The Basics: Playing the Piano

" Taking care of your musical instrument is the greatest responsibility of a musician."

THE BASICS: PLAYING THE PIANO

As a beginner, you better get used to musical scales. You will be playing a lot of them. And yes, they might seem stupid, and boring, and repetitive, and playing them is not very enjoyable. But learning to play scales are very useful for two big reasons. First, practicing scales exercises your fingers, increasing your fingers’ agility, which, let’s face it, is very useful for a piano player. Second, it helps you develop a perfect pitch. Sure, you will not develop a perfect pitch overnight, rather, it takes a lot of practice, but it will be very helpful to you in playing the piano. And beyond; maybe you want to compose your own music.

READ THE NOTES!

Another thing: being able to read notes will be very helpful to you. It takes practice, of course, as it is similar to learning a whole new language, with its own sounds, symbols and rules. It is not a very enjoyable task, but you will just have to buckle down and get it done. The benefits will be immeasurable. Play along as you read notes, this will not only allow you to learn the position of the note on both the piano and on the sheet, but it will also help train your pitch. Reading a note and mechanically transform it into sound on the piano will eventually lead you to being able to play the piano near automatically, subconsciously knowing which note to play without having to think about its place on the piano.

Beginners often get overwhelmed with all that there is to learn and retain about playing the piano. Just remember that it takes time and practice to master any skill. Learning to play the piano is no different.