Keeping a piano in tune so that when you practice on it is important for longevity and for the quality sounds you expect from it.

The first thing to do to look after your piano is make sure its stored in a suitable place. This means finding somewhere that isn’t too damp. Keep your piano away from heaters, air conditioners and fire places. Also try and keep your piano (if it’s an upright) away from an outside wall of the house. Keep the piano out of long periods of direct sunlight too, as this can damage the finish and also affect the tuning. This all sounds very particular but anything to do with heat and moisture will put your piano at risk of going out of tune and have other long term negative side effects. Ideally you want the piano somewhere that the humidity and heat levels are at a nice constant level. The contracting and expanding of the wooden parts will affect the quality of the piano. Read more »

Here’s an excellent article on what to look for when buying a piano keyboard.  This will greatly help you selection when you get to this point.

There are many different questions when it comes to buying a keyboard. How much should I pay, how many keys it needs and so on. A lot of it really depends on the buyer and your own personal preference. The best way to tell if the keyboard is right for you is if it “feels” right. But, in saying that, there are a few simple guidelines that can help you out come purchase time. Read more »

We as humans make things so hard and complicated.  When in reality with a little discipline, a little creativity and a lot of motivation we can do anything.  No doubt that when we first start learning something new in our lives let alone how to play a piano there are a lot of things in our mind.  We wonder how we are going to learn something so foreign to us, how will we find the time to learn these new trait?  In fact if we give in to these questions a lot of us will just plain give up on the thought of ever learning anything in life. Read more »

If you are learning the piano, either as a beginner or as a slightly more advanced player, you can appreciate how frustrating it is learning the skills and techniques without seeing any noticeable results. The time and effort that many put into exercises don’t seem to be reflected in their standard of playing. There also seems to be a frustration in the lack of quality information on the market. Read more »

The worst thing that you can do to yourself when learning anything is to put unrealistic expectations upon yourself.  If you’re just starting out learning how to play piano you should enjoy the process.  Don’t worry about learning right now but concentrate on the event and how you feel about playing piano.  Once you start thinking about the correct way to do things and you don’t meet those expectations you start losing control of the initial reason why you wanted to play piano in the first place.  What is that? Read more »

Whenever people start learning something new the learning curve is steep in the beginning.  That’s just natural considering that it’s a brand new subject being introduced into your life.  But as time wanes on then you hit a plateau where you think you’re not learning anything.  In particular, you’re probably taking piano lessons in which you still excited about but you don’t see progress.  Well in piano playing it’s hard for you to see progress but everyone around you are probably astounded at your progress.  For you to learn piano in tune with your expectations you have to do a little something at each and every exercise session.

That is relaxation.  I know I have mentioned this before but it’s true.  You need to visualize and relax so that you are agile, nimble and quick with your fingers.

Visualizing yourself on the keyboard before each session is so important is why I must re-iterate this point to you.  Along with imagining yourself at the keyboard playing flawlessly you need to have a balanced practice plan.

You need variety in your piano lessons just as you do in life.  You need to keep the spice up in your piano lessons.  You don’t want to spend all your practice time with typical warm ups and chord exercises.  Change it up a bit and do some experimentation during the warm up.  Try something new, heck you’re in practice mode so practice something new already.

No doubt that you have to be disciplined to the warmups before each formal lesson but going off on tangents every now and then will keep the fingers and mind searching for more.

If you were a body builder I would suggest that you change routines every so often.  Playing a piano is no different.  You will get to a point where your practice sessions may seem dull and lifeless.  Time to change to keep your motivation up and going.

You can institute change in your warm up practice by throwing in different chord structures.  You can learn a different practice music piece in your piano lessons.  You can throw in different music styles in your piano lessons as you see fit.  Variety is the name of the game here to keep you in it.

Learning to play piano is best accomplished through one of the best online piano teaching courses there are.  Go ahead and see it for yourself.

The sounds from a musical instrument can be so soothing and almost meditative that it can put you into a trance of sorts.  It relieves you of the stresses of the day and then you make a decision that you too want to play.  So you choose a guitar to play and then find out that you cherish your fingers a lot more than wanting to learn how to play a guitar.  Playing a guitar is a tough instrument to learn versus a piano.  Piano playing is quick and an easy instrument to master if you have the right course to follow.  Playing a piano is an incredibly beautiful instrument once you get to know it. Read more »

So you took the plunge and made the commitment to learn to play a piano.  I think you made the right decision in wanting to play a piano because there’s an easy way to learn piano and a hard way to learn.  Always taking the easy way is one of the smartest routes that you can take to get you off in the right direction.  People learn to play pianos for a variety of reasons but it comes down to creating good habits if you want to learn to play piano effortlessly. Read more »

Playing a piano can be tough or it can be easy.  I think it’s human nature to play and learn anything the easy way.  But we humans tend to make every complicated.  Why is that?  I guess to make it more sophisticated and make people think that musicians are geniuses.  Musicians may be an inspiration to us but there’s nothing under the sun stopping you or me or anyone from playing music.  Especially when it comes to playing a piano and it can be learned easily.  I learn to play piano the easy way because I wanted to play easily.  I hope that makes sense because it is as simple as that. Read more »