Can one learn the piano without reading music ?

[VicDiesel]

btw, anyone think i could get some nasty habits by practicing even the very basics on my own ?

Yes. I picked up a guitar and taught myself, after having played flute and piano for a long time. Then I took a lesson, and the teacher found zillions of things wrong, just in the way I was hitting the strings. It's precisely the basic things that can go wrong, and that a good teacher will correct for you.

Victor.

[graysonmillar]

I started playing the Guitar at 9 years old. At about 10 or 11, I took like 2 or 3 lessons but got fed up because he was teaching me the basics (mary had a little lamb, etc) when all I wanted to play was Metallica

So, I said 'screw it' and just decided to learn on my own. So I did, and never learned how to read music, just tablature for learning songs, 11 years later I am able to learn just about anything I want (to a certain extent), by ear. My ability to tune by ear came by accident (and surprize), but I can't think of playing any other way now.

About a year and a half or so ago, I started messing around with electronic music, which got me into playing a bit on the keyboard. I'm still on my way to being 'great' at the piano/keyboard, but I have figured out a few songs so far, all by ear, and I am working my way to learning Moonlight Sonata (Beethoven). I can play only the first 45 seconds or so, but I am able to play it pretty well (including the simultaneous lead parts, which were a bitch )

My experience with the guitar has deinitely helped. Every day I get more and more comfortable improvising on the piano or keyboard (more often keyboard because I don't own a piano, but I have friends who do so I do get to dabble on them when I can, and I've got the foot pedal work down pretty well).

If i hadn't had learned guitar It would be much more difficult, but I still have a long way to go for keys. None the less, I can still have fun with improvisation and 'jamming out' with other people, which seems to come easier than learning pre-existing songs).

I do want to get lessons for piano though, I feel I could benefit from it despite my learning speed right now. But I know my learning patterns so I'm sure I could get pretty good without any help if i keep going the way I did with guitar, but I am seeing why it would be a good idea.

[disturb]

Thanks for all the answers folks.
As far as i am concerned sight reading is my lowest priority right now, i have tons of work ahead, and from what i've seen it doesn't look that hard, so if i really feel that it's hindering me at some point i'll just pick up the slack.

cheers

[wrack]

Just play by ear

[MaliceX]

I've been playing by ear since the beginning when I first touched any form of keyboard, though learning the names of notes, chords and at least being able to determine why melodies/scales/chords sound like this/that is still good to know regardless of whether you're playing by ear or not. (Most handy tool is the Cycle of Fifths)

I don't sightread, and started on music through staring at sound waves in a sound editor, then later a MIDI piano roll, however it's helped me gain the ability to easily determine pitch by ear. (Cousin brags it as perfect pitch, though I'd like to think of it as relative. It'd be nice to have Absolute pitch though, just for the sake of getting a frequency on-the-dot )

Even though I can play without a sheet, it's important to know that even using some form of written guideline for a song is handy. A lead sheet is probably the only essential piece of paper you'll ever read, in the event you're put on the spot to play something and haven't had time to practice the said song. (But hey, least there's freedom in how YOU play those chords!)

If you can't read sheet music but intend to, learn how to read rhythm first before anything. It makes things easier in the long-run...

PS: Does anyone know of a chart/table for piano/keyboard which tells you the fingering order of left/right hands of arpeggios AND scales in ALL keys? Thanks.

[martian]

pianos equivalent to guitar tabs is midi. there are loads of free midi files across the net covering all the classics, so you can learn to play songs without requiring a teacher or score. the hardest part is figuring out the most efficient fingering to play them back, where you can either use your own logic, or some one elses via a teacher or forum. as well as this to a certain extent you can figure song components out by ear when listening to your fav pieces.

so if your primary goal is to improve your own music then i personally see no point in learning to (sight)read music. depending on how much time you have to spend i think it would slow down your overall progress and be irrelevent to achieving the improvement in your own music. which i think will come half from studying/playing all the tricks your fav artists use and the confidence it gives you to experiment and form your own style and musical logic.

i would def recommend learning some standard music theory though if you dont already, not to give your musical mind any kind of support or rules to go by, but to help you understand and spot the patterns in what you like, and to help give you more ideas/perspectives to consider things from.

[Sascha Franck]

Ok, an older, re-animated thread. I'll answer anways.

If you ask me, it's not that important to actually be able to read notes from a staff if you don't really need it.
Personally, I do need it quite sometimes for my jobs (I'm playing sort of a lot of musicals), but as far as improving skills goes, I never exactly needed it at all.

What I do however think will get you quite a lot further is knowing these:

- Notenames on your instrument of choice. So, while you don't have to be able to read Bb-C-Eb-G from whatever staff, you should be instantly able to figure them out and play them on your instrument.

- Chord names and what you actually need to play them. Which leads to:...

- Some theory. For instance, with the sample given above, you should more or less instantly recognize it's an inversion of a Cmin7 chord. Along the same lines, you should know some "chord construction" rules. Such as in that very chord, in case it's supposed to become a Cmin7/11, you'd simply replace the G with an F.
And you could probably be quite happy in case you'd know in which musical/scalar/key context that very chord could be used.

The same goes for scales. You will need to know the notes contained. You don't necessarily need to be able to read them, especially in case you don't work in whatever environment requiring any such skills.
Remember: Being able to talk well in whatever language doesn't necessarily require any reading/writing skills either. You gotta know the words (and probably the letters), though. It's almost the same for music. You only need to stick to whatever conventions once the situation requires it.

And again personally, I found it to be of great help to know about rhytmic notation - and to actually explore some rhytnic patterns more carefully. Learning/reading rhyhmic notation however is a piece of cake compared to learning/reading "real" staff music. And IMO it will pay off quite quickly, too.

[wrench45us]

there are approaches to piano that follow the chord-based approach that guitar lessons usually take

jazz and other players often work from lead sheets that just post the melody line and chord symbols

I would suggest picking up John Valerio's 'Jazz Piano and Concept and Techniques'. It's presented in staff notation, but very little reading is necessary once you sort out the concepts. Basically it's about learning standard patterns for closed and open chords and the best/most common voice leading through the ii V I and other standard jazz progressions.
I'm finding it very useful in setting up a foundation and also expanding out of the closed chords patterns I know.

[tapper mike]

Wanna study jazz?
Once you get a few lessons down.
Pick up band-in-a-box and then hit the groups for biab files.

Seriously it's the best jazz education you'll ever get.
What's better theory or applied theory?

I disagree with this statement

Playing other people's music (which you'd have to read) can help build technique, but it's not necessary to play piano. Just like a lot of guitar players don't mess with tabs

Learning other peoples songs expands your musical pallette more so then simply learning chords and scales. It also breaks the linear route which becomes a rut.

I think the problem becomes when people focus more on learning other peoples songs and let writing there own music fall back.

[lockheart]

I have a family member who taught piano at 16 years, and as an adult, could not play anything without a sheet unless she had memorized it from a sheet. She then went to a jazz teacher to try to learn, but gave up.

I'm learning a bit of theory: scales, degrees, intervals, chord, inversions, etc., and I don't read. I think in degrees, not notes. It would be better to read, as a way of getting the information in. The best would be to be trained for years in theory, then get a lust to play stuff you like which isn't written; like say, Eddy Van Halen and Peter Frampton - and most keyboardists - did.

Ray Charles was classically trained, playing Beethoven before he played Blues.

[Tony Ostinato]

ive seen every degree of the spectrum, from "has to have sheet music" to "cant function if anyone has sheet music anywhere near the stage".

clearly people can play greatly w/o having to read, case closed.

there are benefits to reading tho. my favorite is it cuts down on rehersal time, in some cases it eliminates the need for rehersal entirely.

so just that alone has given me back a huge chunk of my life.

another good one is it does increase the number of gigs youre likely to get and be able to handle. memorymasters that some may be, and that sure aint me, at some point around 100 songs youre gonna forget something somewhere.