Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum How do you keep motivated?

So I took a class piano course (1 hour credit) at UAB last spring, and I am taking another one now, and I plan to repeat it this coming up spring. I have learned to play most of the major scales over two octaves, some minor scales. Played many small exercises including major five finger pattern stuff, also some thing where you are shifting your pinky down or up a fifth. Played eighth notes, and now doing some triplets.

I feel like I am improving just because I didn't know how to read sheet music or didn't know what any of the marks were until this class, and now I can sit down and I know how to learn a sheet of music. Of course, I am still learning all the key signatures and markings.

I do have several confessions. I just started using a metronome tonight. I have no rhythm whatsoever, and I didn't practice much during the spring (I just took a B that she gave me, which that class should easily be an A I think). I am trying to practice more now and do better in the class, but I struggle so bad with keeping a steady rhythm with eighth notes and triplets. Do you guys have any advice to correct this? Do I simply need to just practice it constantly with a metronome? Maybe I am not giving myself enough time?

I am buying a Casio Privia px-130 next week, because I have read many good reviews about the piano. I am also buying a blues book so that I will have something to read and maybe try to do the exercises. I guess I am starting to think "maybe some people just aren't cut out to play piano"? And I definitely don't want to find myself in that group of people.

So how do you stay motivated? And any tips greatly appreciated.

Hi Yesshh, congratulations to you for learning piano and learning to read music.  It sounds like rhythm is your major challenge right now.

The following may help:

How is your general sense of rhythm?  Listen to music and tap your foot to the beat.  This is the steady sequence of evenly-spaced beats.  For example if the music is in 4/4, it's 1 2 3 4.  Once you've got that down, practice clapping the rhythm.  This is the variable sequence that may include eighth notes etc.  For example, I hear Yankee Doodle primarily in eighth notes, as 1 uh 2 uh 3 uh 4 1 uh 2 uh 3 4.  Now practice doing them together:  tapping the steady beat with your foot, and clapping the rhythm (or tapping it on your leg).

OK, got your basic rhythm sense awake.  Now to transfer this to your sheet music.

First, do you have a counting system?  If not (or if you're not sure) say so, and I can say more on this.  You might want to consider learning and practicing with the Blue Jello or Apple Pie systems for a while.  These use the natural rhythms of speech to help in learning to read rhythms.

Now go through counting and clapping your music.  Count out loud.  Hearing our voice is a much more powerful learning tool than just thinking silently.  Clap and count both with and without the metronome, and both with and without tapping your foot to the beat.  This gives you lots of ways to experience the rhythm.  Are some of these exercises easier than others?  File that away as something that may need more investigation later.

For now though, you just want to find some way to feel confident that you know what the proper rhythm is.

Now tap the rhythm on the closed piano cover.  Still confident that you're keeping time?

Now try each part, slowly.  Try it with the metronome set on a slow speed.  If you have any problems keeping rhythm, set the metronome slower.  If your eighth notes are ragged, try it using each beat of the metronome as an eighth note instead of a quarter note.  Practice at first playing and saying the rhythm at the same time.  Then, try it with just playing.

Try it without the metronome.  Does it help if you tap your foot to the beat?  This is largely a no-no for pianists as a standard crutch, but I think it can be helpful once in a while, as long as you wean yourself off it.

Increase speed bit by bit.  Practice both with the metronome (as a rigorous check) and without (as a way of developing your own internal sense of beat, and also allowing the music to breathe and not be solely metronomic).

There is nothing wrong with practicing with a metronome.

Yesshh, I stay motivated because I only work on those things I want to work on. It's all music I love, and I receive tremendous gratification when I sit down and play. In reading your post, I was struck by the fact that you spent a lot of time talking about drills and scales and metronome practice etc., but not a word about playing for fun or even the name of a favorite piece.

So that would be my advice: Are you working on material that you enjoy? If not, that's where I'd make a change. You don't have to be as sloppy and self-indulgent as I am, and doing all the drills, scales, etc. will almost certainly improve your technique, but it's important that you also mix it up with material that makes you feel really eager to sit on the bench. jmho.

No, there isn't, and I find it to be an excellent way to keep me honest about tempo and rhythm, as well as a tool for slowly bringing a piece up to speed. But I also find practice without a metronome important for me, to be sure I can play with an internalized sense of the beat.

I agree completely, I am going to try and make it a habit. I guess I just feel guilty for not doing so thus far.



Well, the reason I haven't started playing music I really want to learn to play is because I am in school still, and most of my playing everyday is doing things for this Class Piano course I am taking. I am a biology major, so I don't have to do the extensive things piano majors have to do, but I still have to play for professor every class meeting. It's really like paying UAB (University of Alabama-Birmingham) for piano lessons. And I enjoy learning technique and these small examples for improving, but it becomes mundane and hard to stay motivated when I realized my lack of ability to keep a beat.

I definitely want to start playing some things that will make me happy. I have made some goals of things I want to focus on and learn to play when I buy my piano. Some pieces from video games (Final Fantasy series), Canon (preferably in C so that I can make it a little easier for now as opposed to D), and some Elton John/Billy Joel.



Thanks for your tips, I will try to implement them when learning a new piece or sheet of music. I definitely want to gain the ability to have an internalized sense of beat.

I thought of something else, which is, can you do a steady rhythm with eighths or triplets when playing with only one hand? That is, does the problem only show up when trying to play two hands in different rhythms (often LH in quarters or halfs, RH in eighths or triplets)? In which case it might be somewhat of a coordination issue, of being able to do different things with each hand. Or is the problem there even when playing only with one hand, in which case it might be that you're playing too fast (and can't handle the eighths/triplets that fast), or it might be that you need more practice in switching back and forth from quarters to eighths/triplets and back.

just keep on swimming like dory says in finding nemo

Have trust, rythm will come. But if your rythm isnt good, then you need to play the piece at a slower speed. Most likely your technique isnt good enough to play at a higher speed. Hence the bad rythm.

If you play too long with a bad rythm, your ears get used to it and think bad rythm sounds right. Play as slow as possible, so your technique and rythm are both good, while counting out loud. You can use metronome if you like.

Then when your ears know how good rythm sounds like, you can try it a little faster without counting out loud. If you fully understand how it works, then you could avoid bad rythm most of the times.

If you have learned a piece with a bad rythm, you'll have to relearn it. But maybe it's better to drop it for a while and start working on a new piece in a good way.

Have trust, your rythm will be better in time.

Good luck,
Chris

I will keep trust in what I am trying to do. It's just hard and discouraging sometimes.

You've come to a forum where enjoyment is everything, so when we see all those "have to's" in there it is very hard to relate. Music without enjoyment and inner drive to learn certain pieces in the future doesn't strike me as a place I'd spend my time. Are you doing this only for grades and to pass courses?

Well I think most of you are misunderstanding? Maybe? I do have the desire to learn piano. It has a beautiful sound, and having never learned anything musical, it is definitely something I want to learn and I enjoy it. I am taking a class at my college, and the part that frustrates me is not having rhythm. The pieces we learn are fun, and simple, and sound nice, but unfortunately, I can't play them if I don't have rhythm, which I don't.

I am buying a piano, I just dong have time to practice things I want to practice, I have to practice things for the class. Plus I am taking Mammalian Physiology, Cell Biology, and Physics 2. Plus working 32 hours a week in the pharmacy at CVS.

So the post had nothing to do about not enjoying what I'm doing. It had to do with wanting to learn rhythm.

Yesshh, you do have rhythm. Do you walk? Rhythm. Bike? Rhythm of the pedals. Brush your teeth? Rhythm (rrr-rrr-rrr up and down). Those all show you have the ability to keep a steady beat. Pick a sentence, any sentence, and say it several times emphasizing the strong beats. (Try "I DO have rhythm." ) Say it in a singsong. There's a complex rhythm. Clap your hands in accompaniment. More rhythm. Pick a different sentence and repeat. More rhythm.

What you're looking to learn to do is train your rhythm to understand certain specific patterns, and then hook that rhythm up to movements of your arms, wrists, hands and fingers. You'll learn and improve.

Improvise. It's the best way to improve your rhythmic playing.

And the instant gratification keeps you playing.

Fortunately, rhythm can be trained, just do a lot of it away from the piano. I was also rhythmically challenged when I started out. I decided to focus a lot of attention on it, always clapping different rhythms on my legs when I was driving, when I lie in bed before sleeping, when on vacation, and now it is one of my stronger points. Or get some bongo drums!

Like other posters have said: Refuse to think of yourself as someone who don't have rhythm because it isn't true. You just haven't trained it that much yet. I also think rhythm is one of the most important "ingredients" when it comes to musicality and enjoyment.

My motivation comes from hearing the sound of piano, nothing else needed

GROUPIES!!!