Piano Tutorial & Tips

Learning to improvise at the piano takes many long hours of hard work. There is quite a different viewpoint one must take when venturing away from music that is written out note-for-note, especially when “reading music” is all you have ever learned how to do. You may have even had a teacher that frowned upon playing by ear.

There are many ways of going about learning jazz improvisation, but the first thing you must do is listen to as many different jazz pianists that you can get recordings of. You absolutely must immerse yourself in the jazz style (or any musical style for that matter) by hearing it as much as you can. Better yet, if you get the chance, watch a great jazz pianist up-close-and-personal! Being able to watch someone’s hands dance all over the keyboard is not only a learning experience, but an inspiration. I can’t begin to tell you how amazed I was, when seeing someone that really knew how to improvise, sit at the piano and start making things up! I had no clue how they were doing it…I just knew that I wanted to do it too!

The next thing you may want to do is learn some of the typical “improvisational scales“, such as the blues scale. I will be posting up another article about that here, shortly, but if you have never played one before, let me give you a quick one to try, since it is REALLY EASY:

Play all of the black keys, starting from the Eb, going up to the next Eb. Add an “A natural” in there, and you’ll have a blues scale (Blues in Eb to be exact). The chords that are usually used to accompany are the Eb7 , Ab7 , and Bb7. Again, I will be posting another article about that on here shortly, but just try that for now.

There are also a lot of great books out there on learning to play jazz piano. Even if you are a complete beginner and feel that you “just don’t have it”, give it a shot! You may be surprised how easy it starts to become, once you have immersed yourself in the jazz style.

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I have the privilege of teaching a wonderful group of adult piano and organ students on a weekly basis. Some of my students are beginners, some are intermediate and some are advanced. The reasons they are taking lessons vary. Some of the adult piano students are taking lessons to enhance and broaden their skills, some are learning pedagogical techniques, some are studying theory and others are learning to play the piano simply for pure pleasure and enjoyment.

Each of these students brings to their lessons a variety of joys, challenges, needs and desires. I have to but listen to them and to their playing to gain a wealth of knowledge and wisdom. So, what do I learn every week from my piano students?

Perseverance - steady and continued action or belief, usually over a long period and especially despite difficulties or setbacks. Learning to play the piano as an adult can be a daunting task, yet week after week, I have students who continue to diligently practice to attain technical proficiency.

Patience - the ability to endure waiting or delay without becoming annoyed or upset. Learning to play the piano as an adult is a slow process and often the technical ability to reproduce the sounds heard in recordings or in the student’s mind is slow in coming. The patience required to achieve a modicum of success in playing the piano is immense.

Fortitude - strength and endurance in a difficult situation. Learning to play the piano as an adult is not accomplished by playing at the piano for a few minutes a week. It requires mastering difficult eye-hand coordination skills which takes an inordinate amount of time at the piano.

Determination - firmness of purpose, will, or intention. My adult piano students set goals for each series of lessons. To fulfill those goals and dreams requires a firm resolve to continue practicing and studying even when the desired results are slow to attain.

Discovery - the fact or process of finding out about something for the first time. Learning to play the piano involves a new language and a new set of skills so is replete with discoveries. Watching my students make discoveries is a great joy.

Happiness - feeling satisfied that something is right or has been done right. When one of my students successfullyplays a piece that has been a goal or a dream, the satisfaction for them and for me is incomparable.

Pride - the happy, satisfied feeling somebody experiences when having or achieving something special that other people admire. My students form a happy, connected cohort and admire each other’s successes.

Knowledge - general awareness or possession of information, facts, ideas, truths, or principles. Each of my adult piano students posses a knowledge of music that they bring to their piano study helping them resolve piano playing challenges.

Wisdom - accumulated knowledge of life that has been gained through experience. The varied life experience of my students has opened doors of the world to me that I never imagined existed and each piano student brings that life knowledge to their music in intriguing ways.

What a wealth of information my students share with me weekly as they learn to play the piano!

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When you are first starting out on the road to learning to play the piano, you will have the lessons and work your way through them — but at some point you will want to play music that isn’t part of any lesson. Perhaps you want to know just how far you have progressed, or perhaps it’s just for fun. What is your best approach?

It is admirable wanting to play one of your favourite pieces of sheet music, but if you are still a beginner you may not realize at first how difficult popular music often is. The writers of even some of the simplest popular music have usually had a lot of experience with writing music, and they put that into their compositions. I would suggest that you have to start with simpler pieces of music in order that you do not become frustrate and disillusioned, and hence give up.

However once you have begun to work with the simpler sheet music, you must ensure that you continually “raise the bar” — stretch yourself consistently and your skill will improve consistently. You may want to start to move on to some of the simpler classical pieces to start with.

Another important point that the piano beginner must understand is that you have to keep practising regularly. Make a piano practice time-table and try to follow it at closely as you can. Only with regular practice can you start to acquire the feel for piano music that will eventually enable you to play the piano by ear. Remember, though, that while regular practice is important, you should not practice too much — it is the quality of your piano-playing practice that is important as a beginner rather than the quantity, and too much piano practice can start to numb your musical side and you will begin to lose focus.

When learning as a beginner, piano music should be “chunked” — that is, treat the piece of music as a set of smaller pieces, not as a whole. If you learn the music a piece at a time you will find the music a lot more amenable. That is not to say that you will be able to play it perfectly in a few days — you have to realize that there is no quick way to learn to play the piano. Set yourself a time-table as we discussed earlier and stick to it. Make sure your practice time is recognized as such by those around you — tell them you would prefer not to be disturbed during that period. Set yourself realistic targets for the weeks and months ahead, and you will reach them.

Some beginners struggle in the early days because they are not using a method of learning that fits with their personality or style. For example some learners work best with a human sitting next to them, some work better from a book, and others do best with a combination of videos, books, and audio samples.

Patience and determination are the keys for a beginner who has just begun learning how to play a piano. Take your time and you will be rewarded. Very soon you will be able to take beginner piano music and play it easily, and be ready to move on to the more complicated pieces — and imagine to yourself how good that will feel!

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