Do you know how to play the piano fully? :0 do you have any tips? Like posture, hand placement and learning the notes ( I find hand placement and learning the notes really hard ;-;)
Hmm… Fully? I’m not sure exactly what “fully” is, but I had about 7 years of training (4 of which I wasted by being a stubborn little shit who had a personal vendetta against practicing.) So I can play, more or less, but up until recently I hadn’t actually touched a piano for about 10 years, so my skills were thoroughly suffering.
Anyway, on to your question.
My piano teacher loved to tell me that my posture and my hands had to be a certain way. Like, my back has to be straight, my elbows at my sides, etc… And oh! I don’t know if this is a Russian Music School thing or a universal thing, but she always referenced that my hands had to be curled, like I was holding bouncing balls in my hands.
Obviously, there’s some truth to this. This type of posture is common, and it appears to be somewhat logical. If you’re too close to the piano, you lose range of movement. If you’re too far, you’re…. too far. And obviously, resting your hands flat on the keys will only help you accidentally hit stray keys while you play. So yeah, you should float your hands above them instead. You’re not wiping the piano with your fingers, you’re getting them ready to only play a few select keys at a time.
(You can find lots of helpful images by googling “Piano Posture”)
But personally… I also tend to ignore some of these, because some of them make playing hell for me. I can’t sit straight up when I’m relaxed (thanks scoliosis!) and I tend to sit further back so that I can lean in instead, because it gives me greater freedom of reach. So, my advice would be - google the basics, but don’t be afraid to ignore them in order to allow yourself to enjoy your playing.
Do you mean learning the notes for sight-reading? Or just in general?
I know that it helps some people to memorize the whole ‘do re mi’ thing (or do you guys use C, D, E, F, G, A B in america?)
But personally, I find that it’s not 100% necessary to actually playing piano. If your only goal is to be able to look at sheet music and hit the notes, then fuck what they’re called! All you need to do is train your eyes/hands to memorize the pattern.
And for some people who are self-taught, they don’t even go that far. They just learn by playing the instrument itself and memorizing the sounds it makes. THAT’S hardcore, I think. It’s not any less legitimate than any of the other methods.
In a lot of ways, though, it’s a problem of TIME and TECHNIQUE. The time aspect is just that - it takes time for your brain to save something into your hard-drive of a brain. Which means that, kind of like a language, piano playing is best learned little by little on the daily. If you only do it once a week, you’ll find your progress slow and frustrating.
I don’t even recommend doing it for hours, though. Literally 10 minutes every day sitting in front of the instrument playing some very simple songs, or learning the pattern of whatever song you want to play, will help you infinitely more than 70 minutes, one day a week.
And technique? In the end, it’s just a matter of finding out what your learning pattern is.
I personally quit piano because of three reasons:
1) I was a fairly smart child, and picked up piano fast at first… but plateaued after practice started becoming necessary for muscle memorization. (And it always will be necessary, no matter how boring it is.) This was an issue of DELAYED GRATIFICATION.
2) I was unable to set my own goals because there was a teacher controlling my progress (she was trying to control it, at least. Was not successful.) This was an issue of PERSONAL MOTIVATION.
3) I was an emotionally volatile, stupid teenager, and I had bigger problems in my life than memorizing songs I didn’t even like. This was an issue of BOREDOM.
I find that all of these are equally important things to know about when you’re studying with a teacher or by yourself.
You need to come to terms with the fact that, just like anything else involving muscle memory (drawing, sport, dance) it took TIME to develop. If you are not able to control your inner child screaming from the back seat of your brain “ARE WE THERE YET”, then you will pull over on the side of the road and give up halfway through the trip.
Also, I find that a lot of people seem to think they need to play the classics. I find that somewhat annoying. Sure, the classics are great! And if you legitimately want to learn them, they’re fun! They’re also the most accessible.
But if you’re just learning the piano for your own enjoyment… enjoy yourself, damnit! All of the songs I’ve been learning since my 10-year-long hiatus have been chosen by me. 90% of them are songs from cartoons that I really want to be able to play. When I was 14, even 20 minutes on the piano chair with Chopin were torture. Now that I’m trying to learn Adventure Time’s ‘Everything Stays’, I find myself glancing at the clock and thinking “well, I’ve been here for an hour now but I still wanna try this part again… five more minutes! Ten more minutes!” and continuing on and on and on.
Anyway, this got wayyyyy too long again. Sorry about that. I hope I was able to help… at least a little! :)
