4 Beginner Mistakes That Are KILLING Your Progress

Get the PDF Cheat Sheets Here:

Today’s lesson I’m going to show you 4 biggest mistakes to avoid (by FAR) that beginners make on piano. Especially if you’re an adult beginner, or a self taught player from YouTube tutorials.

Luckily for you, a lot of these have an easy fix - a few minutes and you can correct the mistake and shave months off your piano learning time.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

00:24 Mistake #1 (this will save you TIME)
05:00 Mistake #2 (this will SMOOTH your playing)
08:04 Section 4: Mistake #3 (this will save you FRUSTRATION)
11:03 Section 5: Mistake #4 (this will SKYROCKET your progress)
13:20 Section 6: Next Steps...

Make sure you stick around to the end - each practice mistake gets more and more important, and the last one is absolutely critical for success. Especially the technique mistake and the last one. You need these rock-solid for any performance.

Oh, and btw if you’re a complete beginner, no worries, it’s a chords tutorial explained for beginners, and we take absolute baby steps tot make sure you’ll get it frustration-free. Don’t forget to download the Cheat Sheet to make it even easier:

CHEAT SHEET INSTRUCTIONS:
2. Sign Up with your name and email (yes, it’s really free lol)
3. Get your cheat sheet!

Happy practicing!!

-Zach

OTHER HELPFUL LESSONS:

2. The Top 4 Exercises For Beginners (Beginner)

3. Create Emotion With Just 4 Notes (Beginner)

Or connect with me here:

Watch me play piano at my other YouTube channel here:

Thanks for watching and subscribe if you want more online piano lessons and tutorials!

-Zach Evans

#learnpiano #pianolessons #pianotutorials #pianotips #beginnerspiano #pianosuperhuman #howtoplaypiano #easypiano #pianomistakes

[becomeapianosuperhuman]

00:24 Mistake #1 (this will save you TIME)
05:00 Mistake #2 (this will SMOOTH your playing)
08:04 Section 4: Mistake #3 (this will save you FRUSTRATION)
11:03 Section 5: Mistake #4 (this will SKYROCKET your progress)
13:20 Section 6: Next Steps...

Make sure you stick around to the end - each practice mistake gets more and more important, and the last one is absolutely critical for success. Especially the technique mistake and the last one.


Happy Practicing!!

-Zach

[kaotic_]

As a 15 year old that had been playing for 6 years i would like to say that for any one around my age learning to play.. you will regret playing by chords. Learning to read is so very helpfull and will help set a base for anything you will ever play on piano! I do not play classical, in fact i despise it most of the time. But because i can read i can learn any genre.

[katie.miller]

If you also wish to learn how to play the piano:
-Start with the Basics: Learn the names of the keys, basic music theory, and how to read sheet music. Understanding these fundamentals will make learning more complex pieces easier.
-Practice Regularly: Consistent practice is crucial. Aim to practice daily, even if it's only for a short period. Regular practice helps build muscle memory and improves your skills over time.

[jaidenmotes]

As a young Pianist, I think learning how to read sheet music is a vital part to being a Pianist. Yes, its mainly to learn classical songs, but ive only ever played to classical songs with all the songs ive learned, being able to sight read is really important. Learn it, it will help.

[pw]

Learning chords is cool and gives instant results.
But…
Learning to read sheet music gives you a better visual understanding of what you are doing, and an independence from any cheat sheet.

Chord learning will give fast results in the short term but hold you back on the long term.
Reading music will cost a little more efforts at the beginning but be rewarding on the long term.

The best: learn both!!
I teach both to my students.

[nextechproductions]

Stopped listening immediately after he said there's no need to learn sheet music. Reading notes is a part of your music progress, and does not limit only to classical pieces. You wanna learn songs that's fine but if you wanna be a proper musician you need to expand knowledge by knowing basic music theory. You're no better than a beginner if you don't learn notes. Man's just saying with people normally want to hear.

[dumdumreviews]

In my experience, the best practice for beginners is to start super slow, learn a song in slow motion making you memories it for ever. Play step by step. Slow is the key

[duartevader]

As someone who knows how to read sheet music, its so much easier than just looking at the chords and the melodies like you said, sheet music is also so much better if you want to get the rythm perfectly right, same thing does not happend with the method you mentioned

[FamiliarFaith]

0:27 #1 Mistake "Learning to read sheet music"
5:07 #2 Mistake "Sloppy-Choppy Playing"
8:07 #3 Mistake "Not using the Over-under technique"
11:06 #4 Mistake "Not having a Plan of Attack"

[pstons]

Learning sheet music is a lot more important than most people think even outside of classical music

[velcroman]

It is good to learn chords, to be able to play a song. But it is no better than only ever reading a picture comic book. You are virtually musically illiterate. Go ahead lean to play songs by just playing chords but learn to READ music! Being able to read music opens up a world of colour not only on classical but with your favourite popular modern songs.

[Hanshu-zcrx]

As a pianist who has been playing the piano since I was 6 I can surely tell you that learning how to read pieces is an extremely crucial thing to do if you want to perfect your skills at piano

relying on chords alone will damage your progress as a pianist severely and limit your versatility and complexity. Sure you can improvise in a band but what if you want to play an song that you like with the piano(e.g: fur Elise)? (Spoiler alert: You can’t)

You won’t master one of the most basic skills as a pianist, you will become dependent on improvisation alone, you will not be able to compose an advanced song with the piano alone, or be able to play an intermediate or even a beginner piano song at all. And even if you do how will you ever remember how to play the exact same thing that you played? What tool will you use to mark down the ideas that you will put into your song and what you composed?

The creator of this video who marks knowing how to read piano sheets as a beginner mistake is absolutely misleading and completely neglects the potential and versatility behind learning how to read piano sheets,

learning chords is extremely great and I recommend every pianist to master this skill, but I guarantee you that relying on chords and improvisation alone will tremendously damage and limit your career as a pianist. Don’t believe me? Look at all the great pianists and composers out there, they all know how to read piano and express the complexity and emotion behind their piece

I recommend mastering both skills with the eyes(sight reading) and ears(improvisation, chords and etc) if you truly want to perfect your skills in the piano like Mozart, Beethoven or Chopin did

[samadar]

I have been playing the guitar for 12 years and not learning to read music was the biggest blunder I ever made. If you ever hope to enjoy playing piano for the rest of your life and immerse in the endless learning process....By all means learn to read music.

[wastelander]

I've only just started my keyboard journey and the pinky was a real problem. I was really feeling a strain on my hands and wrist trying to play using all five digits. The over-under technique is a revelation to me. I can't wait to practice this in the morning.

[sungvin]

I completely understand having an urge to learn just the chord to quickly play one song, but it’s like memorising EACH sum of the two numbers without actually learning how to add. All chords have a very simple structure and the things is - you can learn 1 structure and play it from EVERY note.

[falohunvalentine]

I started learning few weeks ago, but I think I still have a long way to go, but I'm having issues with my fingering, but this page for like four days now have really been helpful🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[rdand]

I agree 100%, pinky exercises are a complete waste of time, so never mind suffering through Hanon or Schmidt. Consistent practice naturally builds strength, and if what you're practicing involves octaves or chords in both hands, you'll be employing your pinkies, anyway (you don't have a choice). Rock-solid technique is essential, as was pointed out here; don't ever neglect that. One other essential element is believing you can do this. It becomes unnecessarily difficult without faith in yourself and your abilities. Zach puts out these videos because he believes in you, and frankly, so do I. I'm self-taught, and he has helped me immeasurably, for which I'm forever grateful. If I can do it, I know you can, too!

[mirakupejeva]

I love classic piano lessons. But here I found a good connection between piano playing and rythm and it's helps me a lot, cause even in singing I have problems with the rythm❤ Thank you for this lesson!

[savvavictorov]

You know, the first mistake you show, in my opinion, us not a mistake at all. I mean, if a person just wants to play piano without knowing anything about music it would probably work, but it's like memorizing a math formula without knowing where it comes from. I think that to play chords correctly a musician first needs to learn what is a chord, where it came from, why in the V7 minor chord the seventh pitch is raised by a half-step, etc.

[winnietheblair]

i began learning piano with chords and chord progressions. yeah no, i didn't progress after that until i began to take formal lessons. learning actual music theory is better than just looking up quick chords because learning music theory is so much more than just knowing how to read notes. it's like learning grammar, sentence structures, figures of speeches, etc etc when learning english as opposed to just knowing how to read abc and being able to communicate little bit with others. learning to read sheet music is basically just the gateway to music theory and thereby understanding music itself.