5 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Starting The Piano 🎹😓 (Beginner Lesson)

there are some things that i really really wish i would have known before i started to learn to play the piano and i know a lot of the students i've seen over the years have felt the same way because learning the piano is an amazing experience it can be fun it can be exciting but there are also challenges and i think it's super important as beginners to know kind of what to expect to know you're not alone in your struggles so in this video we're going to be looking at the five things i wish i had known before i started playing the piano the first thing i wish i knew was how disconnected my brain would feel from my hands at the beginning i had no idea um you know you know the thing to do and your brain understands but you're telling your hands and your hands aren't listening and it can feel really overwhelming you could question yourself your sanity your ability to learn new things and i just need to say that is so very normal and i would be surprised if every single person who ever set out to learn to play the piano didn't struggle with feeling like their brains and their hands were somehow disconnected so i want to show you an example of this i'm gonna go grab a friend from the office um that is not a piano player and i'm going to demonstrate to you what happens when you're a new piano player and you go to try a new skill all right so let's go grab christy and we'll see what happens back here at the piano [Music] so i would like to prove a point okay um so i know that you haven't really played the piano no okay um so i wanted to show all of our friends um how challenging it can feel to be a beginner okay i want to kind of prove a little point i was wearing if you're willing to come to the piano sure let's do it i can look totally silly i love it um so you've you've like like when you were a kid you've played once or twice i think that's my understanding yeah so i tried to play piano because my brother plays really really well so i looked at his piano books and then i thought i could do the same thing and i think i reckon i lasted like five minutes five minutes and then yeah i gave up because i'm like this is really hard it is really hard especially at the beginning yeah okay so one of the hardest things for new panel players is playing a c scale and it looks really simple um but it's really difficult so i wanted to just show everyone so when i sit down i look at the piano i know this is c right here and a c skill does this doesn't seem too crazy does it no no okay so i want you to do it with your right hand first okay and then my name might may not be too bad with the right hand you start on this one yeah you're gonna go one two three and you're tucking your thumb under yep good and yeah good keep going okay awesome good stop there okay okay now do it with your left hand where right here and you're gonna start this finger and you're gonna use all of them up okay and then your third finger comes up and over yep okay that wasn't so hard right okay that's okay okay now do it with both hands at the same time okay oh boy all right [Music] all right hold on i have to think about this this is weird okay okay now this one tucks your thumb under it it's just too late you go one two three tuck i want to talk this guy though this is the point that we're making okay okay good job you can do it okay what you did there is you skipped your two finger entirely you just didn't play it you just kept it out again can i just play with two fingers no so this is the point that i'm making it's simple you can do with this hand and you can do it with that hand but when you put it together it's like your brain and your hands are no longer connected it's horrible yeah how do you feel i'm embarrassed i'm blushing and i'm laughing at you not because i'm laughing at you i'm laughing with you totally um because i just want everybody to know like this is normal this is exactly how it's supposed to go christy she's pretty competitive yeah so she's probably gonna practice this and then master it but it's gonna take her a little while and the point is that this is oh okay so the next thing we're gonna do is talk a little bit about what's actually happening in your brain when you're learning to do something new so let's chat for just a moment about what is actually happening in your brain when you go to learn something new now i am not a neuroscientist but i have spent some time studying the process of learning and what i learned while i was learning about learning was that when you go to develop a new skill you literally have to create a new pathway for that in your brain so imagine a mountain and you want to climb that mountain but there's no trail so you got to go and make a trail now the first time you make this trail attempt you might get a little ways but you are going to get tired because you're going to be bushwhacking and trailblazing and you can't do it all one day so you go home and then the next day you go and you get a little bit further and a little bit further until eventually you've got to trail all the way to the top of that mountain now imagine how well worn that trail will be and how much faster you'll be able to get from the bottom of the mountain to the top of the mountain because you've done it a million times before same thing's true with learning the piano yeah the first time you go to try to play your c still hands together it might feel like a bit of a train wreck but every time you go back to do it again you're going to get a little bit further you're going to create a better pathway in your brain that information is going to be moving a little bit more efficiently each time you practice it until eventually you're not going to have to think about it at all your hands will just know what to do the next thing i wish i had known when i started learning the piano was how important it was to spend time getting really really comfortable with the layout of the keyboard understanding where all the f's were where all the g's were how to move my hands from you know c position to f position knowing that taking the time with that particular skill would have helped me move so much more quickly in the long run because i wouldn't have been always trying to not only get my brain to cooperate with my hands like we saw earlier with christy but also um it wouldn't you know it wouldn't have to be like okay well where's f there's too many things going on so what you need to do is take your time to learn your musical alphabet seems kind of basic right like we learn our abc is when we're really really little but the musical alphabet goes from a to g a b c d e f g and then it repeats again it just goes on and on so now you can get so much better at playing the piano faster if you learn your musical alphabet both forwards and backwards so there's there's the trick you should be able to move through your musical alphabet backwards and it's it's a lot easier said than done so if i say f you should be able to figure out what the note two notes before f is so in your mind you're counting back f e d that quickly um if i say c you should be able to figure out what note is four below that really really quickly by counting backwards in your alphabet so c b a g so this is why practicing your musical alphabet forward and backward is gonna help you so much the other thing is you have to apply that information to the actual keyboard and so you can use landmarks this could be really helpful um groups of two have a c at the bottom and then d is in the middle of the group of two and then e is at the top of the group of two so if you use that to kind of help you visualize everything you could go through the piano keyboard and be like okay c c c you can even practice with hand position five finger of left hand with thumb or right hand c position c position right getting used to putting your hands into that shape um then you could look at your group of three black keys like this and you could know that the bottom of that is f your alphabet will take you to g to a to b and then back to c so spend time with this make make a game out of it every time you sit down on the piano practice finding different notes and locations on the keyboard whether it's one at a time going through like find all the f's find all the g's or you take your hands and move them through different positions forward and backwards it's going to help you so much now i even have created this really fun little keyboard printout that you can use um that you can draw the note names on to or color each key a different color if you want to it's just another way to reinforce the layout of the keyboard it really really really will make you so much better in the long run when you're not having to stop and think about where your hands should go along with all of the other things you're trying to do so the next thing that i wish i had known before i started playing the piano was just how easy it was to play songs that i actually wanted to play i'm not talking about on top of old smokey or alpine melody i'm trying to think of my old piano books i hated those songs i didn't want to learn them um so one of the first things that i teach my students now in their very first lessons is how to read a chord chart and play a chord because you are not going to believe how easy it is so i'm going to head to the internet here i'm going to pull up chord chart just gonna type in google chords for i'm yours by jason mraz i found a chord chart boom there it is and so i see lyrics and i see chord names above them so if you see c you find c and you play it um so i'm gonna match with my left hand oh my handy desk piano here the go keys thank you um and i'm just gonna play with my thumb the note that matches and then five notes up and then move my hand around that way so if it says c i do this if it says g i move my thumb and i find g and i do the same exact thing and then i can just sing along um well you done down me and you bet i felt it i tried to be chill but you're so hot that i melted i fell right through the cracks now i'm trying to get back and then once you get a little more confident you can play full chords with all three notes you got some rhythm well you done down me and you bet i felt it i tried to be chill but you're so hot then i melted i fell right through the cracks now i'm trying to get back and honestly that's something that most people can do in their very first lesson in some form even just very basically and if you can do that the first time you sit down the piano imagine what you can do after two years or three years sky's the limit okay so the next thing that i wish i would have known before i started learning to play the piano was how to practice now i'm not talking about what to practice i'm talking about how to practice more specifically the difference between playing and practicing these are very different things when you're playing something you're just playing you're just enjoying it it's a wonderful thing to do but when you're practicing you're taking your time you're going slow you're picking the things apart that's where the magic happens so you can go and play a song 500 times and eventually you're gonna be pretty good at it but if you don't take the time to practice it's gonna become frustrating if you actually slow down and practice that song intentionally taking your time repeating the areas that are difficult your ability to master that piece is going to be so much more efficient you'll do it faster you'll do it better and you'll be able to play with more confidence let's head on over to the piano and i will show you exactly what i mean okay so playing somewhere over the rainbow because that's what i'm working on right now would sound like this i'd sit down i'd find the notes i play like this and then i made a mistake but i'm gonna ignore it because i'm playing not practicing right now and i'm lost but because i'm not practicing i'm playing i'm just going to keep going so that's kind of what playing would look like i'm not really stopping when i have mistakes i'm just having a good time which is important i really can't stress that enough we all need to take time to play but practice is also important so if i were practicing this piece i would do this i would start with my right hand only and i'd go slow and i think about dynamics maybe how all the notes are feeling under my hands what fingers i'm using and then i'd stop and then i would just practice with my left hand two three for my count one two three four one two and i'm trying to make it as musical as possible one two three four and then i would put it hands together maybe even more slowly i really think about what i was doing and i go okay well did that feel really natural maybe not so i'm gonna do that again and this is the tedious part because you're doing things over and over ah notice how i had to stop and think there so i'm going to back up a couple notes before where i had that pause i might even take my pen which i usually keep at the piano and circle or draw a little arrow that i need to spend some extra time there and then i'll go some more it felt so much better that time so that's what practice is practice is not performing it's not playing it's practice it's slow it's deliberate it's methodical it's taking the time it's working out the details it's not rushing so make sure that you are practicing your pieces and then reward yourself by allowing yourself to just play and enjoy them too so the last thing i wish i would have known before i started learning to play the piano was to get a piano that i would love to play if you have an instrument that you just can't wait to spend time with it's going to really increase your chances of spending time with it and getting that good practice in so go to a music store your local music store if you can and play as many of them as possible the most important thing is that you find an instrument that feels great under your fingers and sounds really good to your ears i recommend you try to get at least 88 keys 64 would be the minimum you want them touch sensitive and you want them weighted there are lots of very affordable options we've got a roland fp 10 i think it's like 649 canadian um these are williams legato they're under 400 canadian um and then you know this they hit all kinds of price points into the day pick something you love and you're gonna spend time at the piano if you want a little bit more information on how to pick out the perfect keyboard for you you can find the link below to our video on how to pick the perfect beginner keyboard okay so those are the five things i wish that i would have known before i started to play the piano so the whole intention and heart behind this video was to help you feel like you're not alone to help prepare you for the journey ahead so that you can you know go with the flow when you encounter hurdles and know and trust that the experience that you have um is gonna be amazing because it's going to eventually bring you towards your goal of playing songs that you love so if there are any other you know things that as beginners you wish somebody had told you comment below so for the beginner piano players you can share your struggles for those of you that have been playing for a while and have some wisdom to share comment below with that um because that's what makes this an amazing community of piano players alright so thanks for watching and we'll see you around [Music] you

Channel: Pianote

Views: 663,408

Keywords: lisa witt, how to play piano, beginner piano lesson, easy piano, piano tutorial, learn piano, must know piano tips, beginner piano tips, how to play piano for beginners, how to play piano for kids, how to play piano songs, piano tutorial easy, piano tutorials for beginners, piano tutorials for popular songs, beginner piano lessons for seniors, beginner piano lessons christian songs, beginner piano lessons songs, 5 things i wish i knew before i started the piano, piano lessons

Id: a9kc0OhiGVM

Length: 16min 18sec (978 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 08 2021