Learning a new instrument is most definitely a daunting task. Everyone struggles to master the basics when starting to learn piano, including me. I’m writing this article as if it were a guide to my younger self, telling me specifically what to focus on now that I know which areas pay the best dividends. Happy practicing!
1. Learn About Genres or Songs You Like
I’m starting with this one for a reason – make sure you include your favorite genres, bands, and/or songs you love in your practicing! This is a somewhat uncommon piece of advice from conventional piano teachers, who will likely focus your efforts on whatever genre they know best (probably classical). This isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s better to build your relationship with learning piano by teaching yourself what you would enjoy playing!
This may mean you have to start your own self-taught side projects, if you’re looking to practice outside the bounds of your lessons. That’s ok – I highly recommend at least partially teaching yourself how to play. It helps you develop your own unique approach to playing, and allows your practice habits to be more aligned with your personality.
If you’re unsure how to actually do this – start by doing Google and/or Youtube searches for tutorials of your favorite songs. If you can read sheet music, there’s a lot of good transcriptions of popular songs out there for free and/or purchase. I wrote an entire article about teaching yourself piano for reference here.
For me, I played and studied classical music for many years before discovering jazz. I liked classical music, but I loved jazz. This started me on another path, almost completely self-taught, that still continues to this day. Even more recently, I started enjoying rap, R&B, and pop more, and now I teach myself that material and even play it live. I’ve really enjoyed following my interests and it’s kept me motivated to play and learn.
2. Get Familiar With the Most Commonly Utilized Chords
Learning your basic chords, including major and minor in all 12 keys, is an extremely important step in developing into a well rounded piano player and musician. This is because the vast majority of songs you’ll ever hear mostly are constructed with these chords. Especially in genres like rock/pop/jazz, you can’t even get through a song without having an understanding of the chords, what notes comprise them, and what contexts they are used in. In classical music, although the composer has written out each note for you, it still helps to know what chords the music uses because it provides a deeper understanding of how the piece was written.
Next, make sure to learn what the relationships between chords are. The first thing to figure out is what key the song is in – this is called the root, or the 1. The easiest way to figure this out is to fast forward to the very end of the song, and see what the last chord is. Often times, this chord is often the first chord in the song as well, although there are exceptions.
Once you’ve determined the root chord, you can start to notice patterns in what other chords come next in the song. For example, a song in the key of C major will likely have chords like F major, G major, or A minor. There’s no hard and fast rules that dictate what chords are allowed, but there’s definitely conventions that are mostly followed by writers and composers. As you advance, there’s more to learn here. For now, just focus on these basics and build yourself a platform to understand chords and harmony that will help you later.
A lot of my gigs now basically consist of me reading a series of chords for each song, in real time. It will look something like: Cm, Cm, Gm, Fm, Gm, Cm, Chorus: Fmaj, Gm, C7. These chords are usually written out by someone in the band, and usually one or two of them is wrong. While I’m playing, I have to worry about forms, fitting in with the music, and catching errors – if I had to worry about what the chord symbols meant, I would not be able to pull it off. Therefore, I think it’s extremely important to become a master of all of your chords if you want to play in a band.
3. Focus on Easier Songs and Material for Easy Wins
Don’t shoot for the moon just yet – I found that it’s best to try to build some momentum by focusing on easier songs or pieces. Focus on the basics, build your confidence, and worry about impressing your friends/teachers/parents later. Another reason this is beneficial is because if the actual material isn’t super challenging, you have more mental bandwidth to focus on the details like dynamics, phrasing, and the feeling you’re trying to convey with the music.
Some quick Google searches for ‘easiest songs to play on piano’ should do the trick if you’re wondering what to start with. Specify the genre like ‘classical’ or ‘R&B’ if you want.
When I was first starting out, I tried to play the hardest songs physically possible because that was the kind of kid I was. Although it impressed people, it sounded truly terrible. I’d perform a piece and accurately hit 70-80% of the notes, the rest being omitted or the note one key over. Usually I’d be frustrated with my lack of perfection. If I had chosen easier pieces, I may have been more satisfied with my performances.
4. Do the Hard Work to Solidify Your Technique and Mechanics
Do not wait to start working on your technique. If I could go back in time and yell at my 5 year old self… I would tell that little kid to stop charging forward to harder and faster pieces and solidifying bad habits. I’m not trying to stress you out here – you can always correct bad habits, but it’s definitely no fun. Be careful to avoid advancing to harder material if you still are unable to play notes evenly and under control. Work on both hands, and make sure all five fingers have the strength and dexterity to play the notes they way you intend.
It’s hard to develop these skills on your own – a classical piano teacher is by far the most effective way to make sure you’re learning good technique. I’d say it’s actually one of the more annoying things about them – the majority of my classical lessons were spent playing drills and using various methods to hone in on my technique. It’s one of those things that just isn’t fun, and that’s the way it is. Do your diligence, get through it, and then go back to material you enjoy.
I’m not a huge fan of practicing my mechanics, but my playing sucks when I don’t. My strategy is to regularly spend short periods of time with my drills and such, and it seems to the trick. Usually this involves slowing things down and focusing on one finger or note at a time, and trying to pinpoint exactly how I want each note to sound. When I put things back together, the note(s) fit more into context again.
5. Learn to Phrase Music – the ‘How’
It’s kind of hard to define exactly what phrasing is and why it’s important you should learn it. I’ll use the analogy of speaking English – everyone instinctively senses when the speaker is shaping the words they are saying in a certain way to convey meaning. Music is the exact same, meaning that you have to control the way you play the notes in addition to what notes you play. A monotone speaker is boring to listen to, so it’s important to avoid developing yourself into the piano equivalent. Remember – the ‘how’ is just as important as the ‘what’.
There’s various ways to shape and inflect the notes you play. This includes how loud or soft, short or long, and how each note at any given point contributes to the entire song or piece. One very important concept that I recommend all beginners learn is to identify the melody, and ensure you are playing melody notes louder than other notes. If you’re unsure what the melody is, sing the song out loud. What you sang out loud is the melody. This may mean that the right hand is played louder than the left hand, or even that certain fingers in the right hand are played louder than others. Slow the song down, and practice executing this and controlling your hands to do so.
Musicians who are masters of phrasing are immediately identifiable. Although audience members may not know how to say it, they can feel when someone is communicating effectively through the music. My favorite way to develop my phrasing is just to listen to others. Over time, I internalize the way they approach their music, and I can hear it come out in my own. I know this isn’t concrete advice, but phrasing isn’t supposed to be concrete. Beginning piano players can just start by listening to music deeply and allowing certain styles to resonate with them.
6. Practice Playing on Beat to Make the Music Feel Good
Learning to play on a consistent beat is usually an extremely difficult and lifelong task that all musicians must work on, which is why I recommend starting now. Getting your hands and fingers to play the note exactly on the right beat requires a lot of dexterity and control. Playing on beat is important because it makes the music feel good. In other words, if music makes you want to move your body or dance, it’s on beat. If notes are being played unevenly, or if the music rushing/dragging, you won’t want to dance. Most of the time, this makes the listening experience less enjoyable for your audience.
There’s two approaches I recommend for this. The first is practicing with a metronome – this is the more boring one, but so useful. You can use an actual metronome, or an app. Set the metronome at a comfortable speed, and play along. The notes you play should exactly coincide with the clicking sounds. If you notice the clicking getting slower… that’s impossible – you’re speeding up. Another thing you may notice is that certain problem notes in the passage you’re playing seem to be difficult to match up correctly, even if you’re not speeding up or slowing down. In this case, you’ve uncovered a problem with your technique – slow it down until you can get it.
The other way is to just play along with a recording of whatever song/piece you’re learning. This is assuming that the recorded musician has good time, but I’d say if they are good enough for you to find a recording of them, it’s safe. As you play along, try to make the sound you’re making fit into the sound of the recording. This will help you play on beat for sure – it may also help you learn how to convey the meaning or the vibe of the song better.
I really wish I had started this as a kid – probably my biggest weakness is my time. It’s not bad – it’s just that I could always place the notes in time more accurately and make the music more danceable. Even in my occasional lessons with pro players, they usually identify this as the thing I need to work on. What helps me is slowing it down, and carefully listening to the metronome. If I want to challenge myself, I’ll play really, really slow – it’s immensely difficult to play with the clicks if they are more than 2-3 seconds apart.
7. Listen and Emulate – Play By Ear
Playing by ear, in my opinion, is the most important skill any musician will learn. Music is meant to be heard – therefore it makes sense to learn it by hearing it. Get on Spotify or Youtube, find music you like, slow it down, and try to figure out the notes you’re hearing. This will be very difficult at first – if you’re not able to recognize the note in your head, you’ll have only a 1/12 chance of guessing it correctly (there’s 12 unique keys on a piano, and in most western music). The guess and check method is your best bet at first. Over time, you’ll hopefully be able to recognize patterns in the music, which will better inform your guesses.
Another reason this is important is because it develops your listening skills. When you can deeply listen to other musicians, you can deeply listen to yourself. This will help you notice things in your playing you like, want to improve, and help guide you phrase the music as you play it. I’m not saying tutorials or sheet music are bad – I’m just saying that they won’t help you get the deepest knowledge of the music possible.
These days, this is pretty much the only way I learn music. I go on Youtube, listen to my favorite players and favorite songs, and mimic what I hear. This helps me really hear what’s going on and internalize it deeply, rather than memorizing sequences of chords and notes. You can almost get inside the head of the musician you’re listening to. Being able to quickly hear what other musicians are playing also has helped me immensely playing live settings, when I can adapt my playing in real time based on what other bandmates are playing.
8. Try To Pick Up Commonly Used Music Theory and Terminology
I’m not just referring to chords here – I’m referring to chords, scales, commonly used terminology, genres of music, music history, etc. It’s important to be a well-rounded musician and be able to communicate about music with other musicians. This especially rings true if you want to play in a band with others. You can learn about these concepts in your piano lessons, by hanging out with other musicians, and on the internet. It’s not easy to accomplish this all at once, so it’s best to start paying attention early on.
Bandmates may say things like ‘play the 4’, and you’ll be expected to know what that means. To carry out this request, you’d need to know the root chord of the song, the scale that goes along with the chord, which note is the 4th note in that scale, and the appropriate chord to play using the 4th note. The drummer might say ‘hit on 2’, in which case you’d need to know a hit is a short chord that’s played in unison throughout the band, and you’d need to know when the second beat of the bar is.
These aren’t beginner concepts, so I won’t go into too much detail on everything I’ve said here – my point is that beginning piano players should take note when they have opportunities to learn about music theory. Do the work now, and down the road you’ll realize how grateful you are that you did.
One anecdote I have here is my reluctance to learn my chords and inversions as a kid. I resisted doing the homework, and my teachers pushed it. Eventually I learned them all, resentful of all the hard work I had to put in. Fast forward to high school jazz band, when suddenly it was absolutely essential to know all your chords – for jazz music, that’s all a piano player is given to work with. It was very fortunate I got started learning early, although it took me a few years to learn my lesson.
9. No Matter What, Focus on What You Enjoy
If you end up finding certain things that you enjoy more than others – whether it be songs, material, techniques, or scales – work on them more! Anything to further develop your relationship with the instrument is immensely beneficial, even if you think you shouldn’t indulge yourself. A lot of people quit the piano. It’s not supposed to be all hard work and grinding. It’s supposed to be fun, and you’ll quit if it isn’t.
I’m not saying don’t put in hard work, but what I am saying is that you shouldn’t put pressure on yourself to practice stuff you don’t like. Whether it’s your teacher, parents, or a Youtube tutorial – do yourself a favor and discard any expectations on what you’re supposed to play and what you’re supposed to work on.
For me, playing piano and playing music is very fun, and that’s why I still play with no end in sight. When I’m learning stuff I don’t like, or getting bored with a certain technique, I stop. I definitely could be a better player if this wasn’t the case, but the problem is that I felt that eventually I’d dread practicing and stop playing if I forced things. I highly recommend you take my approach and just follow your heart – playing piano will hopefully become something you love and an important part of your life.
For further information about how to get good at playing piano, check out my definitive guide.