3 Tips For Better Piano Playing

If you are just starting to learn piano or if you have been learning for a while here are a few points that though simple and uncomplicated you might find to be helpful.

Practice Regularly

It is exceptionally important to practice daily.To many kids who learn the piano this can be a chore which in a lot of cases leads to them giving up the instrument at a later date. Practice periods get more interesting to the mature student who has elected to learn the piano and who can get pleasure from the process of learning and practicing.You will see that after a number of days of regular practice that your fingers seem to behave better as the communication between the brain and the fingers is strengthened with practice.You will find that after a while you 'get used to' playing and you do not have to think about it. You will find it much more difficult to play once you have had a few days off from practicing. For more information on piano playing and for a list of some of the best home study guides available take a look at the Piano Lessons for Beginners website.

Set goals

When you are learning the piano, especially if you are learning alone with a home study course then you have to set yourself some fairly rigid goals as a way to really advance. You will be better off making both long and short term goals. The short term goals might be the mastering of a certain piece or the perfection of a certain chord progression. Repeat the piece multiple times every day until the time comes that you are satisfied with it. A longer term goal would be for instance, to attain a certain level of playing, to pass an exam or to get to a level where you are able to accompany a singer or other instrumentalist. It is usually enough motivation to have your goals and the setting of deadlines and time limits is not normally necessary. You might also check out the following site for extra information on learning piano at home: How to learn piano

You will make Mistakes - Don't let it concern you

It can be so easy to get over concerned about your mistakes and errors when you are performing or practicing but know that no matter what you will make mistakes. It is way more effective to give a fluid performance with a couple of mistakes than a technically perfect yet cold and dry performance. You should pass over the mistakes and keep on playing. Make a mental note to yourself the place you made the error and if you continue making the exact same mistake in the same place then you ought to work on that small section playing it again and again, slowly at first until it flows with no trouble and playing it gets simpler. If you don't concentrate too much on your mistakes and errors then it will get a lot easier to move forward, the mistakes you make will either go away on their own or in the case of repetitive ones they will force you to practice them until they no longer exist. The ideas outlined here should make it simpler for you to practice and improve your playing. Take a look at this short video I made that if full of tips on how to play the piano for beginners.

Learn Piano Online

Taking piano lessons online is a recent development and good alternative to normal piano lessons. It is becoming more and more popular and with the rapid development in multimedia technology you can now have your very own virtual teacher at home to be used as you need.

Private Piano Teachers There are many advantages to going to a private piano teacher as opposed to learning to play the piano at home alone but there are also many disadvantages. It is possible now with the Internet and audio visual technology advancing rapidly to have lessons without having to leave your computer. This can sometimes be tricky to schedule but also your own practice needs to be undertaken before the lesson so you can progress onto higher levels with your teacher. On the weeks that you haven't been able to practice your teacher will not be able to advance you onto the next lessons. On the negative side, when working with a teacher at times you are limited as to the pieces that you will be studying or the style that you will be playing in. Not all teachers will teach you the music that you want to play, some may not teach you how to play by ear, some will not teach you blues, jazz, gospel and classical for example. With a home study course you can progress at your own pace and will learn not only how to read music and play classical pieces but also how to play by ear and how to play jazz, blues gospel etc..

For the best online piano course available:

Rocket Piano Review

What are the benefits of online piano lessons?
Flexibility is one of the main reasons why many people learn piano online. There is no traveling to your teacher's piano studio at the same time each week and you can take your lessons when ever you feel like it. This will free up a person to be able to practice when and how much is convenient and when they are ready for the next lesson they can progress at will irrespective of if it has been more than a week or less.

The difference in cost between normal piano lessons and a downloaded home study course is immense as Private lessons will cost anything from to well over 0 for an hour long session. Payment for the classes has to be made regularly even if you cannot make it for a lesson. You can download an online piano course for around and will give you typically the equivalent of about a years worth of lessons if your are just starting out.

If you take an online course you never have to be worried about making time for a lesson or about making time to practice. You will not have to be worried about getting stuck in an boring lesson on exercises that don't interest you at all. You will be able to advance through the lessons at your own pace and in a way that is comfortable for you.

Learning in this way puts you totally in control of your learning process. If you do to get stuck on a rather difficult lesson you can spent time on it, playing it over and over until you get it right and under your fingers. On the other hand, you will find some lessons easier than others and will be able to skip through them quickly and onto the next ones.

You can have loads pleasure learning the piano online as it can be a great stress free way to learn with out having to worry about the next lesson and about completing practice schedules for it. Once you have become more proficient then you might want to think about taking a few lessons with a teacher just to assure yourself that you are on the right track and that your general posture is correct.

For more information about online piano courses:
Learn Piano Online

How To Play The Piano

You might feel a little overwhelmed when faced with the prospect of learning how to play the piano. You must have watched someone play the piano and wondered how on earth they manage to do that with so many keys and combinations of fingers to remember. Learning to play the piano or keyboards can seem to the beginner a really complicated activity but it doesn't have to be at all. With the right teaching or advice learning how to play the piano can be a really easy and straight forward process and not complicated at all.

There is a list of the best piano courses on the Internet at the website below
Beginner Piano Courses

To learn the piano can be well within your capabilities, here are a few guidelines to help you along;

Know that you are not going to become a pianist overnight
You won't find it difficult to sit down and play great sounding beginners piano pieces right from start. The problem is progressing from there. The trick is to know that you need to allow your fingers to develop and your brain to get used to telling your fingers what to do. Practicing regularly is the only real way to develop. You will get to the point where you find that you are no longer struggling as much as you were before, your fingers will seem more responsive and your playing will sound better.

Schedule your daily practice
You need to keep practicing ever day in order to interiorize the movement of your fingers on the keys, your brain needs to become accustomed to these somewhat strange movements. Just missing a single day's practice can make for a serious set-back. Daily practice is important for the beginner so even if you don't have time of motivation then try and sit at the keyboard for at least a few minutes to play something. If you take time off playing then you will definitely notice the difference when you return and it will prolong that initial steep part of the learning curve.

Left hand and right hand
You should try practicing your pieces one hand at a time. At the beginning you should play the right hand part of the piece on its own. After having repeated this a several times you will find it has become a little easier and smoother. After this you should now try the left hand on its own. Once again practice this left hand part until it becomes easier. When you are pleased with each of the hands on their own you can then try to play them together. You will be able to become a much better player by using this little trick and practicing this way. Pieces you already know can also benefit from being played with separate hands occasionally.

Train your ear
This is something that will mature over time as you are learning how to play the piano but you will find that a lot of piano layers have what is known as a 'good ear'. Having a 'good ear' dictates if we can hear wrong notes or out of tune notes. It is said that you need to be born with a good ear but that is not totally true, you can train yourself to hear better and be more musical. You can often find little software utilities that can be used for ear training, there are some home study courses that include them as part of the course.

Enjoy playing
This is probably the most important advice of all. The having fun part can be easily forgotten when things start to go wrong but try and keep things in perspective and you will advance a lot more rapidly. If you don't feel like playing one day just sit at the piano and have fun, play what ever comes into your head or try and play a well know song by ear. Remember that the more fun you have the better the end result will be. When you choose which pieces you are going to learn you need to make sure they are in a style that you like so that you can have fun with them.

Practicing the piano or keyboards will not need to be anything else but fun if you follow some of tips offered here. You will surely have a great time learning to play the piano now you know what to look out for.

If you are interested in a home study piano course you can get more information at the site below
Learn Piano At Home

Piano Basics

Piano Basics

When you have been searching for information on how to learn the piano you might have been drawn to one of the many multi-media courses that you can use at home. There are others who would prefer to go to private one-on-one piano lessons with a professional piano teacher. Which ever way you will soon discover that the essentials are the same.

There are several points the piano student should take into account:

Start at the beginning
Its really important that you start with the basics. You should find out what you can about the instrument such as where the notes are, the pedals, how the keys work and so on. You would probably benefit from learning how to read a little music and maybe even a little theory of music too. Set aside some time each day to practice, find a good piano teacher or a good home study course and you will be well prepared.

The most popular piano courses for beginners are listed here:
Best piano courses

Choosing the right piano music to practice is important
Making sure you have picked the correct pieces to practice and play is very important. It will not help you to pick pieces that are too demanding for your level as you will not be able to dominate them as you should and your advancement as a player will be affected and probably your confidence and inspiration too. You need to choose easy, short pieces that you could memorize if needed, this will make it simpler for you to perfect them. Try learning a piece or two by ear, i.e. listening to some music over and over and trying to play it yourself without music. You could try working out the chords or the melody or both. Listening to a song several times and trying to copy it will be a great help to your piano playing and will help you develop a musician's ear.

Things will become difficult
If you find that the learning process becomes too difficult then know that this is normal. As you advance from absolute beginner piano level to intermediate then the learning curve can become quite steep. there will be [moments. It is at this moment that a lot of people will give up but you should just try and persist for a little while longer. Although at times it may seem as if you are not making any progress rest assured that subconsciously your brain is slowly learning how to play the piano and one day when least expected you will suddenly realize that it is no longer such a struggle and your playing has in fact improved noticeably.

Make it personal
Sometimes you can hear two artists who play the same song but each one will sound completely different, you too can do this with the pieces you are learning. Try and put your own expression into a piece and be adventurous by trying new things. Depending on the piano teacher you have this will be more or less possible but the more fun you can have whilst learning the better.



More details on learning piano can be found here
Learn Piano Chords

In order to become a good player you will have to cover the basics, learn some possibly uninspiring pieces and basic exercises. Try to persist and not give up. Getting through the downtimes sometimes has to be done but you will come out the other side a much better player.

If you want to find out more about learning the piano check out the website below
Beginner Piano Lessons

Piano For Beginners

If you attended keyboard lessons as a kid and now you are older you want to return and take it up again, you will still need to have starter piano lessons. Even if you have never sat at a piano before, the way you are taught will still be the same.

Of the many different ways of teaching there are a lot of similarities that are common to them all. Today, a lot of students will be using an electronic keyboards, the way you are taught for keyboards is the same as it is for the piano. The goal of a lot of people who take up the piano today might be to be able to read music, to be able to play some classical music, and often to be able to play in different styles such as jazz, pop, rock etc. They may also want to learn how to accompany singers and other instrumentalist.

As a beginner, to have such ambition might appear somewhat ambitious but before you embark on your piano playing journey you will need to get clear what you want to get out of it. You will see that in a very short time you will be achieving most of the above.

There is a piano teaching method that I really love which is used by a home study course called 'Piano For All'. The methods for teaching they used in this course impressed me a lot.You are then taught how to read those notes on the musical staff.This is gone through very quickly and then you are shown how to play a simple melody using all of your fingers. This melody is also written down in both easy to follow keyboard diagrams and traditional musical notation

This part of the lesson is completed in very little time. After this you are taught the three notes that make up a basic chord. You produce the chord sound by playing it to the easy rhythm they teach you. Next you are asked to duplicate the first note of the chord with your other hand but an octave lower, this gives you a bass note. Add a rhythm to this and suddenly you are playing authentic sounding piano.

Here is a comparative review on the best piano courses available.
Best Piano Courses

Once you have this feeling easy to play, which will be almost immediate, you are then taught a few more simple basic chords. With the handful of chords you have learned you can put them to one of the rhythms you have been taught and playing the chords in a sequence you will find yourself able to play recognizable songs. This is a great method for learning the piano as it can make you feel secure and gives you an appetite for learning more. As you move on you are taught some different chords, different rhythms and tunes. In no time at all you find yourself advancing as a piano player and musician and with each lesson the playing sounds more and more authentic.

This is actually one of the better beginner piano courses available at the moment as it teaches you many styles including pop, classical, rock jazz and gospel. It also verses you in reading music as well as playing by ear.

If you want more information on the Piano for All course I have made a video review which can be seen here Piano For All Review

Beginners Piano Lessons

If you are picking up piano for the first time, or you are coming back to it after a long absence, you will find that you will have to think about some of the basics that are going to be useful to you as you are starting out.

1. Learning the piano isn't going to be as easy as it seems
Remember that no matter how intelligent you are, or the amount of musical experience you might have on another instrument, nothing compares to playing the piano. You will find that as you are just getting started that everything is quite odd and difficult for you. You won't know where to put your hands, and you will find yourself making the same errors time and time again. Be patient with yourself. You are not going to get it all right away, and while some things will come to you more easily than others, you will find that you can get a great deal of good just from accepting that it will be difficult!

2. Be prepared for the mistakes
There is a good chance that you will be flinching from the sound of the mistakes that you are going to be making, above all if the piano is your first instrument. Unfortunately, a big part of learning to play any musical instrument is hearing yourself make lots of mistakes. Remember that this doesn't mean you should try to gloss over them or to play more quietly. Clear and decisive playing will make sure that your mistakes will sound loud and clear, so you will find that it makes it a lot easier to identify them and put them right.

3. Challenge yourself
Remember that although you will be starting out with the more simple pieces you shouldn't just stay there. Just as you start to get a real grip on one piece of music, you will find that it is the moment to really challenge yourself by choosing another. Remember that there are many fantastic pieces of music available that are worth your time and your effort, and if your tutor says that you should start another one, make sure that you give it your all. As always, while you may make loads of mistakes at the beginning, think about how proud you will feel when you get better at it!

4. Finding the time to practice
When you are learning the piano, remember that ideally you need to be practicing for about 30 minutes every day. While they will say that there is no such thing as practicing too much, be aware of how you feel, and when you start to get too frustrated with the piece that you are studying you should move forward. Having a short rest can at times lead to a break through so keep in mind that you do deserve breaks!

Consider the above points in your practice sessions and you will soon find that your beginner piano playing is advancing rapidly to much higher levels.