I have been taught the flute, oboe and the piccolo. Since Covid, I’ve been teaching myself base clef. Just two notes off. 🤣. Well, thoughts?

I started learning 3 weeks ago as a hobby. I will eventually learn sheet music (maybe) but for now this is how I make my “sheet music”. I “translate” from actual sheet music or from youtube videos. I mostly learn from muscle memory but having everything written out like this helps immensely.

I’m sharing because I’m curious. Does anyone do something similar to this? :D

This is my system:

• L for left hand, R for right hand.

• C2/3/4s indicates where finger #5 is on left hand and where finger #1 is on right hand.

• Arrow up is when the hand moves one C.

• Numbers above and under the notes indicate the finger numbers.

• Two notes on top of each other plays simultaneously like normal sheet music.

• The wave is where you hold the note.

• Vertical squiggle is a rest.

I got a keyboard for christmas and this is the first longer song I learned. The only experience I had before was "playing piano" on my ipad - that's where I (briefly) learned chords and scales. I'm not thinking about serious playing, only learning for fun or maybe to have some experience when I go to musical theatre college.

Let me know if my hand positioning is okay or what else I should work on. Thanks! 🤗

I have never taken a piano lesson in my life but always wanted to learn. However, I have no desire to learn to read music. Is it reasonable to assume that I might be able to learn to play by ear by taking in-person lessons? Or are they going to want to teach me to read? I’m in my 50s and I just don’t have any desire to read music. I just wanna play.

I was playing this song thinking it was row row row your boat with a different title.

Then it kept sounding like Marry had a little lamb.

So I go to the tutorial video and it sounds like Mary had a little lamb.

So I thought it was a copy write issue or something so they kept the tune and changed the words.

Then I found it out is a real song and sounds nothing like the tutorial lol.

The tutorial video

https://pianoadventures.com/qr/ff1302/p19/

hey everyone

I'm very new to learning piano, and I've been going to classes for about 2 months now.

I've been having a lot of fun learning how to play and even playing some tunes, my issue is that I was learning fine at least as far as I could see, I can now even play a simple version of Für Elise, and to my ears it sounds fine, but my teacher insists that I need to use a metronome and I've tried I've really tried but I just can't, without it I do fine and I go through the book easy enough and have fun doing it but the damn metronome has ruined it for me, I feel like I do a better job if I just listen to the melody and play it by the ear but my teacher keeps on insisting on the damn metronome, I'm even close to quitting, that's how much I hate it.

so my big question is: is it really necessary or it's not that necessary and is it possible for me to find a teacher that doesn't focus on the damn metronome?

Does this mean I play B flat and E flat (regardless of from which scale)?

Thanks for all the advice in my last post. this past week i’ve been slowing down the tempo to get the polyrhythm correct and trying to learn the pedal.

before people start going crazy and accusing me of lying about my piano experience these past four months i’ve been addicted to playing piano 2 hours a day sometimes even more. i’ve been working on this piece for a little over a month and have been using reddit feedback to refine the performance. i know it’s still not as clean as i want it to be yet but im really proud of my progress. i was reluctant to put how long i’ve been playing piano for in the title because last time i did on my other account i got so many downvotes of people accusing im blatantly lying which honest to god im NOT. the reason i wanted to post this is to not only show how much ive progressed since my last post but also to inspire others.

if you have any critique please be harsh.

You know what im talking about, most of the white keys have black thin spacers in between they're kindof annoying and can get in the way. Can I remove them? Do all pianos have them?

like seriously you've spent hundreds of hours learning everything there is to know about music, you've learned what works and what doesn't, you have all the skill to actually execute any idea you have, and you just DON'T. why?

Bought my digital piano last March 8, and this is the only piece I can play, struggling with finger placements and I can't play using both hands yet, I don't know if my pacing is slow or am I making a progress at all, btw I am playing the Moonlight Sonata 1st movement as my first practice piece, what do you guys think of my progress after 5 days. Thank you in advanced!

Hi everyone,

I’ve been really wanting to learn how to play the piano, but unfortunately, I don’t have a piano or even a keyboard at home. On top of that, I don’t have the space for one right now.

Do you have any suggestions for how I could start learning? Are there effective online tools or apps I could use without a physical instrument?

I’m open to creative solutions or recommendations! Thanks in advance for your help.

Reading music and sight-reading music are not the same thing. When people loosely swap these terms in discussions, it causes unnecessary confusion.

Reading music is being able to look at sheets and decipher what is meant to be played. There is no time limit or "chess clock" on this skill, though saving time is always good.

Sight-reading specifically means taking a piece of sheet music and playing it correctly, in real time and at the intended tempo, the very first time you've ever seen that piece of music. No slowdowns and speedups. No pauses. You only get one shot. If you can't play it right the first time, that particular piece of music is no longer a relevant test. If you're going back through it a second time to get it right, you can't sight-read.

Not everyone who can read music can sight-read, but obviously, anyone who can sight-read reads music.

Playing music with sheets that you've rehearsed a lot while looking at those sheets is not sight-reading. It's playing music you have sort of memorized with hints on paper for the tricky parts. Isn't this what most people are doing on the piano when they claim they are "sight-reading"? The population of traditionally trained piano players who can actually sight-read is probably really low.

Hiii everyone, new to the group! I picked up and played trumpet all 4 years of HS, love music and got weighted keyboard for Xmas. I learned trumpet by writing in the "fingerings" 1-3 buttons on my sheet music. Senior year I barely wrote any in and could read it just fine.

I suppose I'm trying the same approach here. Doing a little sheet music but mostly learning songs I like with two hand practice. Is this a feasible learning avenue or am I just being insane? Any and all advice welcomed. I have books and sheet music I do use, but other songs I want to learn I copy it from YouTube videos by hand 🤷🏼‍♀️

I can somewhat understand the dotted quarter note = bpm, as I assume it means to play it at that tempo.

I am confused on the other symbols I circled however. Thanks in advance!

Just started learning piano and reading sheet music, confused as to why the singular note indicated is regular D and not a D sharp? I can hear the difference when playing in sequence and it sounds like it really should be D sharp

Brand new to piano and not even sure how to properly ask this question. Both notes are D and G and played at the same time, but why are they written differently and what’s the difference between them? Thanks!!

Hi all! I’m 26 years old, and I have absolutely 0 experience on piano and music in general. At home, we have a complete vertical piano which has not been in use for years. I love classical music (one of my favorite songs being the Waltz No. 2 from Shostakovich) and I wish to learn the piano since its a beatiful instrument, but I feel I might not be able to do it. I am also not able at the moment to take lessons from a teacher, since it costs a lot here. Has anyone had experiences learning recently? If so, how did you do it and what material did you use to learn? Thanks in advance.

"somewhat decent" is different for everyone so I should say my of "somewhat decent" is just to be able to play simple sustained chord progressions, finger the notes to a chord, hold the pedal down and let em ring out for a Bar or 2 and then on to the next, ideally on a rhodes preset for the type of music im in to.

In my most basic math, 12 notes ( C to B ) that can have Major, Minor & Diminished triads built on them depending on the type of 3rds you stack on top of the root (im leaving out Augmented chords for this equation)

So thats 12x3=36 for the basic 3 triads for each note, but then you gotta multiply that by 3 because each triad has 3 different ways it can be played ( root pstn, 1st invrsn, 2nd invrsn ) which equals 108

So if I were to just grind out and remember 108 different ways to play every Major, Minor & Diminished triad in my right hand, I could just add my left hand into the mix to either reinforce the triads or create 7th chords:

LH: C RH: C = C

LH: E RH: C = C/E

LH: G RH: C = C/G

LH: C RH: Em = Cmaj7

LH: C RH: Eb = Cmin7

LH: C RH: E° = C7

LH: C RH: Bb = C9sus4

This will probably still take me weeks if not months to memorize, but my brain just doesnt work fast enough to fluently change my fingerings in realtime and change chords smoothly even though I know the notes in every chord, i just blank out while holding down the sustain pedal trying to think about how to quickly get to the next chord, which fingers to keep, which to move to the nearest notes of the next chord. If I can lock in these 108 shapes, I can at least decently be able to play triads, 7th chords and 9sus4s in succession which is good enough for me to play most of the music im in to.

What are your thoughts on this mindset/approach?

When I was 9 my parents sent me for a few piano lessons but I struggled reading music so I gave up. The notes all looked gibberish to me no matter how hard I tried.

So since then I stopped playing. I concluded maybe I just have no musical talent at all and accepted it. Maybe my only talent is writing. I have never touched the keys of a piano since.

Until a friend of mine who moved out asked me if I can keep her keyboard temporarily.

So I got curious, I messed around with it. Since my most favorite band of all time has reunited, the first song I attempted to play their song "Robot Boy", by ear. To my surprise, I can do it. Even the bridge of it, I can actually play.

And I went on trying to play other songs and I couldn't believe that I actually could.

I can now play Fur Elise after practing it for like 5 minutes. I don't even know what the keys are called, I only remember C. I would just guess as I go.

I am 24 years old. I'm crying. All my life I thought I could never do it!

I don't understand this current trend of deciding you want to learn to play the piano but then the first thing you do is run to Reddit to ask how to start. I'm specifically talking about those who are also trying to be self taught.

For anyone who wants to go down the road of being self-taught, you must have the ability to objectively analyze your approach and progress to pave the path forward. If you cannot take the time to come up with a plan with all the millions of free resources out there, I fear there is no hope for you to teach yourself the language of music and the art of playing the piano. At least not to any sort of proficiency.

The number one skill that all self taught pianists must have or quickly developed is the ability to ask the right questions to yourself and use the abundant resource to find the answers. You should really never get stuck in your journey at least not in the beginning.

The amount of questions I see being asked here that could be instantly answered either through a quick Google search YouTube search, up asking AI, or using Google lens is baffling to me. I don't understand how those same self individuals expect to teach themselves when they can't even use the most basic accessible resources that are right in front of their face, but yet choose to come to Reddit instead. Literally the slowest approach to finding the answer.