Playing piano

[Slothead56]

I’ve been playing guitar for over 40 years. I get music and structure though I do not read.
I’d like to hear from other members-how difficult was it to learn piano? I suppose a good teacher and effective practice time are the panaceas but what else can you tell me about your experience?

[srick]

I was considering this also (just two weeks ago!), BUT I reconsidered, seeing as how I'd probably end up playing two instruments poorly, vs. one instrument well. There's only so much time available in my day - and my best time to learn is the AM when, I am at my real job.

Looking at some of the self-teaching apps for the ipad, I suspect that it would come along faster than if I had never played guitar and delved into theory there. I did a search on the issue and the majority recommendation was to get a piano teacher. Of course, that same argument has been made for a getting guitar teacher.

You can find a decent used Piano keyboard for a song (under $300). If you have the spare time, go for it.

best,

Rick

[jessupe]

Piece of cake if you're into it.

Just start with playing chords with the right hand and support the chords with octaves in the bass....then start arpeggios in the right hand with bass octaves, then start left hand bass arpeggios with chords, and on and on, pretty simple actually, just got to want it

[patrickgm60]

I've played both - piano as a child, switched to guitar in high school, then picked piano back up, soon after. So, opposite progression from OP.

Two very different instruments, requiring different skills. IME/O, piano is far superior for "understanding" and conceptualizing music. If I'm trying to map a difficult song or figure out a chord, I always go to the keyboard. It's the wonderful sounds the guitar is capable of producing that keeps me.

For an experienced guitarist, the piano could still be a very useful tool, not just for playing, but for expanding musical knowledge. And, as someone posted, a nice instrument can be had for the price of a low-end guitar. Left/right hand independence will be the major challenge.

[AX17609]

Originally Posted by Slothead56

I’ve been playing guitar for over 40 years. I get music and structure though I do not read.
I’d like to hear from other members-how difficult was it to learn piano? I suppose a good teacher and effective practice time are the panaceas but what else can you tell me about your experience?

If you're over 50, it's very difficult.

[tbeltrans]

I think the "just got to want it" comment by a previous poster is most appropriate about learning any instrument, and the piano is no exception.

How you go about learning depends on what you want to learn. I have convinced my self that, even though I can read standard notation, music is ultimately a HEARING art. So I have worked at learning to play what I HEAR. I use Transcribe!. Learning by ear is easier on the piano because each pitch occurs only once on the entire keyboard, unlike the guitar. It can get to be a real hassle to have to need sheet music for everything I want to play.

However, just as with the guitar, fingering is important. There is plenty of information on the internet to help, but I find that practical, real life, information on something like this is best. The problem is that when fingering one note, or set of notes, you need to have the appropriate fingers ready for the next notes in order for the music to flow smoothly.

I recommend the "Jane Piano" youtube channel for that:

https://www.youtube.com/user/bbdhrggl

She has videos of classical, pop, scales and arpeggios, etc., all on her channel.

You only see her hands, and they are close up so you can easily see the fingering she uses to play the tunes and exercises in slow motion. After a while, just as with the guitar, when you find fingering that works for you, it just feels right. Contrary to what I have read all too frequently, there does not seem to be one universally correct way of fingering a passage. I have even seen some differences for scales and arpeggios in various books and methods, which one would think would have universal agreement. There is no defined order to Jane Piano's videos, so you are free to choose to learn whatever you want. To me, the best way to stay motivated is to learn the music YOU love to listen to, and there is plenty to pick from at Jane Piano's youtube channel to get you going.

Tony

[tbeltrans]

Another comment I would like to make about the piano is that I have gotten too close to the guitar, so that I can't really step back and view it from different perspectives.

For me, going to the piano was a chance to "start over", given my long experience with the guitar. Then, after a while, I could go back to the guitar with a fresh perspective. What I am discovering is that my primary musical focus is now the piano because, for me, it is much more musically fulfilling than the guitar ever was. I also find that, unlike solo instrumental fingerstyle guitar (I don't sing...), people don't seem to get bored listening to solo instrumental piano. You are not expected to sing when you play piano!

The absolute best methodology I ran across for self-teaching piano was that of David Sudnow. His focus was on teaching adults to teach themselves. He was a Sociology professor at UC Berkeley, who became enamored with jazz piano. He asked a local gigging piano bar musician if he could take lessons from the guy, but the guy wasn't interested in teaching. Instead, he told Sudnow what he thought might be a good way to teach himself. Not only did Sudnow follow his advice, he was able to convince the "powers that be" at Berkeley at the time, to provide him with a piano lab, in which he began testing his ideas on adult students. From that, he came up with his method.

It is very different from the more common traditional ways of teaching, and even from the typical "teach yourself" stuff you will find all over the internet these days.

One poster here commented that it is very difficult to learn if you are over 50. I saw retired people use Sudnow's method to teach themselves quite successfully. What Sudnow teaches is how to play standards (the Great American Songbook and more modern pop ballads) in a decent cocktail style from the lead sheets presented in fakebooks. He said that once you really and experientially understand his method, you can use it to go on and teach yourself any style of playing piano, and I have been doing that myself.

A local guy, David Haines, worked with Sudnow's widow after Sudnow died from cancer, to present the method on a web site and continue Sudnow's work. I can't say that Sudnow's method is wildly popular, because it isn't. The problem with it is that Sudnow was quite honest in saying it IS a lot of effort, but if you really love playing, the results are worth it. Many folks seem to want the quick and easy approach. It doesn't exist, but there is a HUGE market out there selling it anyway.

If you see comments/quotes from students saying they learned a bunch of tunes in a short time, it is probably because they already had piano lessons at some point in their lives. In the recorded weekend seminar, Sudnow is quite clear on this, saying that for those just starting, it could take 2 or 3 months to get through the first tune, Misty. Subsequent tunes will gradually become easier as your hands "learn the shape of the keyboard".

The main focus is on creating your own chord voicings under the melody after you have learned 2 or 3 tunes using his temporary "dot" method. Once you have those 2 or 3 tunes in hand, you move on to using a shorthand to write down the voicings you create. Sudnow provides a small set of "rules" covering voicing all types of chords under the melody.

Here is Sudnow talking about how to learn a piece of music on piano. This is a part of the course recording, so there is more about this in the course.



The course itself consists of a recorded weekend seminar given in Chicago back sometime in the 80s, with a bunch of supporting material to take you step by step through the learning process. The site also has some recorded follow-on series in which Sudnow explains various advanced topics, once you have the basics down, such as chord substitution, improvisation, etc., all of it with the same philosophy.

Here is the site for the method: https://www.sudnow.com/

Tony

[AX17609]

This may be hard to believe, but Tony and I are actually saying the same thing. I'm saying that if you're over 50 and have no previous background, learning to play the piano will be difficult. Many traditional piano teachers would say that it's essentially impossible. Tony is saying that if you're a highly motivated person who is willing to spend three months learning your first tune, you can probably do it IF you use an alternative learning method...one that is targeted to adult learners.

I agree with Tony. I think that if an inexperienced adult student goes to a traditional piano teacher, they have a very low chance of success. However, if they approach the instrument in a different manner, they might succeed. The alternative method involves learning to play chords with your left hand and melodies with your right. Focus on popular songs with strong chordal frameworks and clear leads. You can actually play like that with little more than a rudimentary ability to read.

[MikeBmusic]

I started teaching myself piano a year after starting guitar (but never put as much effort into it, didn't have a keyboard to play on for many years). I play piano like a guitar: chords with right hand and 1 or 2 bass notes with the left hand. Depending on what kind of music you want to play, this can often be enough - listen to most rock/popular music and its played that way.

[pf400]

Ageism on AGF? Come on.

No genius here, but I started "learning piano" at age 50. I prefer organ actually. Yes it can be done. Nothing mysteriously happens at age 50 that stops you from being able to learn piano, flute, drums...and in fact it may not very difficult at all if you love music. Young folk do learn faster in general, but the over 50 crowd learn well, and may even play with more feeling.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by AX17609

This may be hard to believe, but Tony and I are actually saying the same thing. I'm saying that if you're over 50 and have no previous background, learning to play the piano will be difficult. Many traditional piano teachers would say that it's essentially impossible. Tony is saying that if you're a highly motivated person who is willing to spend three months learning your first tune, you can probably do it IF you use an alternative learning method...one that is targeted to adult learners.

I agree with Tony. I think that if an inexperienced adult student goes to a traditional piano teacher, they have a very low chance of success. However, if they approach the instrument in a different manner, they might succeed. The alternative method involves learning to play chords with your left hand and melodies with your right. Focus on popular songs with strong chordal frameworks and clear leads. You can actually play like that with little more than a rudimentary ability to read.

Yes, I think we are in agreement.

Sudnow made the distinction between learning piano the traditional way, reading classical sheet music, and learning to play pop tunes and standards using chords and moving toward doing it by ear.

He said that the traditional classical-oriented path is like "training for the Olympics". He felt it is a valid path, but best suited to starting very young.

At the time that Sudnow created his method, there were few alternatives to the traditional teaching model. Today, it seems as if everybody has a web site hawking the latest method of playing quickly and bypassing the hard work. As a result, Sudnow's method is not well known because he is rather straight forward about the amount of time it takes and the level of commitment needed.

The course went through several revisions while he was alive. The reason was that he was trying to bring the cost down so that more people could afford it. The largest version of the course had 12 tapes and a book. The core of every version of the course is the same recorded weekend seminar in which he lays out the method.

Being an academic, he tended to lecture quite a bit during the seminar, talking about the research he did to arrive at his conclusions. That research led to the book "Ways of the Hand", about his own experience learning to play. In my personal opinion (not shared by others who have used the course), these lectures were very interesting and lent validity to his method. I still listen to that from time to time because I feel these lectures are both motivating and important to keeping my thinking on track.

I met and spoke with Sudnow on several occasions, and he is definitely the same guy in person that he is on the recordings. In those conversations, I was able to get really clear on exactly what he meant in various aspects of his method. I will be forever grateful for having had that opportunity. It is at least partially that experience which leads me to question things we believe that were told and retold throughout history. Things do get lost and/or changed in the retelling, and going directly to the source in live one on one conversation can help to alleviate and clarify some of that.

The current course consists of the weekend seminar, pared down to the "how to", and a number of supporting documents and (in the advanced section), recordings of Sudnow's "Pianoside Chats" series and his "Song of the Month" series, which were originally also cassette tapes you could subscribe to for a short time. In each of these recordings, he would either take one tune and take you through advanced substitutions and "tricks" to make it sound professional, or talk about motivation or other related subjects.

Basically in the course itself, you are initially provided with what everybody calls "dot songs", in which each tune you learn at the beginning is presented as a series of pictures that have a keyboard with dots showing where to put your fingers for each successive chord. Originally, there were only two of these, "Misty" and "As Time Goes By". These yielded rather sophisticated sounding renditions of these tunes with nice, lush "cocktail" style chords under the melody. From there, he gave a simple set of "rules" for creating chords with both hands under the melody, and you use those rules to start creating your own arrangements from any decent fakebook or lead sheet (showing just the melody and chords) of standards and pop ballads.

Sudnow's idea was that you create and memorize 15 or 20 of your own arrangements, following his strict rules before going on to incorporating other ideas to add interest. All through this, you are also picking out a melody you are familiar with each day, so you continue to get better at doing that.

Eventually, you begin to see the same chord patterns over and over in the tunes you are learning, and can then start playing those same patterns under the melodies you have been picking out by ear, so that you can then not have to use ANY form of written music to play tunes you can hum because you know the tune well enough from hearing it enough times.

So as AX17609 says, you are really learning a chord based approach to playing tunes, and that is something you can begin at any age and be successful. It takes commitment for several years, but it is doable and it is fun to do. I personally know several retired folks who have been able to succeed in using this method.

Sudnow's method isn't the only one out there, but it is the one I took to best, and have been able to apply the same principles to other endeavors with success. In hindsight, what Sudnow really did is to cut through all the "myths" about adult learning and apply common sense. There is nothing really earth-shaking about his approach, but he did a real service by doing the research and coming up with a methodology that anybody can apply.

Tony

[Big Band Guitar]

I took beginning piano last fall at our local community college. The instructor gave me an A.

I am now starting intermediate piano.

I am 65 years old and have played guitar for 55 years. I could not read music before piano I now can.

If someone tells you old people can't learn piano they are so full of crap its turning their eyeballs brown.

Fingering correctly is the most important part. A good instructor is a must.

Will I ever be a concert pianist? No. Will I play enough to make me happy? Yes.

Do it you won't be sorry.

[tbeltrans]

Personally, I think as older adults we have many advantages over the younger folks. I realize the idea that young people learn faster/somehow better than we geezers do, continues to live on with a really stubborn persistence.

When I said earlier that traditional classical-oriented piano lessons are best started while young, it was not because older people learn slower, instead it is because it takes much longer to reach the highest heights of performance level. Sudnow makes that clear in his comments in the earlier versions of his course.

Learning to play popular tunes and standards seems more casual in its approach, and can be learned to a degree good enough to perform in less time than perfecting the classical repertoire can.

To understand this, we can consider playing guitar. The classical guitar pursuit is much like that of the disciplined classical piano approach. There is extreme focus on the subtle aspects of technique, and a whole discipline that takes many, many years to cultivate to a high enough degree to become a professional performer. Many of us in this forum chose a much more casual approach that can still yield satisfying results, including those who are starting much later in life.

Adults bring with them a life of experience. I graduated from college in my early 40s, and at the top of my class. The reason is that I had a very clear and certain idea as to what I needed to accomplish and why. When I was younger, I really didn't have that. I feel that, at least for some folks such as myself, going to college later in life can be more beneficial than going into that straight out of high school. This could not possibly be true if we lose the ability to learn fairly quickly as we age. If that were true, there is no way I could keep up while holding a full time demanding job during the day.

If an older adult really does want to learn the classical repertoire, I am sure that s/he can do so, at least well enough to satisfy him or herself and perform for friends and in recitals. But for the person who wants to do it as a living, it takes longer than we probably have years to devote to it because, unfortunately, there are no short cuts.

I believe that it is by continuing to learn as we age, that we continue to stay engaged in life itself and to grow as individuals. If we decide that as we age, we become less capable of taking in new ideas and information, then we are pretty much deciding to just sit around and wait for the inevitable end. That would be a sad way to go.

Tony

[high]

Originally Posted by Big Band Guitar

I took beginning piano last fall at our local community college.
I am 65 years old and have played guitar for 55 years. I could not read music before piano I now can.
Fingering correctly is the most important part. A good instructor is a must.
Do it you won't be sorry.

^^^^^^^this

[patrickgm60]

Not familiar with Sudnow, but can see how some new students may want to "play by dot," rather than learning how to read music. Of course, you are limited to the dots you have with you, at the time. For me, it would be an unsatisfying substitute, like paint-by-numbers or Guitar Hero.

Written music (notation, sheet music, whatever term) is not necessarily a "classical-oriented" tool. It is a universal system, shared by choirs, orchestras, jazz trios, rockers, church organists, kids on flute/violin/piano, etc. Although my sight-reading skills are rusty, I can bang out Beethoven, Gershwin, or Elton John, with that system.

Those considering to take up the piano "later in life" may want to begin by learning to read music. For those who find it too challenging, the dot system may be a good fit.