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Basic Piano

Beginner Lessons For Piano – Helpful Tips

by Erik Thiede on March 9, 2010

beginner lessons for piano Beginner Lessons For Piano   Helpful Tips

Not sure how or where to get beginner lessons for piano? Want to learn to play like a pro fast?

2 Beginner Lessons For Piano   Helpful Tips

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Beginner lessons for piano will take you far in your quest. But supplementing your lessons with some ‘outside’ or unconventional training will shorten the time it takes to become an expert pianist.

It goes without saying that practice makes perfect. However, there are a few additional things that you can do to improve the quality and outcome of your piano lessons.

Click Here And Learn How To Play Like A Pro With Great Beginner Lessons For Piano!

This article will introduce some of them, however it’s important to note that these tips are meant to supplement your training. Not a single one of them could ever replace a qualified teacher or adequate practice.

So here we go with some helpful tips for beginner lessons for piano:

Study music theory

Learning the theory of music will help you understand the meaning behind your education. Not only will you learn what to do at the piano, you’ll also learn why. Music theory investigates music notation, harmonics, and the aesthetics of song — giving you a deeper appreciation for one of the most respected practices of all time.

Practice, Practice, Practice

We cannot stress the importance of practicing enough. You should practice playing the piano not only once a day, but perhaps for one or more hours a day if you can. Repetitive play will help ingrain key pitches and rhythms into your brain so much that you should be able to play the piano with your eyes closed one day…But if you really cannot practice that much, try to a least practice something daily.

Listen to classical music

Listening to classical music will reinforce what you learn from your lessons and strengthen your ability to recognize and emulate important patterns. It’s quite a joy to be able to recognize a familiar chord or scale within historical pieces, and it’s an even bigger joy to be able to play along with the likes of Beethoven or Vivaldi.

Let’s have a look at a few more tips for beginner lessons for piano.

Try to make up your own songs

This too, will help reinforce the things that you learn because in doing so, you’ll train your mind to think in specific time signatures, octaves, and beats. You don’t need to write the music down on notation paper. Just try humming a few classical “riffs” of your own while you’re driving to the store or doing the dishes. You might surprise yourself by how easy it is and discover an inner composer at the same time. Beginner lessons for piano don’t have to be boring!

Learn the terminology

You’ll do yourself a tremendous favor by learning the terminology used in your instruction because it will help you better communicate with more advanced musicians.

It can be quite annoying to try and interpret what someone means when they refer to “playing the doo-wap doo-wap thingy” on the piano, but it can be quite refreshing to get into a stimulating conversation about intriguing “diatonic scales” and “tonality”.

Buy a metronome

A metronome is an adjustable tool that indicates the exact tempo of a piece of music, and it’s a godsend for people who have trouble keeping a simple beat. Those learning how to play the piano for the first time would benefit from the use of a metronome as it reinforces important time signatures – that is, time signatures that help organize a bunch of seemingly random notes into a sensible pattern of pleasing music.

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piano lessons for beginners Piano Scales   Get Acquainted with Musics Foundation

Looking for beginner exercises that will make you a better pianist? Want to master your piano scales?

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Piano scales are essential building blocks in music. You will devote a

good deal of your time and effort to learning and playing them.

On following pages I will show you a useful overview, give you an overview of major scales as well as some important beginner exercises.

Students of all levels endlessly complain about piano scales. And I agree, playing a scale is not the most exciting part of mastering your instrument.

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But one thing is certain: the scales will progress right along with your skills, but you will always play some if for nothing other than an excellent warm up or workout for your fingers.

In case you belong to the category of those who have hardly touched a piano or never had a teacher, you should know some theory. Don’t worry, I won’t make it more complicated than necessary!

Let’s first answer the most important of all questions:

What is a scale?

In music it’s a collection of notes that belong together and are used to create melodies and harmonic variation.

These notes are ordered in pitch or pitch class. As such they provide a measure of musical distance (whole tone or whole-step (WS) or semitone or half-step (HS)). A scale step is the distance between two successive notes.

Piano Scales - Whole and Half Steps

There are many different types of piano scales, some with five notes (pentatonic scale – popular in blues music), six notes (whole tone) and twelve notes (chromatic – widely used in modern jazz).

The most commonly used in Western music are diatonic scales.

A diatonic scale has seven notes: five whole-tone and two half-tone (or

semi-tone) steps. The half steps are maximally separated. This means that there are two or three whole-steps between each of the two half-tone steps. The pattern repeats at the octave.

The keyboard of a piano (as well as an organ, electronic keyboard etc.) is diatonic, with black keys grouped in twos and threes.

A major scale is also diatonic. The steps in a major scale are:

  • whole-step
  • whole-step
  • half-step
  • whole-step
  • whole-step
  • whole-step
  • half-step

Use this formula and the notes of the C major scale are:

C Major Scale

All 12 Major Scales

Natural minor scales are also commonly used. Here the steps are:

  • whole-step
  • half-step
  • whole-step
  • whole-step
  • half-step
  • whole-step
  • whole-step

Use this and the notes of a C natural minor are:
C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-C.

Other important piano scales every beginner should master are melodic minor and harmonic minor scales. No doubt you will get acquainted one day!

Let’s stop here now. You will get a better understanding when you’re playing and hear the difference. However, not only your ears count. Proper fingering of piano scales is equally important if you want to develop your skills and improve as a pianist. But that’s another story.

Interested in all Seven Modes of Music?

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Top 5 Ways To Develop Your Piano Rhythm

March 5, 2010

Learn the basic rhythms.
As one of the top 5 ways to develop your piano rhythm, learning the basic beats found in any kind of music will help. The more rhythms that you listen to in fact, the easier they are to identify and emulate. We have for example, the standard four-beat [...]

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Children’s Piano Music Lessons

February 26, 2010

If you’ve ever seen a baby respond to a song, you know that children were born to love music. Even from inside the womb, infants can hear rhythms and melodies. Its no wonder that many children love music.
Piano music lessons give children of all ages a wonderful opportunity to explore music. [...]

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Prepare For Online Free Piano Lessons

February 22, 2010

Online free piano lessons are the perfect choice for those who may feel intimidated by sheet music. In the comfort of your own home, you can learn to read notation without feeling (too) embarrassed or incurring the costs of an expensive tutor. But before you set out to download every song from the web, let [...]

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How To Play The Piano – A Quickened Approach

February 18, 2010

Play the piano one key at a time? No way!
There’s an old joke among seasoned pianists, and it goes something like this. Question: “How do you learn how to play the piano?” Answer: “One key at a time!” Although that certainly seems like a logical way to learn, it isn’t very [...]

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Basic Piano Lessons – Hmmm…Where Do We Begin?

February 16, 2010

What is the big dilemma?
There are more opportunities to learn basic piano lessons than ever before. And on one hand, this is a wonderful achievement since it increases the expose to a truly great medium. On the other hand, it can make finding appropriate lessons a bit more difficult than [...]

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Basic Piano Scales – Essential, But Easy!

February 12, 2010

The relationship between full-size compositions and basic piano scales is incredibly strong, for without the scale, we wouldn’t have the wonderful symphonies that we enjoy today. Knowing what this relationship is, there can be little question about how basic piano scales contribute to such masterpieces from the likes of [...]

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Relative Pitch – Distinguishing the Framework of Music

February 7, 2010

The Sound of Chords
Unlike perfect pitch, which is the sound of single notes, relative pitch is the sound of chords. A chord is a group of notes that when played together, create a new sound called a harmony. This harmony can be major, minor, or any one of the [...]

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Top 4 Reasons to Learn to Play Piano

February 5, 2010

The Piano Has Its Own Unique Sound
One of top 4 reasons to learn to play piano is the unique sound it makes. No other instrument comes close to the type and quality of music generated by the piano, which consequently, is a good thing. High quality music requires that its instruments sound [...]

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