I’m starting to learn how to play piano/keyboard. I’d like some suggestions for good online courses, lessons, tools, whatever. Free is good, but I’m not against paying for something if it’s highly recommended by people who have used it. That’s the main reason I’m asking here; a bit of googling reveals no shortage of piano courses and tools, but I’d like help in finding good ones.
About my goals: I just want to play for fun and my own pleasure. I have no interest at all in “classical” piano (or classical music, for that matter). I want to be able to play rock/pop/jazz/blues, probably more “oldies” (60’s, 70’s, 80’s) than anything current. I can’t and don’t want to sing, so I’m not looking to be able to accompany as much as I’d like to be able to play the melody on the keyboard. If I could get to the point where, if I found myself at a friend’s house, I could sit down at their piano and bang out a couple of songs and hear, “Hey, not bad.” I’d be really happy.
About me: I’m not a kid, I’m into my second half-century. I don’t play any other instruments, but I’m reasonably versed in basic music theory. I don’t want to start out being taught all about diatonic scales, I want to learn to play.
An example: I’ve been going through some of what’s here. The section on chords is fun and useful, but exercises like these bore me to tears. I do understand the usefulness of exercises, but the reality is that I just can’t get myself to sit and play scales. Give me something that serves a similar purpose but sounds something like an actual melody, and I’d do it.
I’ve been looking for a course to use to teach people to the level you are talking about, and, honestly, I haven’t found any.
I do have a question for you: you say those exercises bore you to tears, but can you do them? They are covering some extreme basics here–you’ve got to be able to play legato and staccato and do some basic coordination between the two hands.
The best I can recommend you are those “Play piano in 24 hours” type things. I know some people who learned on them that can at least lead worship at church.
LawMonkey asked a similar question fairly recently, and many of the ideas in that thread were quite good.
I’m someone who will always recommend finding a teacher, myself. In all of my musical and language endeavours, I’ve always had much more success working with someone else rather than depending on my own ears and discipline…
I learned basics when I was a kid, but never got very proficient until I retired. Then, I found a teacher who was willing to go along with my desires – no scales, and balance between exercises and classical pieces (her specialty) vs modern pieces (American songbook). My point is: if you find a good teacher, she/he will certainly adapt to your needs and desires as an adult student.
Well, like I said, I understand the purpose and usefulness and need of exercises like those. And yes, I can do them reasonably well. But they’re boring (to me) because they’re just running up and down the notes of the chromatic scale. It doesn’t sound like I’m playing anything.
In contrast, take a look at this little lesson on youtube (starting at about 0:30). It’s providing the same kind of practice, right? Giving your right hand practice running up and down a scale, getting practice at hitting the right keys in the right order with the right fingers, getting practice at using each finger individually. Except that it’s an interesting scale that when played actually sounds like you’re playing something. I can sit and run up and down that scale for five or ten minutes at a time (not that I always get it right, sometimes my finger goes to the G# instead of the G, for example). And with this lesson, after a few minutes of that I can spend some time on the left hand, practicing switching between chords. And again, it’s a chord combination that sounds interesting. I’ve already started adding little beginner-level extras, like C chord to G7, then B to G to E-flat and back to the C chord. I’m sure that to anyone who really plays, that’s trivial, but as a beginner I feel like I “discovered” it and I went, “Hey, that’s kinda cool sounding.” If I had stuck to practicing switching between the three beginning major chords, I don’t think I would have “discovered” anything.