Learning the Piano

[Eclectrophonic]

Hi All!

I'm starting to learn the piano.

Something tells me that knowing what notes all the keys are off by heart (12 notes in an octave) would be the best thing to start with, right? I can recognise C and A so far, instantly. I know ('cause I play guitar) that this technique is very useful on guitar (knowing the 6 strings and knowing how to count up an octave) then you can count up from any string and work out what note that string is on that fret. Comes in very handy.

Next, they always tell you start with a C major scale. How does learning a scale help you in the long run? does it help you memorise the notes in that scale? and how does that transfer to playing a song with chords etc eventually.

Thirdly, my hands feel stiff. I was told that your hands when playing piano should be like holding a hamster on the keys lol! anyway, will my hands loosen up over time (they're quite rigid)?

Lastly, do you think I should learn step by step with scales before I start moving on, like for instane, because I'm eager, last night I was learning The Scientist by Coldplay, just too eager to get going.

Thanks!

[Forgotten]

You should know all the notes (and enharmonic equivalents) to the extent that it's second nature to go to the keyboard when reading the note on a scale. Not just the name of the note, but where on the keyboard a note in a particular octave is.

Learning a scale is critical to learning so much theory that follows. It forms the basis of melodic composition, harmony, the ability to improvise, and so many other things. If you don't learn scales, you won't know which notes a key signature indicates are part of the music, or why accidentals occur.

Your hands will probably get more used to playing, but there are so many things that you should consider whey playing other than the shape of your hands. Sitting a good distance from the piano and at the right height is important, as is general posture. Generally you should place your fingers above the keys so that you can play without having to move your hands when you are in "C position" or something similar. When you start out you will find finger positions marked on music so that you can see which finger should play which key - sometimes it's obvious, but it's really helpful to see those finger positions when there's the necessity to move your hand from one place on the keyboard to another.

Learn what you want how you want - if you want to learn a piece that you know, it will help you progress, especially if it stretches your ability. I occasionally take a piece and learn it because I would like to play it, but also because it will improve my ability. Learning scales is definitely important, but so are so many other things.

[currentsound]

I teach piano. What I've noticed with my students that learn online from random YouTube videos before coming to lessons is that usually they use the wrong fingers and pick up bad techniques early on. There is no substitute for going to an actual piano teacher. In saying that, Covid-19 has made piano lessons impossible at the moment. About the hampster thing. That seems like an odd analogy but I tell students to picture holding an imaginary ball. You want you hand to be relaxed a slightly rounded. That allows each finger to be able to raise up and have more power. If you flatten your hand, each finger will have less power and strength. Make sure your wrist is always straight, not bending down or up and any time. You will either have your arm and wrist too high or too low. It should be perfectly parallel to the floor with your elbow at a right angle. You should adjust the height of your chair or digital piano/keyboard accordingly.

Look up some lessons on fingering before learning the scales. Otherwise, you'll have to un-learn them later which is harder to do once muscle memory has kicked in.

Ideally you should learn all of your scales.

Every song is in a key so that is why scales are useful and needed. Also, the more you practice your scales, the stronger and more fluent your hands will become which answers your question about when will you become more fluent. The answer to that is when you have been practicing your scales more and playing more.

If you want to know the how the scales relate to chords, you can checkout this article which also contains a piano chords chart and a scales chart with the chords for each key in that scale: https://currentsound.com/music-producti ... roduction/

Make sure to use fingers 1,3,5 for root position triad chords. Don't cheat and use two fingers per note or play with 1,2,3 like most people do before they go to an actual piano teacher. Sure, those are probably your stronger fingers without practicing scales but once you need to play something more advanced, you'll have to go back to 1,3,5 and you'll regret having created muscle memory for learning them the wrong way and it will take you a very long time to break the habit. Learning an instrument online is not ideal because you can easily pick up bad habits when you don't have someone to correct you but at the moment, there is no other option since all the schools are closed. Just pay extra attention to learning everything with the correct fingers.

[jancivil]

Definitely be cautious regarding “learning an instrument online“.
say no more

[fmr]

Look up some lessons on fingering before learning the scales. Otherwise, you'll have to un-learn them later which is harder to do once muscle memory has kicked in.

Ideally you should learn all of your scales.

Every song is in a key so that is why scales are useful and needed. Also, the more you practice your scales, the stronger and more fluent your hands will become which answers your question about when will you become more fluent. The answer to that is when you have been practicing your scales more and playing more.

^^^ THIS ^^^

There is a reason why you start learning the piano by practicing scales. Unlike guitar, where you play the notes by placing your left hand in the guitar scale in a certain "position", and then just move the fingers of your right hand to pick the right strings, in the piano you have to play each note, and move the hand frequently to be able to play the right keys. And also unlike the guitar, where you can just slip the position and you raise the chord half tone, raising a chord (or a scale) in the piano a half-tone means having a completely different fingering, due to the position of black and white keys.

That's why it is very important to learn the scales, and use proper fingering (many scales have different fingering, exactly because of the black/white keys) not only in scales (learning how to jump hand position by moving the thumb), but also use the proper fingering when playing your music. Most beginner pieces have the finger marked. Try to respect that as if it was a written law.

If you want to know the how the scales relate to chords, you can checkout this article which also contains a piano chords chart and a scales chart with the chords for each key in that scale: https://currentsound.com/music-producti ... roduction/

Please don't. It's confusing, and has some wrong statements. Again, learning chords and harmony needs a proper and knowledgeable teacher, as much as learing the piano. Most Internet sites are full of rubbish. For example, you can read in the site pointed:

"1. Tonic Family:
Cmaj7 (C – E – G – B)
Em7 (E – G – B – D)
Am7 (A – C – E – G)

Do you see how all three of those chords have at least 3 of the same notes? This means you can swap them in your chord progression with each other."

This is simply WRONG. Don't do that, and don't trust that. There isn't a Tonic family - there is a tonic chord, and that's it. One of the exercises I usually give when I start teaching harmony is exactly to harmonize a scale, to show that, despite that rubbish of "you have this chord over the I, this over the ii, etc." when you go harmonize the scale, you DON'T use those chords on those notes, because they simply DON'T FIT.

Make sure to use fingers 1,3,5 for root position triad chords. Don't cheat and use two fingers per note or play with 1,2,3 like most people do before they go to an actual piano teacher. Sure, those are probably your stronger fingers without practicing scales but once you need to play something more advanced, you'll have to go back to 1,3,5 and you'll regret having created muscle memory for learning them the wrong way and it will take you a very long time to break the habit. Learning an instrument online is not ideal because you can easily pick up bad habits when you don't have someone to correct you but at the moment, there is no other option since all the schools are closed. Just pay extra attention to learning everything with the correct fingers.

Again, I strongly support this. That's why it is very dangerous to learn an instrument by yourself, or based solely in the Internet. You risk to create bad habits you will have a really hard time to get rid of.

[jancivil]

1. Tonic Family:
Cmaj7 (C – E – G – B)
Em7 (E – G – B – D)
Am7 (A – C – E – G)

Do you see how all three of those chords have at least 3 of the same notes? This means you can swap them in your chord progression with each other.

Do you not see that triads iii and vi are mutually exclusive?
V to vi in a cadence, known as deceptive cadence, subverts I momentarily, but as to swapping out per se, come on. Melody goes strong to C {sol - do or si - do}, just stick an “Em7“ on there, same “family” so no worries, same diff!
Please don’t pretend to teach theory.

Also, as to assertions like the dogmatic ‘you must do 1 3 5 for root position major triad’, I’ll simply advise the OP et al to get ahold of sheet music with fingerings and have a closer look. When you get further in, you may find there is not necessarily great consensus on “correct fingering of” this, that, or the other as though an abstraction, and that fingering is not that kind of cut-and-dried.

“or play with 1,2,3 like most people do before they go to an actual piano teacher.“ or otoh, after they’ve been renowned concert pianists forever. There are many cases where one does what is the more efficient, even a ‘most’ efficient move.

[Functional]

Thirdly, my hands feel stiff. I was told that your hands when playing piano should be like holding a hamster on the keys lol! anyway, will my hands loosen up over time (they're quite rigid)?

Lastly, do you think I should learn step by step with scales before I start moving on, like for instane, because I'm eager, last night I was learning The Scientist by Coldplay, just too eager to get going.

Your hands are rigid because you're just starting. This is natural and while everyone on gods green earth want to blame it on bad technique, it's not just bad technique: your fingers get weary even if you did it the right way somehow from the beginning. Stuff like stiffness, you will eventually learn your way out of it even with bad technique because the exercises push you out of it

That being said, having a piano teacher is good idea as has been said before here, absolutely.

As for your last thing, I think practicing simple piano songs early on is a great way to keep your interest going while you're practicing more "boring" stuff like scales. The Scientist by Coldplay is a simple song where you're going to just play blocky chords, it's a great song to learn for a beginner just to have some fun.

It's not something like Suspirium by Thom Yorke, where that stiffness actually is a bit of a problem and you need a little bit of dexterity + muscle memory for bigger jumps:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTZl9KMjbrU

Note, even this song is fairly simple overall (although playing it stylistically correctly feels like a tougher task), so you can imagine how simple overall The Scientist by Coldplay would be considered

[currentsound]

If you want to know the how the scales relate to chords, you can checkout this article which also contains a piano chords chart and a scales chart with the chords for each key in that scale: https://currentsound.com/music-producti ... roduction/

Please don't. It's confusing, and has some wrong statements. Again, learning chords and harmony needs a proper and knowledgeable teacher, as much as learing the piano. Most Internet sites are full of rubbish. For example, you can read in the site pointed:

"1. Tonic Family:
Cmaj7 (C – E – G – B)
Em7 (E – G – B – D)
Am7 (A – C – E – G)

Do you see how all three of those chords have at least 3 of the same notes? This means you can swap them in your chord progression with each other."

This is simply WRONG. Don't do that, and don't trust that. There isn't a Tonic family - there is a tonic chord, and that's it. One of the exercises I usually give when I start teaching harmony is exactly to harmonize a scale, to show that, despite that rubbish of "you have this chord over the I, this over the ii, etc." when you go harmonize the scale, you DON'T use those chords on those notes, because they simply DON'T FIT.

The article I linked to is an article about composition, not about playing the piano and learning chords. However, you can simply download the chord chart and scales from the page. Sorry, that was not worded well as quoted out of context. I've tweaked it to make it a little more clear. The article is about how to use chords and scales for beat-making/composition. What was intended was that you can often swap out a chord from the same chord family and it will often still fit with any surrounding melodies. I have rewritten it to make it more clear. If you look at the author section, you'll notice that was a guest post on the site. Sometimes they're not written as well. I appreciate you pointing that out. That doesn't mean any of the scale charts or chord charts I mentioned him downloading are and less accurate or relevant. I don't have a separate page for downloading just scales and chord charts.

It's pretty common for people teach chord families in composition. After all Cmajor7 contains an Em chord and Am7 contains an C major chord and Cmajor7add9 contains an Em7 chord. So that's why their all related and all part of the same chord family. I know he doesn't need that information right now, it just happened to also be on the same page I linked to. He just needs the chord charts and scales on the page.

We are in agreeance with learning piano in person. Learning online you will most likely definitely get confused or learn something the wrong way. It is not ideal. However, given that all schools and piano teachers aren't teaching in the US, telling someone not to learn online is not good advice right now. In my experience, most people that learn online take actual lessons later. Learning online is better than not learning at all but just pay extra attention to technique.

Good luck.

[fmr]

Where to start from if I'm a complete beginner?

As you were told before, the best and safer way is to look for a local teacher. It is also probably the method that will give you the faster results.

[vurt]

hit the black and white bits till you find something you like.

[Hink]

I was gonna say...in the middle, see?

[jancivil]

[vurt]

and

[Hink]

I'm thinking of starting a series, shatter inspired quotes...siq

[Jbravo]

hit the black and white bits till you find something you like.

that's the method for a lot of electronic/idm music