Been playing for 3-4 years but I don't know the basics to piano?

[lordnishka]

I am a level 4 piano students, and like I said, I've been playing for 3-4 years. The thing is, I barely know how to do 3 scales and I've had a piano teacher those 3-4 years. I really want to play Touhou music yet I practice like 5 minutes a day... And sight reading is a pain in the arse because I barely know the basics to piano. I am currently doing 16th note songs and am kinda stumped. What do you guys think I should do?

[wwalrus]

practice more then 5 minutes a day? pretty obvious lol

[lordnishka]

Okay, I don't always practice 5 minutes a day. I practice 30+ mins sometimes, but I don't know what I should be practising exactly, my teacher doesn't explain much. I stopped taking her lessons a few months ago.

 Anyway, I came to this site for helpful advice. If this is the best advice you can give then perhaps I will look elsewhere.

[wwalrus]

you can do a certain amount of work on your own. you dont need people to give you basic advice: if you spend 6/7 days a week practicing 5 minutes a day, of course you won't get there.
do you have a new teacher yet? I think that's where you should start.

[lordnishka]

I want actual advice, that is why I came to this site. Like the importance of scales or something. I can't sight read and I forget all the songs I learned previously. There is only one piano teacher in the town I live in, and now I want to learn by myself.

[wwalrus]

if you're committed to improving, you need to increase how much you practice: get a book with a method or something, take a look at czerny etudes and learn some sort of method. realize there is an extent to where we can help you- it's like teaching a topic as broad as programming to someone who just got a computer.

[theholygideons]

... Anyway, I came to this site for helpful advice. If this is the best advice you can give then perhaps I will look elsewhere...

ahahah.. is this guy serious? I don't think he deserves our advice.

If you're that bad a music theory, there was a group started by loljay somewhere, not sure if it's still going on.

[lordnishka]

I can increase my practice, but I want to know what I 'should' be practising. I can practice a song for a couple of weeks then forget about everything I've learned in the next song. I want to fix this, but its not as easy as buying a method book in my town. Sorry if I sound stupid or childish, I know I waited too long to make improvements. All I cared about (and my teacher) was getting from the next piece to the next, once every few weeks.

[lordnishka]

Never mind, forget it. You are all rude and disrespectful. Just delete this thread, I don't care any more. This is life, and I will give up piano.

[mikeowski]

Edit2: ._.

[lordnishka]

Its not like I haven't tried looking online... who can fix something like 3-4 years of poor piano technique? No one. Not my teacher, not myself. All she cared about was money. I will never get better, but thank you for trying to help anyways mike.

[mikeowski]

ah damn! I modified my post instead of posting a new one (how did that happen )
My first post as tl;dr: Practice 20-30 mins a day, then up to 1 hour and see where it gets you. After that try again with a teacher not to waste money
....Anyway:
The thing is, you might also want to pick up more difficult pieces. If you can learn them in a few weeks with 5 minutes of practice a day, that tells a lot about either the quality you play them with or the difficulty of your pieces.
Have you heard about Bach Inventions? Look at Invention 1 and see if you like it. It's also a great teaching tool.

And also, this is just a guess, maybe your teacher was only teaching you pieces superficially because you didn't practice enough? When you practice more, any teacher will be more interested in talking with you about your pieces. They're humans too (yes, hard to believe I know!), so naturally they'll be bored with your playing aswell when you don't improve.

Bernhard link I posted in first post is here

About the technique: How much poor technique have you learned? Do you feel pain while playing? If you don't, then it's probably more a lack of rather than having a bad technique.
Playing Bach will help you.

[lordnishka]

Yeah, there is a hard song I've been learning to play but I am only starting 16th notes. When I play 8th notes on my left and 16th notes on the right, my left hand automatically speeds up as well, something that I don't know how to control.

https://musescore.com/user/4237/scores/26272

I've been attempting this along with my other book music sometimes, without much progress. It is way beyond me yet I've been trying to play it anyway. I will look at your link as well, thank you.

Edit: I don't know how soft MP is supposed to be, or how loud MF is supposed to be (mezzo-piano and mezzo-forte). Also when reading sheet music, I can't "read ahead" which people say is supposed to be a requirement. I am always concentrating on the current notes in front of me instead. And no, I rarely feel pain from playing piano. Probably because I don't spend long on it... I have some trouble doing Legato or Staccato smoothly as well.

The key signatures are also hard to remember. I know how it works, but just looking at it takes me 5 minutes to transfer to the piano (if my wording makes any sense).

[mikeowski]

I don't know how good you are at piano, but this seems like a pretty hard piece. Maybe you practice too fast? When practicing, always at first try to slow down as much as you need so that you can comfortably play it. Only then speed up. And when you have difficulty practicing a section, never play a whole bunch of music around it, try to look exactly what your problem is.
For example I think you said you have problems coordinating the 16ths notes in the right with the 8ths in the left (in bars 78 and 82). Don't play the whole section containing the bit you have problems with, but try to focus only on the 16ths. Only play them in the right hand. Then only the 8ths from the left hand. Then try to put them together a lot slower. And only play the second half of measure 78 or 80, nothing more, unless you can manage it a tempo as slow as you feel comfortable with. iirc, all of this and a lot more is described (also more eloquently) in Bernhards practice method posts.

Good Luck!

[lordnishka]

Thank you very much for trying to help me sir. Sorry to waste more of your time, but one more thing: what exactly is the importance of scales? I hear its supposed to help you understand the piano better, but I'm not sure how exactly.

[mikeowski]

Actually I'm not someone who would advocate practicing scales (and hanon, and czerny etc.). I'd rather practice pieces that I like and that has gone well for me so far (been playing about 2 1/2 years now).
Maybe someone can make a good case for learning scales on here (ask awesom_o about the B major scale, I think he can tell you something ), but I'd be the wrong person to ask.

Also, about reading music: I think being able to read music well would be a very valueable skill to possess, especially sight reading ahead and all that. But I haven't done too much work on that ever since I've started playing. I can identify notes, key signatures, harmonic progressions, modulations etc. well when I look at sheet music, but my reading is very slow. And since I memorize all the music I play, it has worked out for my purposes so far. I plan on learning it in the future, but it is not a necessity. (Again probably some other people could make a good case, but I'm the wrong person to talk to )

[lordnishka]

Oh, 2 and 1/2 years? I've almost mistook you for a piano teacher. Anyways, thank you for your advice! I will get back to practising piano, good luck to you as well.

[mikeowski]

Oh, 2 and 1/2 years? I've almost mistook you for a piano teacher. Anyways, thank you for your advice! I will get back to practising piano, good luck to you as well.

No problem, mate!
Again, good luck and don't waste your potential

edit: yes, I practice a lot Still a long way to go until I'm anywhere near piano teacher level though.

[outin]

Yeah, there is a hard song I've been learning to play but I am only starting 16th notes. When I play 8th notes on my left and 16th notes on the right, my left hand automatically speeds up as well, something that I don't know how to control.

Practicing piano is about problem solving. You must identify the problem and figure out how to solve it. This is what teacher's are supposed to help you with. You should divide any difficult task to smaller bits and then practice that. In this case just practice playing one note with you left hand and two notes with your right (it doesn't matter which notes when you are practicing rhythm) while counting the rhythm. Did your teacher teach you how to count?

Edit: I don't know how soft MP is supposed to be, or how loud MF is supposed to be (mezzo-piano and mezzo-forte). Also when reading sheet music, I can't "read ahead" which people say is supposed to be a requirement. I am always concentrating on the current notes in front of me instead. And no, I rarely feel pain from playing piano. Probably because I don't spend long on it... I have some trouble doing Legato or Staccato smoothly as well.

The key signatures are also hard to remember. I know how it works, but just looking at it takes me 5 minutes to transfer to the piano (if my wording makes any sense).

These are things almost everyone struggles with in the beginning. You don't learn these overnight. It takes years to become proficient. Sight reading you should practice with pieces that are easier than what you could actually play. Until you have learned basic rhythms, there's no way you could sight read well. Things like looking ahead are things competent sight readers can do, they are not means to learn the basics.

When it comes to dynamics, it also takes time to learn, first understanding what you are aiming for and then learning how to actually execute it. I'm sorry if your teacher has not explained these things to you. You should think of the dynamic markings in relation to each other more than trying to know exactly how soft is piano. When you go from piano to MF you make it sound and feel more pronounced than piano, it's not an exact measurement. You would probably need a teacher to show you how you achieve the different touches (staccato-legato), but there are internet tutorials as well about right movements, some good and some not so good. Unfortunately it's not quite the same as having a teacher who can take into account your individual needs.

We all learn pieces and then forget them. The pieces are tools to learn the craft. If there's a piece you really like, you can maintain it while learning new ones by just coming back to it regularly. You should also see how it sounds better and better when you get more skillful at the piano.

Scales can help you with two things: Learning to understand the building blocks of music and learn to more effectively use your hands. The first you can study yourself with a music theory book or the internet. The second would be good to do with a teacher. But if you do it yourself, make sure you do it slowly and carefully study your movements instead of trying to go as fast as you can.

You can get help from this site, but you need to accept that to get better you sometimes need to be willing to change your ways on a very simple level and also you need to be critical of the advice you get, even good pianists don't agree on everything.

If you really care for the piano, don't give up! Normal people take a very long time to learn these things.

[j_menz]

@ lordnishka

Let me see if I've got this right. You've been playing for 3-4 years, practicing about 5 minutes a day, and have got to Grade 4. You are unhappy with your progress and have blamed and dismissed your teacher. You are now hoping that we here can make those 5 minutes somehow count more, ideally much more.

You then decline to accept any advice from anyone.

Frankly, 5 minutes a day for 4 years getting you to grade 4 is better than you deserve. Most people work considerably harder.

So, my advice? Stop whining, practice more, search through the forum for practice tips and resources to read, and follow that advice.

[outin]

Let me see if I've got this right. You've been playing for 3-4 years, practicing about 5 minutes a day, and have got to Grade 4. You are unhappy with your progress and have blamed and dismissed your teacher. You are now hoping that we here can make those 5 minutes somehow count more, ideally much more.

I think he said he sometimes practices over half an hour...of course if sometimes means once a month it doesn't help much...

We don't know the whole story but it is also possible that he does not practice more because he hasn't been taught how and what to practice. Simply adding hours would not help much. I had a brief encounter with a teacher who actually did not teach anything, so I know they do exist...and some people are less self-sufficient than others....

[awesom_o]

Don't play the blame game!

Have you tried learning 8-note scales in addition to the regular 7-note major and minor scales?

These will give your practice a jazzy, swinging feel that may give you an insatiable hunger for music!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebop_scale

Try them!!

[karenvcruz]

I remember my old professor.. On our first day of lessons, she observed m play (and I have been studying piano for 6 years) but she also realized I did not have a good foundation.  Aside from correcting my hand position, she also mentioned to me that when there new pieces I needed to read, I had to first know, understand and analyze the following:  (it is like asking:  What is this piece requiring of you?).

A. clef (treble or bass) so that I could determine which hand to use (right or left). 
B. time signature (for the count of the notes and tempo). 
C.  the note itself (name and kind - do or re..., and if they were whole notes, half notes, because the kind will tell you the count, as you align it with the time signature) . 
D. expression (e.g. Piano, forte, etc.) which are normally written under the note. 
E. then there was also type (I don't know if I got the label right) but this involves looking to see if the note is played in staccato, legato, detached, etc. 
F. fingering - although she did say that I also needed to see if the fingering prescribed would make it easier for me to play the piece
G. then, there is this label at top left side on top of the measure where it states how the piece should be played, together sometimes with the metronome number (beat) that would indicate desired speed.

I am not sure I got these all right but I can empathize with you because I also needed help in this.  I know this may sound to basic, but I realize that I also needed to take note of these because at least, it would give you a better insight on reading music, as it did for me.  I'm sure there are more which others may add.

[gregh]

Have you asked your teacher about scales? Has your teacher said anything about them?

Scales pretty much form the set of "correct" notes to play in a song. (Composers put other non-scale notes in there, but usually not many, and they draw attention to themselves because they sound different.) Different scales have different sounds, like C major and A minor, which both use only the white keys but start on different ones.

All major scales sound the same, except for the starting note. If you start on D, then you need to use an F-sharp and a C-sharp in order to preserve the intervals from one note to the next. That's easy to figure out on the piano keyboard because each adjacent key is a semitone away from the next one, whether black or white. From E to F is a semitone even though they are both white, so if you want the same interval as C to D, but starting on E, you need to go to F-sharp to get a whole tone. Same thing for any scale when you start on a different key. Knowing that, if you want to practice scales you can figure them out from what you know (or download a circle of fifths or something).

Scales are pretty much developed around the chords that a composer wants to play. Chord progressions determine the basic sound of a song. For instance, C-C-F-C. If you just arpeggiate the notes in those chords and end on a C in any octave, it will sound like a simple song. If your melody contains just the notes in the chords it may sound boring, but it will sound like music. If you use the A-A-D-A progression with the white keys it will sound different even though you're still playing the white keys. It's the chord progression that makes A-minor different from C-major.

Why practice scales and chords? When you see a key signature you won't have to figure out which keys it means. Many parts of songs are sections of scale or chord, and it will help your sight reading if you recognize the patterns.

A lot of piano players don't seem to put a lot of value in practicing scales. I'm guessing they don't do a lot of sight-transposing. Some musicians have to transpose routinely, it depends on what they're doing. When I was young I used to wonder why an arranger in a method book would, for instance, put a B-flat in the key signature when there were no B's to be played in the piece. Then I tried playing a song transposed up a tone and it didn't sound right. There were no B-flats, but the transposed score had F-sharps, which I would have known if I had considered that I was starting in F, and up a tone means G, which has an F-sharp. If you know your target scale well that saves your brain a lot of processing while you transpose. Scales and chords are also important for improvisation, which is big in jazz but exists in all forms of music.

What to practice, scale-wise? Not everyone sees it as being that important. If you're interested in it, download scales and chords, or buy a Hennon, and practice them all day. If you're just interested in playing a piece of music as written but have trouble remembering which black keys to hit, practice that scale until you're comfortable with it. Plus learn the blues scale and dink around with it because it's just fun-- pretty much any sequence of notes will sound like the blues, and simple improvisation is easy in it.

[japzz]

A very nice document about piano-training practice,free pdf download from
https://www.pianopractice.org/ fundamentals of piano practice.It may give you some ideas on how to organize your study-methods on your own.Good luck and inspiration