Learning to play

[rick-slo]

Got the below from a website about piano but the same applies to most musical instruments:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Learning musical theory may appear boring but in order to build a strong base for piano, you should gain certain understanding of theory as it will help you a lot in gaining skills for piano playability.

Listen to some of the amazing piano players and watch their performances too. As you hear or watch them play, try to recognize notes that are being played and style with which they are playing.

Learn to recognize and play certain patterns. You will find that many of the piano song themes have repetitions and there will be only small differences in sections. Learn such patterns and structures.

Improve your fingering and dexterity; this is what will help you most in the end.
Every time you begin to put your fingers on piano for practice or performance make sure you warm up well.

Memorization is the basis of learning to master at playing piano. When you have memorized you don’t need to keep your eyes on the board but you can play by memory.

Your performance would have varied sections, try playing each part slowly and carefully. When you play slowly, you will be less prone to making mistakes.

Always believe in improvisation and try to improve yourself.
Don’t ever become blind followers but look what actually you want to play and what kind of music you are interested in? Follow your interest and you will be able to do much better than otherwise.

Conclusion:
Learning and playing piano is all about passion and love for music. If you have interest and want to choose piano as your basic musical instrument, you first need to gain certain understanding of theory and fundamentals of this instrument. When you have a look at the brief history and musical career of some of the famous pianists; you will be able to realize that how motivation, interest and support goes hand in hand for learning and playing piano. Prepare yourself for continued practice and learning and at the same time work with complete dedication and make efforts towards the challenge of learning piano and composing music on this beautiful instrument."

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Got the below from a website about piano but the same applies to most musical instruments:

Here's my $0.02, FWIW:

Originally Posted by rick-slo

"Learning musical theory may appear boring but in order to build a strong base for piano, you should gain certain understanding of theory as it will help you a lot in gaining skills for piano playability.

Not really, IMO.
Firstly, if you find theory "boring", you're doing it wrong.
Secondly, relative to piano, it's the other way round: learning piano helps with studying theory, much more than vice versa.
Guitar is not quite as useful as piano for studying theory, but it's better than nothing.

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Listen to some of the amazing piano players and watch their performances too. As you hear or watch them play, try to recognize notes that are being played and style with which they are playing.

Yes, this absolutely works for guitar too. Watch and copy, as well as listen and copy.

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Learn to recognize and play certain patterns. You will find that many of the piano song themes have repetitions and there will be only small differences in sections. Learn such patterns and structures.

Yes. A no-brainer, right?

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Improve your fingering and dexterity; this is what will help you most in the end.

Again, like, duh!

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Every time you begin to put your fingers on piano for practice or performance make sure you warm up well.

Yes, except we'd need to know some warm-up exercises.
Personally, my warm-up exercise is playing the guitar, but I can appreciate that some kinds of finger exercises beforehand might help. Common sense again, IMO.

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Memorization is the basis of learning to master at playing piano. When you have memorized you don’t need to keep your eyes on the board but you can play by memory.

Can I say "duh!" again here?

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Your performance would have varied sections, try playing each part slowly and carefully. When you play slowly, you will be less prone to making mistakes.

Jeez, next thing this person will be telling us how to walk down the street by putting one foot in front of the other...

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Always believe in improvisation and try to improve yourself.

Yes! (Some people do get "improvise" and "improve" mixed up though...)

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Don’t ever become blind followers but look what actually you want to play and what kind of music you are interested in? Follow your interest and you will be able to do much better than otherwise.

Again, pretty obvious, but maybe this comes from a place where students commonly have to learn things they're not interested in. Like, piano....

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Conclusion:
Learning and playing piano is all about passion and love for music.

Yes. Same for guitar, of course.

Originally Posted by rick-slo

If you have interest and want to choose piano as your basic musical instrument, you first need to gain certain understanding of theory

No you don't. You absolutely don't. Instrument first, theory second.

I.e., theory comes in alongside, almost immediately: note names to start with. But you choose your favourite instrument first. (Perhaps this person is actually trying to put beginners off learning an instrument? They don't want too much competition?)

Originally Posted by rick-slo

and fundamentals of this instrument.

Well, yes. If that means (a) how it sounds, and (b) you have to hit the keys to make the sounds.

Originally Posted by rick-slo

When you have a look at the brief history and musical career of some of the famous pianists; you will be able to realize that how motivation, interest and support goes hand in hand for learning and playing piano.

OK, but you shouldn't need to do that to have the motivation in the first place!
And if you don't have that, then learning how much of those things "famous pianists" had, that's going to put you off even more. "Well, I like piano, but I'm not sure I like it that much...."

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Prepare yourself for continued practice and learning and at the same time work with complete dedication and make efforts towards the challenge of learning piano and composing music on this beautiful instrument."

Yes.

With guitar, you perhaps need to be even more prepared for "continued practice", because the physical challenges are much greater. I've known a lot of guitar beginners who gave up after realising it was a steeper learning curve than they'd anticipated. They just didn't love the instrument enough to stay on that curve. That's fine. At least they had a crack at it, and weren't put off by anyone pointing to "famous" players and how much "motivation, interest and support" they had.

But also, the "complete dedication" comes from one's enthusiasm to begin with. It's not something you should have to force yourself to acquire.
When I began teaching myself guitar I didn't think in terms of "complete dedication and mak[ing] efforts towards the challenge". That sounds way too much like WORK. Like a chore. Like tedious effort. But of course, that's because I chose guitar for myself. I wasn't being instructed by a teacher, underlining how much "effort" I needed to prepare myself for.
Of course, I found it physically difficult, even painful sometimes - I got blisters on my fingers! But I never found it "hard work", and never even thought of it as a "challenge".

This whole thing sounds like something a piano teacher has dreamt up as a misguided way of trying to encourage reluctant kids, who shouldn't really be having lessons in the first place.

[tbirdman]

Interesting as I picked up the guitar 2.5 years ago. I practice with a steel acoustic, classical and harp guitars daily. About 4 months ago, I picked up the piano. A lot of what I learned including music theory translated to the piano and in a lot of cases easier with the linear keyboard. Music theory became clearer on the piano. Playing two hands independent is the hardest thing to do on the piano. I spoke with one guitar instructor whose opinion was that learning the piano would help my guitar playing.

For whatever reason, I talk to a lot of people who said I took a lot of piano classes when I was younger, but I don't play now. I don't hear that with guitarists.

Anyway, I like learning and I'm learning quite of bit trying all of the different instruments.

[rick-slo]

Just were quotes from a website discussing piano playing. Some generalities to consider. I do think many times things get way over analyzed and
in those cases it may lead into the wilderness. Listen, develop a good ear, learn pieces to play.

[Brent Hutto]

One thing that many, many piano players routinely do is less common with non-classical guitar players. I'm referring to playing with sheet music in front of you. That's extremely rare for guitar players (again, except for classical) and if you're going to play by ear and play with other people at least a rudimentary working knowledge of chord progressions, keys and modes is necessary. No theory knowledge at all is needed to play solo piano from a written out arrangement in standard notation.

[stanron]

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

No theory knowledge at all is needed to play solo piano from a written out arrangement in standard notation.

Well that's not exactly true. Basic music theory is all about reading notation. The names of notes, where they are on the instrument and the stave, Key Signatures and Time Signatures and all sorts of staff symbols including repeats and dynamics.

In the UK ABRSM grades there are five levels of this stuff. It's all music theory and it all needs learning if you are going to be able to read notation.

[Brent Hutto]

Originally Posted by stanron

Well that's not exactly true. Basic music theory is all about reading notation. The names of notes, where they are on the instrument and the stave, Key Signatures and Time Signatures and all sorts of staff symbols including repeats and dynamics.

In the UK ABRSM grades there are five levels of this stuff. It's all music theory and it all needs learning if you are going to be able to read notation.

From age 8 to age 13 I took weekly piano lessons and all my playing was purely mechanical. See the notation, move my fingers in the way the notes say. My first inklings of music theory came during middle school and high school band and singing in a church youth choir. My piano teacher during my elementary years didn't talk at all about theory beyond giving me written-out scales to practice and so forth.

I took five years of lessons and never even learned how to spell major and minor chords. I wasn't a great or very accomplished player but I could memorize my recital pieces and play various (early grade) classical pieces from sheet music.

It's just like playing guitar from tablature, you don't need to know what you're playing or how the notes fit together. There's a one-to-one correspondence between the notes on the page (or fret numbers on the tab) and the finger placements. It can be done monkey see, monkey do just fine as long as you're satisfied being a rather mechanical player.

[stanron]

Hi Brent.

You still don't seem to acknowledge the amount of theory needed to do what you say is 'purely mechanical'. As to spelling chords, this starts in Grade Four of the ABRSM syllabus. Scales and intervals are covered in Grade Three.

Why your teacher didn't teach you this could be because you never got that far, it could be because you showed no interest in it or it could be because your teacher just didn't know it or thought it irrelevant.

In the UK, if you take the classical route to learning an instrument you learn to play alongside learning theory right from the start. It's not the fault of 'Notation' that you didn't get to learn this stuff.

[rick-slo]

https://musicmayhemmagazine.com/10-g...d%20ukulele%3F

[JackC1]

Originally Posted by tbirdman

For whatever reason, I talk to a lot of people who said I took a lot of piano classes when I was younger, but I don't play now. I don't hear that with guitarists.

I'm one of those ex-piano people. However, according to statistics 90% of guitar players quit within 3 months.

https://www.mozartproject.org/how-ma...n-play-guitar/

Having played piano and guitar, I can say that guitar is much harder initially.

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

It's just like playing guitar from tablature, you don't need to know what you're playing or how the notes fit together. There's a one-to-one correspondence between the notes on the page (or fret numbers on the tab) and the finger placements. It can be done monkey see, monkey do just fine as long as you're satisfied being a rather mechanical player.

I think having had some piano experience is very helpful with theory (much more so than guitar tab experience). For example, I can already read music (i.e. I know the note names); I can already identify common key signatures (which means I can immediately build the major/minor scales even if I don't officially know their note intervals); I'm already familiar with accidentals (maybe not double sharps/flats, but plain sharps/flats/naturals and enharmonic are already known); I already know distances between notes; etc. All these are missing in tabs.

Playing the piano definitely gives a leg up to learning theory vs playing guitar by tabs.

[Robin, Wales]

What's theory?

And, yes, that is a serious question to contemplate.

P. S. Derek, I thought that the article you posted was very applicable to learning guitar. I particularly liked "Learning and playing piano is all about passion and love for music."

[Andyrondack]

I think a few people who post on the subject of music theory on these boards have studied it formally in great detail, I mean something like degree level and the experience seems to have been so traumatic for them that they don't seem to want any one else to even suggest that anything about could be useful to playing music. They are really in denial mode.
Beyond learning to read notation I've studied ( or rather been taught ) a limited amount of theory relating to chords and scales/ modes etc, only took a few hours and it has certainly helped me.

The idea that if you learn how chords are constructed you're doomed to wander lost in the wilderness forever and never actually hear music ( which certainly seems to be rick-slos possition) is false and absurd, I hope for the sake of students he doesn't teach music.

[Mandobart]

I don't fully agree with a part of the conclusion;

If you have interest and want to choose piano as your basic musical instrument, you first need to gain certain understanding of theory and fundamentals of this instrument.

I'm not a pianist, but my experience on stringed instruments is that the learning needs to occur on a few different, mutually suppotive fronts simultaneously. A beginner needs to learn the mechanics of playing - how to interact with the instrument. Also need to stress posture and ergonomics early on. And there needs to be some level of actually making music - simple songs, basic melodies and chords. Theory can and should be incorporated with these subjects as applicable, but IMO not as a standalone topic.

For me, learning theory isolated from actually playing the instrument didn't work. I was much better able to incorporate and understand the concepts typically considered "music theory" after I had the ability to play a few tunes (from memory or a score) at a steady rhythm with others in an ensemble setting.

[Jamolay]

I would imagine that “music theory” developed by studying music that was already being played.

So in the which came first analogy, the playing came first.

In my mind it goes without saying that you can learn music without theory and you can more easily learn theory once you can play a bit. They go together and support each other.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Jamolay

I would imagine that “music theory” developed by studying music that was already being played.

So in the which came first analogy, the playing came first.

In my mind it goes without saying that you can learn music without theory and you can more easily learn theory once you can play a bit. They go together and support each other.

+1

This is why music theory is "optional," especially if you just play on your own.

Every once in a while though I will lay out the scales by letter in Excel, one under the other and then play around with different chord progressions in different keys. Good way to kill a couple of hours. That's as far as my music theory goes