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Learning to play the Piano...


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So I am trying to teach myself how to read sheet music and play it on the piano, but I am having a very hard time doing it. Anyone have any suggestions, books, websites and so forth that might help me learn? I do practice as much as possible, but I would just like a little boost to help me get going. :) Any suggestions?

Edit: A teacher would be nice, but I don't have time for one.

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I'd like to avoid one, just because I am busy with work and school. I don't get to practice much for this same reason...

Books help as well.

The teacher method works a bit better, cause that helps you be more deligent and commited to your practice.

Are there any specific books that you know of?
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Don't get "beginner" books with simple songs. Of course you'll end up with a couple. But I also think that there should be an emphasis on just drills. This will help your dexterity in general. Sometimes you get used to a song or something like that and then your fingers just get to the keys. Drills usually focus on more general... what's it called..? sequences that some songs have.

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I tried a long time ago to learn from books, and I found it pretty much useless.

At least for me, I cant just sit down, read a book, and translate that through my fingers into something real. It has to be much more interactive than that.

Honestly, the Miracle system way back for the NES was a pretty solid teaching tool, although I think the gaps in the lessons were a little too large. I'd get a MIDI keyboard and some software, then make the jump to a real piano.

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Get this book.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0879307277/102-7559526-9087315?v=glance&n=283155

Seriously, it is really great if you have some sort of musical experience with you. It doesn't treat you like an idiot, and as long as you actually put effort into it and practice each excercise fully, it is really the best out of all the "learn the piano" books. I got enough money saved up for decent classical piano lessons next season, so I bought this book to learn as much of it on my own as I could so I wouldn't be wasting any time with the basics, and it is really great for that.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Well, if you need two ears to determine location and sound, the 'third' would be to be able to hear melodies and play them back on the fly.

The first two ears take care of hearing that stuff to begin with. The rest is about understanding and/or defining what you're hearing in your brain.

But the 'third ear' thing is symbolic anyway as we all know, so I don't know why I even made this post, heh.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I'm on lesson 14

Everything helps :wink:

Weird. I never really paid much attention to what this stuff means, just playing whatever sounds good to my ears, but for the first time I actually tried to envision how the theory of scales works in relation to what I play, after looking at that site, and apparently most of my stuff right now is played in C# major/minor variations. I use mostly black keys (sometimes going for E-F or B-C natural) and the lowest one is usually C#. Haha. I think I started off with mostly C, G and F scales for the first few years, then I got interested in doing stuff in F# for quite a while... now everytime I hit the keyboard I have a natural tendancy to want do stuff in C#. Now I'm trying to figure out which scales I know well and which ones I don't try much, could be interesting to figure out. I never really knew what a scale was until now, so it's rather interesting to see where my piano techniques fit in with this whole "theory" stuff. :lol:

Hrmmm... this whole scales/major/minor stuff inspired me to doodle around until my keyboard ran out of memory.

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I found that my local library has a decent selection of books on learning to play piano or music theory. They may even have some songbooks with sheet music as well. It might be worth checking out.

Most piano teaching software just sucks. That could just be the luddite in me talking.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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