by GJ

Created on: March 08, 2009   Last Updated: March 09, 2009

I've been playing piano for years now, and after attempting to play a few other instruments, I have found that piano (or keyboard) is the easiest instrument to teach yourself to play. I started teaching myself simple tunes when I was about 10, and I started lessons in my second year of secondary school.

Lessons were OK, but my schoolwork took priority, and I struggled to squeeze in practise. Unfortunately, I had a lovely piano teacher, but the pieces I had to learn were so childish, I soon got bored. This meant that I became uninterested in piano lessons after a while and when playing on my keyboard my attention strayed from scales and boring pieces and I began to make my own little tunes and started to learn music that I really liked.

Learning piano without a teacher is a lot easier, because the key to success is interest in the pieces you are playing, not learning what you're told to play. I found scales of little use, however if you wanted to become a serious pianist I should imagine you would want to learn these. However, being a casual player like me, you should only play tunes you like.

You don't need any kind of tutoring to play piano, why not just sit down and have a quick jam! Try different combinations of keys, and put together a few notes just to see if it works. I've found that just sitting pressing random keys can lead me to finding the notes for some of my favourite songs.

If your not sure about playing piano, whether you'll be interested or not, borrow someone's. I'm lucky to have access to keyboards and pianos at school, and that's where I learnt that I really wanted to get to know how to play.

I can offer a few tips for learning piano quickly, but you'll find that it's mostly down to experimentation and self discovery:

1) Make sure you are 100% interested and willing to work hard to play piano, be sure that you are not just going through a creative phase!

2) Once you have the means to practise and learn piano, set yourself targets and stay commited. You will only get to learn pieces thoroughly through perseverance and patience. If you're a beginner, you need to let your hands and fingers get used to the positions and sequences they will have to be in. Have in mind a few songs which you really want to learn, and try your upmost to achieve playing them.

3) Research on the internet is important. Youtube has been extremely useful for me, because of the huge range of tutorials for beginners which show you how to play popular songs without confusing terms. I have also found Musicnotes.com an amazing site. They offer samples of sheet music for songs and there are clear markings and explanations on how to play songs. They even show you what the notes are, which is handy if you are trying to learn to site read.

4) Don't be afraid to spend some money on your new hobby. Buying digital sheet music is a good idea, you get great explanations and tutorials. Plus, knowing that you have spent money on a piece of music will drive you to learn it, otherwise you will be thinking about what a waste of money it was. You may also want to buy books from music shops which can help.

5) In my experience, piano lessons have not been the best thing for learning piano, but it is entirely your choice. They are pretty expensive, and require a lot of commitment if you really want to go far and do grades.

Well, I wish you luck with your piano playing, and success if you ever do go for grades or higher positions in the piano playing world.

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