music. So this program seems very linear so far. Now admittedly I havnt gone deeper into the chapters to see whats next as Im kind of anal about doing things out of order,lol. Any thoughts here?

You can probably tell Im pretty left brained in terms of how I like to learn things, but Im also very musical.

Thanks
Brandon

[roseamelia]

Your welcome Brandon. Hopefully we helped you.

[bustthewave]

I appreciate the input. And I do agree about using a metranone. I wish I would have had one when I was learning guitar as a child. I tended to speed up as I played. Might have been some emotional response, lol.

A couple more questions regarding my studies:
1- Right now in the Rocket Piano course Im learning 2nds,3rds,timing,etc...The book will introduce some basic pieces. Many times the treble clef will have a line of  notes that starts around middle C, or base clef based around G. It shows you RH1 on C, LH1 on G,etc. Then the piece begins. Under the different notes it it gives you which finger you should be using. Now this works great for me because I can just look at the line of music and play the piano without having to look down much because I know which finger to play. Now because Im not looking down much I wonder if Im memorizing notes to keys, if that makes any sense. Its still really early in the course, but is this normal to start learning by just playing the correct fingers?

2- My second question is this. So far while learning the basics in this book, they havnt given me anything to practice in terms of skill training. Scales, fingerwork up and down the keyboard. When I learned guitar, my teacher whould give me scales to do each week as well learn sheet music. So this program seems very linear so far. Now admittedly I havnt gone deeper into the chapters to see whats next as Im kind of anal about doing things out of order,lol. Any thoughts here?

You can probably tell Im pretty left brained in terms of how I like to learn things, but Im also very musical.

Thanks
Brandon

I'm not nearly as qualified to answer musical questions as most people on here, but I'll give it stab -

1- What you're doing is building muscle memory . Your unconscious brain is much more efficient at guiding specific learned movements than you are, since for you to guide the movement requires all your senses engaged on that activity. So yes, you are learning the notes to keys intuitively. You are also probably feeling the benefit of a natural fingering. When you utilize a fingering and technique that allows you to guide your hands comfortably and naturally, you will find that it just seems to click quickly. Your brain isn't trying to fight your insistence on using unnatural movements. Most sheet music I've seen will suggest a fingering, but for challenging pieces there is always a period of time figuring out how to apply it, or even if that fingering is right for you. Don't get discouraged though when you play something with different intervals, and different fingerings; because you will for a short time feel like your back at square one in terms of that intuition. You will have to re-learn where the notes are in relation to your hands and fingers with each new fingering, but once you have it you have it.

2- So I'm assuming they are giving you short little pieces to learn at first as apposed to exercises? i'm not sure the standard way to start off an absolute beginner, but I would imagine that scales would come a bit later. In terms of exercises to train your fingers, there seems to be a lot of debate over the effectiveness of this. Someone who is at an actual teaching level would be MUCH more apt to answere, but if you do a search for posts made by bernhard your likely to find SOMETHING on the topic. From a learning perspective, there seems to be a rising practical view, that you should get your technique from pieces as apposed to exercises. Exercises, which despite hours and hours of doing them, would only really help you play difficult pieces that were very similar to those exercises. It goes back to what i said about having to re-learn where your fingers are in relation to the piano and it's keys every time you learn something challenging. It just seems to make more sense to learn what's challenging in a piece... rather than spend countless hours learning what's challenging in an exercise that only minimally applies to the piece, before even touching the piece.

But who knows, they may just be waiting a few lessons to give you some exercises; and at your stage in the game, what I've said may not apply... wow... let me just write a wall of text and then tell you it might be rubbish :/. I hope it was at least a bit helpful though in answering your questions.