I’m a thirty-three year old adult who loves music of various sorts. I’ve dabbled in various instruments (formal violin instruction in elementary/high school; pennywhistle and guitar on my own) but never attained any degree of mastery for various reasons. I’d still like to, though–music means a lot to me, and I’d love to be able to make it instead of just consuming it.
Which brings me to the piano. You can do it perfectly well on your own, it lends itself to a diverse range of musical styles, and as a fairly signifcant bonus, I’m told that learning piano is more likely than most other instruments to help you understand musical theory. (The whole process of writing or composing music is like black magic to me.) Plus, a decent keyboard will retain its value and I can plug it into some cans to keep from irritating the neighbors.
On the other hand, I’m thirty-three years old and might have a hard time finding the time for piano lessons. (It’s not completely out of the realm of possibility, though it’d have to be no more than once a week on weekends.) Lots of people pick up the guitar and teach themselves how to play with the help of a book or videos, but I’m not sure if I’ve heard about this with piano. Does this even make sense for me to be thinking about?
I like this guy’s free youtube series (here for piano lessons, here for music theory). He is a bit awkward, but I find it sort of endearing.
Mostly, I’ve learned to play the piano by just sitting down with the sheet music, and tediously translating the notes into memory. Listening to the piano piece being played by a professional helps make sure I get the notes and the timings right. I’ve probably picked up some horrible habits this way, but on the other hand I’ve managed to get to the point where I can work my way through a Beethoven sonata. I’m embarrassed to play for others because I’m not very good, but being able to hack away at pieces I love does bring a remarkable amount of joy into my life.
Yes you can. Be diligent about setting aside time for practising, and what areas you practice on. Fingering is important for beginners: you can pick up bad habits that will never leave you. If the sheet music has fingerings, follow them, or at least understand why your alternate fingering is ok. I have a friend who has played for 30 years who never learned proper fingerings and he cannot play music at tempo.
Yes - don’t take any shortcuts, as you’d have nobody to notice and rectify things like this.
However, piano is not like the guitar. With the latter it’s possible for a total beginner to strum a few chords after a couple of lessons, and to accompany simple songs fairly quickly. But with the former it will take lots of practise to produce anything listenable. Which is not to discourage you; on the contrary: it’s better to know that you’ll need to invest some time.
I’m self taught and I can play by ear reasonably well.
I played with a jam band for a couple years and while I don’t think you heard us on the radio, we had the time of our lives
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There are some significant tradeoffs for not taking lessons, though.
My fingering is terrible and without the repetition and discipline of scales, some patterns just don’t feel right. I’m comfortable in a couple keys, fair in a couple others and awful in the rest.
Here’s what I would do:
Find a couple modern, simple songs that you want to learn how to play.
Find the ‘tabs’ online for those songs and print them out.
Find a chord chart and print it out. (Here’s a decent one, 5 page pdf)
Learn the chords on the tabs with both hands, starting with your right (assuming it’s dominant), then mimic with the left.
Once you’re reasonably proficient with the chords, you’ll naturally start riffing with your right while the left keeps the rhythm.
Piano is one of the easiest instruments to teach yourself (I’m not talking about playing really WELL). I mean, imagine trying to teach yourself something like the oboe or trombone.
I highly recommend Scott Houston’s series, Piano Guy. Professionally produced, it is available on DVDs and your local public access cable TV station may carry it (I program it twice daily for ours). Each episode Scott shows the basics for playing a pop tune from lead sheets and has a guest (Scott’s background is more of a drummer than a piano player). The guest is invited to show off at the end, so the show covers beginning to expert and it’s entertaining.
While the answer is (as others have said), yes, you can… Your OP comments that you “don’t have time” for lessons. I think, frankly, that lessons will take LESS time than teaching yourself, in the broad scheme of things. You will learn faster with lessons and with practice.
If you don’t care that, for instance, in two years time, you can still only play one-fingered songs, then fine, teach yourself, don’t practice, only spend ten or fifteen minutes a week at it. You’ll get there eventually. On the other hand, six months or a year of lessons and diligent practice, and you’ll be playing for enjoyment on your own thereafter.
I taught myself how to play the piano. My mother played and I would pester her to teach me. She tried to teach me scales and things but I only wanted to play songs, so she handed me the sheet music for Fur Elise and showed me the starting note. I was about 5. I don’t play any longer, but I used to be quite good with classical and ragtime.
I doubt it will work unless you have the time and inclination to noodle around with the piano/keyboard for a while most days. And you might end up regretting that you never took lessons. I never did take them and I wonder on occasion what difference it would have made.
To be fair: My schedule is unpredictable, and while I might have “time” for lessons, the time would be at rather late hours that most teachers would be uninterested in. So it works out the same as not having time.
Anyway, I’m willing to give it a shot–thanks for the advice. If anyone has any thoughts on a suitable starter keyboard, I’m all ears.
I would say that you have to play most days to succeed, whether you take lessons or not.
Edit: I might have misread. It seems you too feel everyday practice is necessary, lessons or no.
As for myself, I am self-taught, have never had lessons and to my knowledge have never been within a mile of a piano teacher or DVD/youtube lesson. I’m no musical genius, but I can for example play half the pieces in the Anna Magdalena Notebook, some of the Goldberg Variations of J.S. Bach, and accompany myself on various rock songs.
All I can say about keyboards is to go to a store where you can make sure you know what a piano feels like, then go from there in choosing a keyboard. Some keyboards feel just like a piano and some feel nothing like one.
Fiddle Peghead, yeah, I think daily or near daily practice is pretty important. During most of my school days, I played for 1-2 hours a day.
