How hard is it to teach yourself the piano?

It's not black and white

Practice is the key

Take a look at musiah.com, an Aussie setup.

I reached grade 9 as a young teenager many many many moons ago

I had 'organ' lessons as a kid and did ok. I recently bought a good quality digital piano and finding it difficult to master again so thinking about taking piano lessons to refine some skills. The biggest advantage is that I can still read music.

You'll always do much better with a teacher. I started saxophone (with a teacher) in my mid 40's, and 3 years later have just completed 4th grade.

I have a teacher, and the fact that I am paying out $30/week for my lesson gives me an incentive to practice, when otherwise the busyness of kids, family, work, etc would probably stop me from ever getting around to it.

You can achieve a certain amount on your own, although I would now say that I regret being too tight to pay for a guitar teacher when I was younger. I do okay in a garage band, but I could have been kickass by the end of uni, instead of getting stuck in a rut after a couple of years of self tuition from books and stuff. My mate who started same time as me, but had a good teacher, started to leave me behind after a couple of years and became a guitar god.

I know a couple of damn good professional guitar players who still pay for occasional lessons.

It's not about practice, practice......it's about good practice, good practice.

If you are really on a budget, I would suggest finding a teacher who is willing to let you do fortnightly lessons, or maybe doing a stint of 3 months of weekly lessons twice a year. I do find weekly lessons are probably a waste for me, as I do not practice enough to make that much progress each week. I'd probably be better off with fortnightly, but then, I can't ask my teacher to give a up a time slot that someone else would be willing to take weekly.

Arguably nobody every teaches you anything. You teach yourself. The teacher spurs you along and critiques what you do. You have your half hour or hour lesson, but then the real learning happens at home when you practice and works stuff out.

I find the formal learning process frustrating. They're either constantly saying "You're doing it wrong." or saying "That's good enough, on to the next piece." I was either being deflated because I was happy with something, or pissed off because I had not mastered what I was doing.

Similarly, it's really hard to find a teacher you can relate to. The vast majority of teachers are either young kids who are monster players, but know stuff all about teaching and possibly stuff all about what you want to learn." Or really old and possibly old school and just want you to play scales and hold your fingers in precisely the correct angle.

I think if you can find a teacher that gets what you want to do and can relate to you, and you to the teacher, it can be good. I had one teacher and she understood what I was after to an extent and it was pretty good.

Funny. My parents made us take organ lessons too. Cant remember much now but I do remember it wasnt to hard. Tried to learn guitar once, that was hard. Id take a few piano lessons though to atleast get on right track.

Get a few lessons to get you going with the right technique......much harder to correct later. Once you get the hang of it motivation is the key. Scales seem boring - but repetition of hand placements n movements is the key to mastering an instrument. You may well master the easy stuff without lessons but your progress later will be impacted. Bad habits are hard to correct once you get going. Maybe explore the Suzuki method - based on learning from ear - which it sounds like you are doing already. But knowing where n when to move your hands is vital - it comes with repetition of movement as a general rule. Some people are naturals but most of us need to work hard to achieve these movements. Good luck with your endeavour. I leant to play the violin n panio at age 5 in the classical manner for a long time then moved on to wind instruments. Wish I had put the same effort into the guitar - recently brought one and are presently doing just that.

Consensus rules! Will save up enough to get a decent term from a music teacher on piano and go from there. Most definately I sound like a few of you whom were roped into music lessons as a child. I unfortunately took it for granted and never pursued it more than I should of. First song I taught myself? A more modern one in 'Talk is cheap' by Chet Faker. Have got most of it down pack besides the little variations he plays so working on that!

Hope you all have a good rest of your weekend and bring out the instruments your mums forced you to play as a kid and give your mum a good day to remember!!

You let your daughter go to band camp ?

You do know what happens at band camp don't you ?

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Glasssssy said..
Background of messing around with a guitar back in the days. Use those tutorials on youtube and am picking it up songs on the piano relatively alright. Considering learning it properly. Think it's possible using the net and a few 'how to play' books or does one do better getting a teacher?

Cheers guys

Just as an aside, if you can play the guitar you can play the piano. Chords with the right hand. Bass line with the left. Throw in a few inversions and twiddle a few fingers to get the melody and away you go.

The spelling of the chords is the same and the persistence of shapes works in a similar way.

Three note chords are good. Two note chords sound good and you can run them up and down the scale. I like sixths. There's lots of four note chords that sound nice and jazzy or funky.

Bass lines are usually the root of the chord. Octaves make theme sound a bit heavier and more resonant. The can do a little left hand arpeggio of root, 5th and octave to make it sound a bit more musical.

If you want to sound really different, do a three note chord on the right hand and move the bass around to make lots of different chords and progressions..

heres a good rhythm youtube link if you ever play with guys who like reggae. in the past, before youtube and software that slowed the song down, i tried to get this down but took me ages. this explains it so easily. classical piano lessons never shows you these sorts of things.

My wife learnt this way about 15 years ago, started teaching this method within a year, was singing and playing piano for a job a couple of years after learning. Yep the creator Neil Moore now lives in the states. I've witnessed this method work quickly and successfully. My wife doesnt teach any more.