7 Things I Wish I'd Known When First Learning Piano

In this lesson, I teach you about the tips I wish I knew about when I first learned piano. These tips will help you learn piano faster and save a lot of frustration in the long run.

Chapters
00:00 Lesson Breakdown
00:27 Tip 1
02:03 Tip 2
03:17 Tip 3
05:52 Tip 4
08:56 Tip 5
09:45 Tip 6
10:18 POWER TIP
11:20 Tip 7

NEW TO LEARNING PIANO?

[knives]

The main reason i love Tim's lessons is he's not a show off. Most teachers on youtube just want to show you how good they are but this dude just understands where beginners are coming from and he's great at making a point without it being convoluted. Such a good guy sharing this knowledge for free on social media.

[RechtmanDon]

The rule is simply stated: "If you can't play it slow, you can't play it fast."
People who study TaiChi start with a very legato motion to allow focus on every nuance of the movement. Once mastered, it can be sped up to create TaiChi masters who have repeatedly proven to be undefeatable by other martial art forms. The reason is that, having mastered every one of the multiple nuances for each movement, when at full speed all those nuances are still present at lightning speed.
When you practice slow, you are able to focus on all the nuances--hand and body movements, where your eyes go to assist the movements; ultimately when you have sped it up, all the nuances you learned are still there, but are taking place at lightning speed!

[girishnaik]

The legendary ledger line trick has been a savior! Most beginners struggle to read in this area!

[LessonsOnTheWeb]

Chapters
00:00 Lesson Breakdown
00:27 Tip 1
02:03 Tip 2
03:17 Tip 3
05:52 Tip 4
08:56 Tip 5
09:45 Tip 6
10:18 POWER TIP
11:20 Tip 7

[affable.pebble]

God knows I struggle with ledger lines ✋ thanks for the tips!

[nathalieheath]

Love the tip about the ledger lines!! Tfs

[thepianoplayer]

Had a few lessons at a young age that didn't work out. Ended up learning years later as an adult. Wish I knew the LH & RH hands coordination isn't as hard as I thought. Many people including myself are not good "sight" readers. We wouldn't be able to play a piece accurately the first try. After practicing a piece for a while you'd find that you're relying on your memory (including muscle memory) more than reading. The first time you need to read every note or every other note but not after that. Some people have good ears that they can play by ear than reading their pieces all the time except when learning.
The first & last thing I wish I knew was not to compare myself to my siblings. Coming from a non-musical family everybody took music lessons but nobody played an instrument well. Years later I started learning on my own. Music is a skill that can be learned, not inherited because your family have music genes or you come from a musical family.
Years ago there were only toy keyboards & acoustic pianos and nothing in between. Wish DPs with weighted hammers were available that I would have been able to start earlier and practice with headphones.

[olivia]

The two that especially resonate with me are:
Practice slow. Yea, I tend to want to go at the proper pace and if it is a fast paced piece i really struggle with it. Just recently started realizing that I need to slow it down.
Also, start with something challenging. Only my particular issue is that when I royally jack up a song I stop and start over. So I get great at the beginning, but don't practice the end nearly as much. So I really need to practice in chunks. Don't always start at the beginning but start at the chunk I am struggling with.

[Youtube_deleted_my_favourites]

binge watching this channel - need my sight reading to improve

[richtxn]

This guy is pretty good with his ability to explain his ideas to us lesser skilled. 5 stars .

[LessonsOnTheWeb]

WATCH THE WHOLE SERIES (Practice Tips and Strategies)

[tonyhunt]

Lots of useful info, thanks.
Greetings from the UK.

[jean.marion]

Beams = 1 beat - Shoot, I too just thought I learned something new. Well... yeah, MOST of the time. BUT, there is this thing called syncopation. I have a measure here in front of me in 2/4, that my notation program decided to put 1 long beam on the top of all the notes. But nope, it's not 1 beat yet it's also not 2 beats, so I'm not sure why it did that.

Starts with a 32nd rest (which messes up the whole timing thing) then 2 32nd notes, 1 dotted 16th, 2 8th notes, and 1 16th note, which all amazingly equals 2 beats. But my program (Finale) decided to put ONE beam across this mess. So yeah, the rest of the song without syncopation is 1 beam = 1 beat. But this syncopated stuff I wrote, nope. It's impossible to split that measure into two beats, because the first beat bleeds over into the 2nd with that dotted 16th.

Anyway, cool fact that I had never heard of before, but just be aware, it's not 100% the time...

[jessijacobs]

What a great video and tips 👏👏 My absolute problem is that I've never been able to master reading sheet music 😓 I write out all the notes (letters) instead and play them that way....or worse...by ear 😭😭

[LessonsOnTheWeb]

Why watching stop here? Make sure to check out my catalog of videos!

[algonquin]

I agree that sight reading is an important skill, I got pretty good at it, but I wish that I had been told that being able to play without music is equally important. That could be pieces you have learned from sheet music, or some that you have only heard or even some you make up.

[arielbell]

Damn It! I always knew there were helpful tips to making learning piano less painful. Thank you!

[juliannadoyle]

Great tips thank you.
What is the program that u use? it is great.

[mikevirtualteacher]

Thank you for this video, it is very helpful! Can you tell me what program and gear are you using to write the notation and have it appear on the screen? Thanks!

[virginiafiume]

You are wonderful-do you give private lessons