Complete beginner

[jeannot18]

Hi there, a bit about me first. I have never touched a piano, i am 58 years old. I have been playing guitar for just under 6 years. I have decided to learn to play the piano, and really this is just for me, i have not intention of playing in front people, or becoming any kind of artist. But like with my guitar, i am quite happy to learn to play a few things. I cannot read music, i know a little bit about music theory because of my guitar learning. I cannot afford a teacher, so i have decided to learn on my own for now. Could anyone give me some ideas on the best path to follow. When i started learning the guitar, i was like a kid in sweet shop, subscribing to a lot of youtube channels, buying books, online tutorial etc etc. I realise now that i wasted a lot of time and money getting thing that i did not need. I by the way took a few guitar lessons with 2 different teacher, but really never felt learning as much than when i was learning online with some of the product. I am a slow learner i think because it takes me a lot of time to sometimes remember things or get better at some technique. But like anything i believe than in putting the work, anyone can progress. So if anyone knows maybe a really worthy online course this would be great. I have joined two courses while in lock down (1 was free and the other one paying but it was £1 because of the Covid19 situation). They are Music2me (offered by Thomann the German music shop) and homeschoolpiano.com. I have just started watching their videos and they seems quite good. By the way i have a keyboard (Casio LK-210) that belonged to my late mother-in-law and i think it will be ok for now. If obviously i become better i wont mind purchasing a better one if need be. So please, any ideas, tips or directions, will be most welcome, thank you
J

[jaro23]

Hi,
I was at the same point almost two years ago at age 40+. I tried few sources to learn and finally I chose just one and keep practising. You can check out my progress there: my: YT There you will see what I use as well. After almost two years playing ca. 1-2hours a day I am more aware of what I need now. Still haven't finished program, but being closer and closer to the end. Most of all it is important that you will have fun while playing.
If you have more questions, fire up. Will gladly share my experience, day by day there is more

[stan35]

Hi,

If you want music ideas or exercises, there is this new youtube channel:

I advised students. Bye

[jeannot18]

Thanks guys for the links, Jaro your progress is impressive. There are so many method and apps to chose from that it is overwhelming. The 2 courses i have signed for are pretty good right now. I will reassess which direction i go once i finish with them. I also may take maybe a few lessons once the lockdown period is over. I have to say that i am really enjoying the learning right now, hoping that it will carry on.

[jaro23]

overwhelm is your enemy! Everybody's enemy to be honest. That is what kills the spirit to go further. That is why I chose one app only and I kept going. Thank you for saying that my progress is impressive but at the same time I have to say, it is possible to improve faster. If you chose online app I recommend strongly:
1. Watch some online (yt) pianists explaining how to practice, even they talk out of your level you will get better understanding what you are  doing and why you are doing it... and you will gain some knowledge about piano, music as well. It will push you into some areas of knowledge to develop. I did at early stage of my practice to do it solely on my own.
2. Consider to have online or face to face class with some teacher even once a month sharing what you learn. Those great people (teachers) can point some mistakes you do, push you into right direction and meantime you can simply play play play with your chosen app.
3. Great thing is to record yourself from time to time. First you may spot some mistakes you do while playing, second it will record your progress and you will be happy when you look back one year and see how much more you know, how much you accomplished.

Anyway, keep going, be consistent, results come sometimes fast, sometimes a bit slower, but at least for me it is a lot of fun playing and improving. I hope it will work for you the same.

Ps. My YT channel soon will be updated with new piece I work and I hope will at least a bit motivate you or anybody who is on the journey to play piano to actually DO IT.

[decs_acs]

Hey everyone… I have just found out about a great way to learn how to play piano… Its kind of easy now that we have a lot of free time in our hands because of lockdowns… These guys do seem to be pretty determined, you should read some of the testimonials… Well, I’m sure going to give it a shot, you should too…

https://bit.ly/2WNNesW

[stream]

Hey everyone… I have just found out about a great way to learn how to play piano… Its kind of easy now that we have a lot of free time in our hands because of lockdowns… These guys do seem to be pretty determined, you should read some of the testimonials… Well, I’m sure going to give it a shot, you should too…

https://bit.ly/2WNNesW

Please tell us how it went... From what I've read about the course, it's mostly for people who want to play songs, not classical music (since it focuses on using/teaching chords rather than sheet music- the latter only comes on in book 8 or so). It's certainly interesting if this "play first think later" method is superior to the traditional "twinkle twinkle little star" method...

[iknownothing999]

I started as self-taught 2 months ago (but then switched to a piano teacher) and I found these youtube channels really helpful:

 "pianoTV"

"Piano Lessons On The Web"

They give advice on techniques, pieces and books.

If you speak a bit of french, this one is helpful as well:

Les Sons Du Piano"

[moodyblue]

Hi Jeannot, how are you getting on?

I may well have started at the same time as you although I wasn't a complete beginner but very much beginning to play again.

[oniamhaa]

Hi there, a bit about me first. I have never touched a piano, i am 58 years old. I have been playing guitar for just under 6 years. I have decided to learn to play the piano, and really this is just for me, i have not intention of playing in front people, or becoming any kind of artist. But like with my guitar, i am quite happy to learn to play a few things. I cannot read music, i know a little bit about music theory because of my guitar learning. I cannot afford a teacher, so i have decided to learn on my own for now. Could anyone give me some ideas on the best path to follow. When i started learning the guitar, i was like a kid in sweet shop, subscribing to a lot of youtube channels, buying books, online tutorial etc etc. I realise now that i wasted a lot of time and money getting thing that i did not need. I by the way took a few guitar lessons with 2 different teacher, but really never felt learning as much than when i was learning online with some of the product. I am a slow learner i think because it takes me a lot of time to sometimes remember things or get better at some technique. But like anything i believe than in putting the work, anyone can progress. So if anyone knows maybe a really worthy online course this would be great. I have joined two courses while in lock down (1 was free and the other one paying but it was £1 because of the Covid19 situation). They are Music2me (offered by Thomann the German music shop) and homeschoolpiano.com. I have just started watching their videos and they seems quite good. By the way i have a keyboard (Casio LK-210) that belonged to my late mother-in-law and i think it will be ok for now. If obviously i become better i wont mind purchasing a better one if need be. So please, any ideas, tips or directions, will be most welcome, thank you
J

How much time has passed. Share your results. I think everyone is interested

[lighthouse2020]

Maybe you can check out my iPhone/iPad app “Paglano for piano”, I recently finished. It’s a simple shooting game. Not that silver bullet app that teaches you all aspects of reading music. It just focuses on one thing: it teaches you to find the notes on your keyboard very quickly. And maybe that can be of some help while you're studying...

You can use it next to your normal exercises, during moments when you don’t have a piano around, for instance. The first levels are free and the higher levels only cost you $1 all together. I now am working on a small update. In this update I designed a better visual ‘middle C’ and I will publish it soon.

You can find more info on my website: www.paglano.com

[pianonewb2020]

Maybe you can check out my iPhone/iPad app “Paglano for piano”, I recently finished. It’s a simple shooting game. Not that silver bullet app that teaches you all aspects of reading music. It just focuses on one thing: it teaches you to find the notes on your keyboard very quickly. And maybe that can be of some help while you're studying...

You can use it next to your normal exercises, during moments when you don’t have a piano around, for instance. The first levels are free and the higher levels only cost you $1 all together. I now am working on a small update. In this update I designed a better visual ‘middle C’ and I will publish it soon.

You can find more info on my website:

www.paglano.com

Hello lighthouse2020,


As a beginner, I wanted to try your app at www.paglano.com to see if it will help me with finding notes. I went to download it and looks like it is only available for Iphone and Ipad devices. I am an android user and surface pro. Does the app work for those devices? If not, will you be creating one that will?

[lighthouse2020]

Hello, that's too bad. Thank you for trying to download the app, but unfortunately it won't work on an Android device... I wish it would, but it won't be available on Android, because simply put, I don't have skills to make one on Android...

But tnx again for trying...

[j_tour]

Hello, that's too bad. Thank you for trying to download the app, but unfortunately it won't work on an Android device... I wish it would, but it won't be available on Android, because simply put, I don't have skills to make one on Android...

But tnx again for trying...

I can port your code to Android in the koti dialect.  I charge $100 per hour, and I don't know Koti (but I know Java somewhat, so basically the same). 

[keystosuccess]

Just have a look at what YouTube has to offer, there are some great teachers that helped me along the way with technique and choosing sheet music (

for example)

Some simple beginner's books did the trick for me as well (I usually nicked my cousins, so I don't have a specific title for you). However I recommend starting with learning how to read notes, since that does differ from playing chords (good news though, a lot of pieces have some simple chord accompaniment, too so you can transfer your guitar skills).