Starting any course of piano lessons for beginners is the same as anything else you’ll ever try to do – you have to give it time and commitment.
You’re not going to learn to play piano overnight, but with some focus and dedication you will definitely see great results from your efforts, especially if you follow a structured piano lesson course or program.
After using this program for a while, here’s what I thought of it, good and bad:
THE GOOD:
There are 3 levels – Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced piano lessons, so you can start at whatever level of piano playing you’re at. I was a total beginner so I started right at the beginning. If I had some experience of playing the piano before I could have just jumped straight into the intermediate or advanced piano lessons.
It’s a very structured piano lesson course – they’ve taken a lot of time to combine written music lessons with video piano lessons, and audio piano learning. In the book at each section it will refer you to what video / audio piano lesson to play now - I found it very easy to follow.
This is a comprehensive piano learning system – right from beginner piano lessons up to advanced learning piano techniques.
You work through at your own pace, and each part builds on the previous piano lessons
THE BAD:
You have to be prepared to put in the effort to both work through the material to learn the piano and practice your keyboard lessons.
I was slightly overwhelmed by the amount of material you get with with this course, although it does all fit together very well and everything has it’s place – you just have to stay with it.
I’d never bought anything like this online before (just a few clothes and shoes, but never anything like a beginner piano lessons course), so I was a bit hesitant.
I put my name and email in for the free piano lessons they give you, but then I saw that there’s an 8 week refund guarantee with the course, and in all honesty, my thoughts were “I’ll try it and if I don’t like it I’ll ask for my money back”
I’m very glad I tried this – I really enjoyed learning piano this way, and I can now play some tunes on the piano (I played some at a party I was at before Christmas, and everyone there was really impressed).
I wouldn’t have been particularly musical and have never kept up any music lessons, so I suppose it was a bit of a surprise to them that I could play piano at all!
When I was going through my beginner piano lessons I found this video on YouTube. This is one of the reasons I wanted to learn to play piano – I’d love to learn to play piano music like this.
This is absolutely gorgeous, inspiring, uplifting music, with a short animated film about an old man’s life – made me cry the first time I saw it, and still does
OK, so after I’d been going through my beginner piano lessons for about 3-4 weeks, I could now play some songs on the piano that I could never do before.
Songs that you would recognise too!
I was SO excited when I got to this lesson overview and found out that I’d be learning how to play “House of the Rising Sun”. Some of the things I’d learned up to this section were:
All about major keys and minor keys – I found that when I learned this I was able to listen to music and tell the difference between them. “House of the Rising Sun” is made up of both major and minor chords. The best way I can describe them is that the major chords are the “happy” sounding ones and the minor chords are the ones that sound “sad”
Once I learned some chord shapes it was easy to transfer them around the piano keyboard to play different chords. For example, there are 3 major chords which just use all white piano keys – C, F, and G. When you learn the chord of C Major, it’s really easy to just move up the keyboard and play the other 2.
I learned all about chord inversions – sounds complicated but it’s not really – it’s just makes it much easier to play different chords without moving a lot around the piano keyboard – really good tip! For example when you’re playing C, F, and G major chords, using inversions you’ll be able to play all 3 chords while moving your hand only slightly on the piano
I got hold of some “Jam Tracks” along with my course, which really helped me get my timing right. These were a series of short pieces with other instruments on them that I could play along with to practice, and I found them great for building my confidence
Anyway I thought I’d put on one of the videos I got – this is the “House of the Rising Sun” one I was telling you about -
I’ve learned by now that there are a few different ways to learn to play piano.
One way is private piano lessons – you pay quite a bit of money on a regular basis, go to a weekly 30-60 minute piano lesson, and learn that way. You start by learning the basics, scales, theory, and a few simple tunes, and maybe in a year or so you’re ready for your first exam.
The problem I always had with that was that it seems to move very slowly, and life always seemed to get in the way – I had to work late, or I had to study, or something else would come up. Also, I wanted to learn modern music, with not so much emphasis on classical. I like Elton John, Coldplay, Billy Joel, U2, that kind of music. OK maybe you prefer classical music, but that’s just me.
Another way I found to learn to play piano is to use a Home Study course of beginner piano lessons. I liked the idea of learning at my own pace, and I found myself really getting into it as I was really enjoying learning piano this way.
Some of the stuff I learned so far -
It’s a myth that people with long fingers make great piano players – what you need is strength, agility and dexterity, and anyone can learn that
The musical alphabet is 7 letters – A, B, C, D, E, F and G. The very middle note on the piano is called Middle C, and when you find that you can figure out every other note on the piano (it’s really easy)
Time signatures are what determines the beat of the music. The most common one is 4/4, especially in modern pop/rock music
Sheet music has a treble clef (for the right hand) and a bass clef (for the left hand). When you’re reading sheet music there are really easy ways to remember what note you’re looking at (this was a revelation to me and made it SO easy!). For example, on the bass clef you can figure out all the notes using the sentences
Good Bikes Don’t Fall Apart, and
All Cows Eat Grass
The black keys on the piano are the sharps and flats, shown by the symbols # (sharp) and b (flat). Sharp means the note goes up by one note (e.g. C# is the black note just above C), and flat means it goes down one note (e.g. E flat is the black note just below E)
Ever since I was little I’ve always had it in the back of my mind that I’ve love to learn to play the piano.
You know when you’re at a family event or party, and there’s always someone who can sit down and rattle off some songs on the piano that everyone can sing along to? I’ve always admired people who can do that and thought “I’d love to be able to do that”.
I didn’t want to be a brilliant piano player, I didn’t want to play piano in an orchestra, I just wanted to be able to sit down and play a few songs.
I’ve tried various times over the years to go to private piano lessons and try and learn, but I they just didn’t seem to click with me (and they’re expensive too!). To me, all piano lessons for beginners seemed to be was endless scales and finger exercises and theory, and I never really learned what I wanted.
Maybe I’m just impatient (I am, by the way!), but I just lost heart and didn’t keep it up. I don’t want to be a classical pianist, I just want to learn a few songs.
I have a friend who plays keyboards in a band, who I thought was pretty good, and he told me he learned online from scratch (which surprised me as I thought he’s been to private piano lessons for a few years – turns out he had only been playing for 6 months), so I went online searching for beginner piano lessons.
There’s a lot of piano lessons for beginners available online, but I just wanted to share what worked for me.
I’m now at the stage after 3 months of starting to learn piano from scratch that I can sit down and play a few songs that everyone knows. I was at a party over Christmas and I was able to sit down and play 3 songs that people actually sang along to! I was so excited!
Hi I'm Anna from Dublin, Ireland. I've always wanted to learn to play the piano but just never got to it, but I found some beginner piano lessons which worked really well for me.
I found it very easy to follow, and hopefully you will too
