Beginner Piano Music - What’s the Best Approach?
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!
Do you want to play in a particular style? You could just 