learn to play piano

Everyone can play music by ear. Some can go farther than others with that ability, but everyone can do it to some degree. Unfortunately, no one has ever attempted to teach serious music students to depend upon their ears as much as possible. Eventually the ear player reaches his limit and must use notation to study music further; but this limit is much broader than is generally supposed. Moreover, our musical horizon, our limit of comprehension, is not far beyond this point where the ear must yield to rational machinery for guidance.

Everyone can also learn to play by note. Some can go farther than others. In any event, musical comprehension is expected to accompany this note playing. But eventually the note player reaches his limit. He will do well to investigate what ear playing can contribute to his further progress.

How to Start Playing Music By Ear

Take the time to listen to your favorite songs and recordings. Then try to sing or whistle the melodies. The ability to do this is the first step, and a repertoire of tunes learned in this manner will serve as a storehouse of pieces to be played by ear at the piano.

Then, the student should play the tunes that he knows over and over again and in a variety of ways: use the left hand as well as the right; play the tunes with both hands together one octave apart; play them starting on different pitches or, in other words, in different keys.

Use a Piano

Any tune can be played beginning on any note on the keyboard; but it is easier to begin on some notes than on others. Try beginning on various notes, and you will find that there are three different notes with which you can begin which will not require you to use any black keys.

Do not expect, however, to play the tune right off. If you can do this, the piece is too easy for you. Play as far as you can and then try to find the next note. If you do not find it in a few tries, you will probably save time by going back to the beginning and thus come onto the difficulty with a running start. If it still does not come, play up to the note that you cannot find and then sing or whistle the correct pitch. You will then be able to match the tone you are singing. If it still does not come, lay it aside until tomorrow or some other day. Try some other piece and you may find that you can play this piece another time without any difficulty.

Criticisms for Learning to Play Music By Ear

Many people criticize the learning of music when it is done by ear. The chief criticism of the approach to playing the piano by ear is based on the contention that students using this approach never learn to read music with facility, even when they begin the study of notes. The opposite result is true, however. The note reader tends to play note by note, while the approach through the ear nurtures a grasp of the entire phrase and clusters of notes. When this skill is transferred to the visual sense, it will facilitate faster reading of music.

Jimmy Cox
http://www.articlesbase.com/art-and-entertainment-articles/how-to-start-playing-music-by-ear-quickly-89528.html

Is there any other educational area where students are taught only in a one-on-one situation, not really?

In essence, this is what classical piano students do. It is very important and monotonous for students who are learning to play the piano to practice everyday, this takes discipline which you do not see in children or parents. Both of these attitudes create artificial limitations for students that hinder their ability to grow and develop musically. Here’s the message piano students need to hear — “Your effort matters and it makes a difference.

However, about a third of parents do too much and try to take over responsibility for their child’s progress, which hinders their child’s ability to develop positive learning skills on their own. To help their children learn and accomplish their goals, parents need to focus on the process and content of the learning rather than the final product.What the young student doesn’t understand is the piano learning process.

Private lessons have good and bad connotation associated with them, sometimes children create a dependence on the teacher and it is hard for children to overcome this and children are not encouraged to develop their own independence when it comes to learning the necessary skills, on the other hand having the one on one teaching is very beneficial to the child because more can get accomplished in a shorter period of time. Plus, there is no point in having your child spend 30 minutes practicing incorrectly without learning their pieces when the material can be mastered in 10 minutes with good practice habits.

Because parents are in charge of their children’s schedule and curriculum, home school students can set their own pace and spend more time on music than in the public or private schools. Music is even more fun when you can share it with others. Young children have the ability to learn music theory and are able to learn concepts on the keyboard as the children grow and develop their musical ear.

If your children know their alphabet and how to identify numbers and count, they’re old enough to start learning music theory. With the rise of the internet more adults have learned that taking piano lesson does not have be taught in classrooms or studios it can be taught over the internet, this helps with today’s busy schedules and adults do not have to be locked into a schedule.

Well, you might find this hard to believe, but encouraging your child taking piano lessons to practice doesn’t have to be a struggle. They do want to be sure, however, that their young child is old enough to benefit from formal musical training.

One of the choices that parents have when their child is beginning piano lessons is whether to enroll their son or daughter in a private or group lesson.

Over time this will make sitting down at the piano to practice feel more natural to your young child or your older beginner and make learning easier. Establish a routine practice time.

Set meaningful goals that will last, focus on the “What” and the “Why. Writing down the goals and dreams that first motivated you to give your child the gift of piano lessons provides a reminder that will keep your energy focused over the long

David Marc Fishman
http://www.articlesbase.com/education-articles/so-many-ways-to-learn-the-piano-95455.html

With the advent of the internet there is no longer any excuse for not learning music if a person wants to learn. Learning music online has revolutionized learning, since it is the first time in history that anyone with a computer can virtually find out anything they want to know about music — and find out quick!

There are sites galore teaching everything about music from chords to trombone lessons to drum lessons to music theory lessons to guitar lessons to piano lessons, and a whole lot more. Many are free while others charge a very reasonable tuition. But think what a bargain that is; no travel, no traffic jams; no rescheduling lessons; no missed lessons; and because the lessons are online (or in some cases on CD’s and DVD’s) they can be replayed over and over until the lesson is thoroughly learned, which is not the case in a personal lesson or a college classroom. You have one chance to understand, and if you don’t, you’re immediately behind the curve and have to do extra studies to catch up. Not so with online music lessons.

Back just 15 years ago if an individual wanted to learn music, about the only places he or she could do so would be from a private teacher, a music school of some sort — private or public or correspondence, or self-taught from a music book. All of which is fine, but slow if an individual is really chomping at the bit to learn, and learn fast.

But today there are literally hundreds of sites on the internet from which any ambitious person can access and learn virtually anything they want about music. There are sites dealing with music instruction for beginners as well as college-level sites that deal with figured bass and advanced music theory and composition issues, as well as improvisation and arranging music.

For example, there are piano lesson sites that teach how to improvise — all styles of improvisation including jazz, rock, gospel, new age music and more. There are piano instruction sites that shows you how to play piano sheet music as a map, instead of having to sight read the printed music as it is written. By learning how to do this, you can create your own free piano sheet music by creating a song and then notating it in a music software program such as Finale using piano tabs, piano chords, and chord symbols. A person can learn to play piano notes by the fist-full by learning piano chording music styles.

Learning to play the piano, learning to read piano music, learning piano songs from classical music to popular music is one of the most fun things a person can do. There are piano lessons online using major chords, minor chords, 7th chords, and all kinds of chord progressions. Learning to play the piano music of your dreams using piano chords & piano chording techniques is now within the reach of anyone with an internet connection! And don’t forget harmony and music theory — including scales and fingering of scale and chord passages in musical scores and sheet music — it’s all available online. Music history and music appreciation is important too — guys like Bach & Mozart & Beethoven & Chopin knew what they were doing — and we can learn much from them and stand on their shoulders simply by accessing the biggest library in the history of mankind — the cyber library of the internet.

Here are just a few of the phrases you can search online that will lead you to sites where you can learn music online (I have used piano and guitar as an example, but obviously you can search for anything from singing lessons to drum lessons to harp playing and everything in between):

* piano lessons
* music lessons
* guitar lessons
* guitar chords
* piano chords
* how to form chords
* chord piano
* play guitar
* play piano
* learn guitar
* learn piano
* guitar playing
* piano playing
* learn music online

You will find that if you type “music lessons online” into the Google search box, you will come up with something like eight million results! “Piano lessons” will call up about a million and a half, while “guitar lessons online” will bring up over two million search results.

With this abundance of material online, there is no excuse for anyone who really wants to learn music to not avail themselves of the opportunity, especially when they realize that this is the first time in the history of the world that this riches of knowledge has been available with just the click of a mouse.

Duane Shinn
http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/learn-music-fast-online-81525.html

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learn to play piano with Rocket Piano at http://www.rocketpiano.org.uk/

Do you feel that you progress as a pianist? The feeling that you become better as time goes by gives you incentive to keep on practicing. In order for you to succeed in your endeavors, let us take a look at your practicing habits!

As you practice on your piano there are things that will lead you towards your goal to become a better pianist. Let us first take a look at things that can hinder your progression:

1. You do not have a clear picture of what type of pianist you want to become. This will make it difficult to choose the right exercises that will help you progress. If you do not know your goals you will not be able to prioritize between the many things you could practice.

2. You are not practicing your homework long enough to commit the skills to your long-term memory. You might find it interesting to browse through piano sheet music and play a few notes here and there. This might help your sight reading skills but you will not progress as a pianist and musician.

3. You practice too difficult things! If you practice things above your level of proficiency you might hinder your progression towards a good pianist and performer. It is good to have accomplished pianists as models of what you can become but you are not there yet!

4. Your hand posture is preventing your progress. Bad hand and body posture makes it difficult to play demanding piano pieces with smoothness and in a musical way.

5. You play your exercises at a tempo that is above your technical skills. This is understandable since every pianist wants to hear how things they practice are supposed to sound at the final stages of repetition. However, playing too fast will hinder your progression!

6. You practice but forget that all is about music. Without music in mind and heart you will probably lose interest in playing sooner or later.

7. You do not have any piano pieces to play to your friends. All you have done is practicing exercises and fragments from piano solos. You have never learned to play a melody perfectly from beginning to end.

Let us take a look at how you can eliminate these obstacles and make your piano practicing sessions more effective and maybe even shorter and more joyful:

1. Give yourself time to think a lot about your piano playing. Why you play, what things you like about playing the piano, what type of pianist you want to become and your weaknesses that right now hinder you from becoming what you want to be. Write down some goals and use them as a guide when you decide what to practice.

This will also make it easier to evaluate how well you progress as a pianist. Your goals help to see if you are on the right road. As time goes by your vision of what you want to become will be clearer and your goals will be more and more perfected!

2. When you have choosen exercises and piano pieces to play that will lead you towards your goals I suggest that you practice them long enought to really learn the skills involved. These skills will become building blocks that will help you learn more difficult exercises later on. An absolute condition for this to happen is that you commit your present homework to your long-term memory.

3. Be careful to select exercises and piano pieces that are not too much above your technical skills. Too difficult exercises will be boring as you have to play them in a very slow tempo and they will take a very long time to master and you might as a result actually lose interest in playing piano.

4. Correct hand posture guarantees that you will use your energy in the most effective way and that you will not cause yourself muscle injuries. Correct hand and body posture will make your playing a pleasant experience as you will be able to play with minimal muscle tension.

5. The most effective way to learn new things on the piano is to practice slowly. This will resque you from making a lot of mistakes that can grow into negative habits that will hinder your progression. Practicing slowly will also help you play as relaxed as possible. Practice a piece of music in a relaxed and enjoyable way and this will be the way you perform it!

6. In order to develop as a musician you will benefit from listening to music performed with heart and musical depth. In the long run you will become a much better pianist if you devote some of your time to assimilate musical expressions and manifestations from good musicians.

7. To have a number of well rehearsed piano pieces in your repertoire is very rewarding for yourself and enjoyable to your listeners as you can play them to the best of your ability. Memorizing pieces of music should be a significant part of your practicing schedule. If someone asks you to play you know that you can play piano pieces you are proud of sharing with others!

Peter Edvinsson
http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/piano-lesson-are-you-getting-better-all-the-time-424350.html

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