PIANO PARAPHERNALIA

When you start learning the Piano, it is vital for your progress that you practice regularly. It is important to practice every day, but not to spend too long on one particular section, as you will become tired and your brain will go into over ride. In order to master different aspects of playing the piano, including good co-ordination, when learning how to play hands together and learning how to place your hands correctly on the piano, you need to dedicate time everyday to study.

You need to practice for at least half an hour a day seven days a week if you don’t have a half an hour slot at one time then break it into fifteen minute intervals. As long as you are practising daily and keeping everything fresh in your mind you will be ok. If you have days where you have a spare hour then this will be good to cover the other aspects you need to help learn piano.

Below I am going to give you some advice on what I would get a complete beginner to cover in their homework time if they were coming to me for Piano lessons: -

Spend 10 – 15 minutes warming your hands up with various Scales, Arpeggios and Broken Chords. As a beginner, you would initially start learning Contrary Motion Scales, as these are the easiest of scales to play hands together and they sound effective too! Start with C Major Contrary Motion. This is the best one to begin with as it doesn’t have any black notes to consider which will be easier for you.

Once you are happy and confident with C Major Contrary Motion, move on to G Major Contrary Motion. I’d suggest spending 2 -3 weeks learning these two scales and once you feel happy to move on, I would then go to playing these scales in an ascending pattern. Gets a system going. And alternate between scales on a daily basis, so something like this could work for you: -

Monday – C Major Contrary Motion and C Major Ascending Scale

Tuesday – G Major Contrary Motion and G Major Ascending Scale

Wednesday – C Major Ascending Scale and G Major Contrary Motion

Thursday C Major Contrary Motion and G Major Ascending Scale.

Friday – G Major Ascending Scale

Saturday – C Major Ascending Scale

Sunday – Play through all different varieties learnt.

After 4-6 weeks of learning these scales, a good idea would be to learn the arpeggios in these key signatures, so to learn C Major Arpeggio and G Major Arpeggio. Then join this in your practice time.

It is crucial for your development to learn scales, as they will train you to use the correct fingering and get you use to how your hands need to be positioned on the piano.

So after spending 10-15 minutes on scales, then move to your pieces of music.

A very simple and effective song to learn as a complete beginner is Drunken Sailor! It is a classic folk song, and requires the use of two chords, one being a major and one being a minor. This is played in your right hand and plays the melody, and then your left hand picks up the notes from these chords, and only requires the use of two notes also. It is very easy but sounds great, and will put a smile on your face.

You need to spend a couple of practice sessions running through your right hand section and become familiar with the rhythm notes and most importantly the use of the correct fingering.

Once you are happy with how this sounds, and you can play confidently, add in your left hand section. Spend the rest of the week running through this on a daily basis and getting it sounding fluent hands together. Spend at least fifteen minutes per day on this. If you have more time then have a break and come back to it and run through it again. So above you have covered Scales for technique and pieces of music.

You also need to allow some time to go over and cover the theory side to piano. Your teacher will explain about how to read music on a score, time signatures and rhythm. So allow yourself some time every other day to re-cap on this and complete any worksheets you may have been given.

There are some great free courses to teach anyone from complete beginners to advanced pianists to Learn How to Play Piano. A great way for beginners to learn is to start off with some really Easy Piano Songs which will get you started and help build that all important confidence.