Piano Question

Today I decided I will start playing the piano seriously. The most important thing is to get a good start. Being a very technically thinking person I wanted to know what you piano experts consider a good start! I have a week of freedom from school now and I will put it into piano practice :(

So where does one begin?

Thank you in advance!

You should work on your technique, by doing exercises as well as practicing etudes. There are a lot of books with etudes, check your library. Everybody has their own favo(u)rite(s). Exercises are mainly scales, arpeggios, trills, chords, intervals, whatever. [Get your scales and chords right instantly, don't struggle with them later on.] The most important thing would be getting the fingering right, playing with correct posture and hand movement, playing cleanly and getting everything up to speed.

Concerning 'Spielstücke' (pieces), you should check out simple works by Mozart, Chopin, ...

The Mozart 'Facile' sonata is lovely, but it might be too difficult, depending on your current level of playing. Just start with some etudes. And if you've been working on a particular technique, try finding a piece that uses it. A good source for sheet music is sheetmusicarchive.net

What's your background? What's your experience? Have you had any lessons before?

-_-

heya!

Thanks alot for your advice Snees, it has been helpful. I haven't been able to post because of my computer playing hookie instead of doing what it's suppoused to. I started playing 2 pieces aswell as learning all the basic scales and arpeggios(I have the cycle of fifths down). The pieces I started working on are the Facile Sonata you recommended and the Pathetique Sonata by Beethoven(middle section). It's going very well! I'm 2 minutes into the Pathetique Sonata and I've got the first part of the Facile sonata down(past the scale runs up and down). I found a great piano method here:

Piano Fundamentals

It has helped me advance technically very fast since I posted here. It is a totally diffirent approach than I have done with the guitar but it is so very good!! if anyone has the time to read this I would like to know what you think.

What's your background? What's your experience? Have you had any lessons before?

I've never actually played the piano, just fooled around from time to time. And I've never had a teacher but I'm thinking about finding one.

I disagree 100% with Snees' method. He sounds like most piano teachers these days. ''If you want to be good at piano, FOR GODS SAKE: DON'T PLAY ANYTHING THAT SOUNDS LIKE MUSIC!!'.

I suggest you drop all those silly scale excersises and concentrate on pieces of music! If you have some kind of MSN accound we could perhaps share experiences, i'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on the pathetique.. :laugh:

^ What he said :laugh: let's chat!

Heya Letehn! ^^ My msn account is Popeyekatt@hotmail.com. If anyone wishes to add me feel free to do so ;)

Get Hanon Book of Exercises and a book of scales with chords and arpeggios learn both those books and learn to sight read like a second language and you will have no problem playing much of anything really.

I can't play that well yet I've only been threw like 30 something hanon exercises.

(PS: Always follow exactly the fingering markings for hanon as it is designed to build strength and agility in the fingers that are more akward to play with, 4 and 5 mainly, esp. to do trills with)

*rants long and elaborately on how much hanon sucks*

Hey Hannon is very helpful!

though you have to be creative, you have to love it.

Chopin's etudes are just as educational, so why choose Hannon, which is boring, over something beautiful such as Chopin? Not only that, but Chopin WROTE his music in the best interest of a pianists fingers since he composed by improvising on the piano. So although his music seems hard, it is actually quite easy to play. I have learned that playing pieces that you really enjoy listening to can help motivate someone to practice instead of dreading it. If you choose Hannon, you most likely will dread to practice...but that is of course MY opinion.......

If you are a beginner, you probably should start off with some kind of grade level 1 piano book and play simple, but fun pieces. These pieces are edited for beginners.....because even easy Mozart pieces can be quite difficult for a beginner. Sure, learn the scales, key signatures, but play simple pieces so it looks like you are progressing. As you play more pieces, you will learn to pick up key signatures anyway. If you blindly learn key signatures and scales, you WILL forget. However, if you can associate a piece you learned to a scale or key signature, you will remember it much better.

I'd have to agree with Chopin here.

If you are a beginner, you probably should start off with some kind of grade level 1 piano book and play simple, but fun pieces. These pieces are edited for beginners.....because even easy Mozart pieces can be quite difficult for a beginner. Sure, learn the scales, key signatures, but play simple pieces so it looks like you are progressing. As you play more pieces, you will learn to pick up key signatures anyway. If you blindly learn key signatures and scales, you WILL forget. However, if you can associate a piece you learned to a scale or key signature, you will remember it much better.

And also: listen to music from genre your aiming for, and listen to various artists' interpretations of the pieces. And if you're a beginner, I strongly recommend learning by the intervalic method.

I actually picked up the piano with a fakebook, and then started the classical method later on.

Yes, fakebooks are good. Particularly as a guitar player, you'll want to know the chords sooner rather than later.

Scales, arpeggios, chords, cadences, scales in octaves/3rds/6ths/10ths, Hanon, Pischna, Dohnanyi, and Czerny... the essentials to obtain a solid technique. Start SLOW. Too many people make the mistake of wanting to play fast, and they sacrafice clarity and control for their speed..... definitely not a good way to start. Piano takes patience, and focused work.

Yupp i agree with chap, Hanon is really good.

And you should know the basic scales:

C Major/minor, C# (Db) Major/minor, D major/minor, D# (Eb) major/minor, E major/minor, F major/minor, F# (Gb) major/ minor, G major/minor, G# (Ab) major/minor, A major/minor, A# (Bb) Major/minor, B major/minor.

This should give you a nice base, there are of course other scales, but the basics should be enough in the beginning.

I would memorize the all the keys, and start scales going up the in the circle of fifths. My first piece was... Well actually, it was some kiddy pieces from a little book I found, but I really started playing at Fur Elise, which is a piece I really liked playing and had fun throughout it. I also started with Czerny excersies. Take stuff slow, keep your fingers flat while you play, and play lightly and loosely. If you tighten up your entire hand to play, it'll come out with you gritting your teeth for every note.

Oh, and one more thing. Have fun!

- By the way, I think Chopin etudes are quite difficult. I don't think they'd be good for beginners, but they do give good techniques. I wasn't aware there were many easy ones. I would start with some easier stuff first.