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I am thinking of signing up for piano lessons with " Simply Music " Which involves a new method of teaching, apparently you learn to play before learing to read music. Can anyone advise me on how successful this method is.

There are any number of "new' methods floating around out there promising a quick and easy route to playing the piano, most of which are costly deadends - there is no quick and easy route, no matter how much anyone wishes it were so - in the long run the only successful method to true piano mastery is the old-fashioned, time-tested standard method where you learn to read music and play it at the same time from the very beginning and slowly and gradually develope and progress lesson by lesson over a period of many years with consistent and dedicated pracitce, and for most, under the guidance of a competent and considerate and experienced teacher.

JF

It is very important to listen. Music notation, however is the alphabet of notes. It's so efficient. It is best to combine many approaches. I wouldn't pay for anything at the moment, but imagine it would be a fine place to start. I personally found these free lectures fascinating, helpful and engaging.

one could subscribe to his many lectures and presentations but plenty of them are free. he has delightful personality.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Lypur#p/a/u/0/vphWgqbF-AM


You tube has 1000s of piano tutorials and they are really fun and helpful.. how to play lady gaga for instance. .. and of course this forum is totally free and always open.

I am also from Perth and have been taking Simply Music piano lessons for about a 1 1/2 years. I have found it quite good and has helped me learn a large variety of simple but good sounding songs. They teach by using patterns to help you remember how to play the parts for each song and they provide DVDs to let you review lessons in case you forget anything. There is an accompaniment program that I've also been taking which teaches you all the chords, inversions and how to play them from chord notation.

I am only starting to learn to read music now, but the theory that i've learnt from my teacher has helped me start playing songs i like by using the same techniques they use to break down the initial pieces like identifying patterns in the music as chords, arpeggios, rhythm patterns, breaking the music into chunks and intervalic reading.

My only complain would be a lack of explanation of how they are breaking things down the pieces down, but i believe the method is also designed for children, so diving into theory and deciphering pieces is left till later on. If you are worried about that bit, I suggest you to ask the teacher a lot of questions to fill that gap.

I have tried to learn piano previously using the other sources that people mentioned above like Lypur's free lessons, but I was never able to play any songs with two hands. With the Simply music method, I played songs with both hands from the beginning which was very motivating. Although at the beginning it may seem easy, after you progress past the first 3 or so levels in the method, you'll find that the songs you learn get harder and you will need to put in more effort and work to learn your songs.

I agree with this... there is definitely no quick easy way. If there were it would have been discovered by now and made everything else obsolete.



I don't agree with this. Music is a language and should be learned the same way you learn to speak. You learn to speak first and then you learn to read. I don't neglect reading when teaching beginning students, but I put the emphasis on playing.



I agree with this.

I just realized the original post here is from last year, but I think it's still worthwhile to address the issue of "new and improved" methods for learning.

You forgot to qualify that. Don't you mean 'true classical piano mastery?'

The best *method* to learn anything is the one that is most compatible with the way you learn.

I tried to learn to play piano by reading music and while I did learn to read, I hated it. It was like work. Something which I did not enjoy.

Every so often I would hear a nice tune on the radio and decided to sit down and figure out the main right hand melody. It came very easily to me. Once I got the basic right hand melody down, I then added left hand arpeggios and before long I was totaly absorbed into the piece. You couldn't drag me away from the piano.

I would go outside and do some yard work or something and found myself trying to compose the tune in my head while whistling or humming to myself. When I got back inside I couldn't wait to dart back to the piano to see if I could figure out the tune I had been whistling.

Short story: I can now compose and play an entire piece within a few days simply because I can get so motivated and enjoy it so much. Had I continued to only play my scales, do my method book assignments and struggle with sightreading I would have quit many years ago. Honestly!

If you are an analytica/structured type person (think engineer) then the traditional types of learning methods may be best.

If you are a more creative/free spirit type...{or too stupid to read music like me} playing by ear/noodling could possibly work out better. It just depends on how you learn things.