Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum I am confused

Scales and arpeggios should be considered as a great deal more than simply a warm up device, for this implies ever increasing speed to get a good workout. Scales and arpeggios are as much brain exercises as they are physical, and unless you engage your mind with them I feel anyone would be undervaluing them.

My own experience has been that there have been times during my 5.5 years learning piano when I could tell my fingers needed some specific work. I started daily scale & arp. work probably after about two years giving me some improvement in technique. However they don't come close to helping develop an all round technique and for that I have needed to use other exercises (usually sections of a difficult piece).

I would say to the OP not to jump into anything that may have helped cause your unhappiness with piano. Rather add things as you see the need.

Some people feel they need a warm up and routine practice of scales or exercises on their practice sessions. Others don't. I belong to the latter group. Some teachers focus on technical routines, others don't but serve technique study in another way. But imo it's better not to spend too much time on mechanical practice if you do not have a teacher to watch your technique. It's perfectly feasable to just start learning pieces and practicing reading notes. That will get you far as long as you gradually work your way up from easy pieces. These days it's easy because the internet is full of lists of pieces graded by difficulty. Without a teacher you probably won't ever manage the harder stuff, but it can still be very rewarding to learn. Not everyone needs to play Chopin etudes...

And if one feels the fingers need a workout...play some Baroque! Works like magic and is not boring

Or just ask here. I've had many questions answered by the fine folks right here.

That's me. Whenever I feel like it, I just sit down and play and my wife listens and loves it. I watch lots of YouTube videos to collect ideas that I may want to apply to my own leaning process. And that's it. I just enjoy playing without any stress at all. Very relaxed and all fun.

Thank you for your comments. However, I cannot afford a private piano teacher or even group sessions. So I will persevere by myself.

Even if you can't affort a lesson each week, if you can, it is still useful to take some lessons on a less regular basis (once a month; once every two months; twice a year; ...). A teacher could still point out some issues that you won't notice, so that would be beneficial.

Yes, I lived at home until I was 34 years old and I did not mind at all. Nor did my parents mind. I wanted to save money while I was attending university and I also contributed at home.My mother worked full time as a teacher and took courses at night. My father worked long hours as a store manager. My baby brother was a surprise birth and as he is 15 years younger than myself, I basically helped to raise him. Also when I was working as a teacher and then in admin I still loved being around my family. There were no restrictions on me as I went out, partied late into the night at the bars in Montreal, disco was in!

And perhaps, I should have said that my mother would have liked for me to continue the piano lessons as I had enthusiastically embraced the lessons at the age of 18.


Then I had an older brother who was living in Vancouver, BC and I loved Vancouver, so I moved out here, met my husband in a bar and we have been happily married for 29 years.

Thank you for your comments. I cannot afford a private teacher or group lessons. My husband and myself are extremely low maintenance otherwise we could not even afford to pay our bills. Hubby is retired and myself after being laid off twice, I work as an on call auxiliary at a college. We go out about twice a year to eat, never take a vacation ( have not done so since before 2004), never go to shows, movies, etc. We entertain ourselves at home with our hobbies.

Thank you, I think that is the most important, enjoy the journey and just maybe you may reach your destination.

Thank you and I will ask if I have any questions.

Exactly!

A couple of suggestions from me.

1) Record yourself playing and then review it. Without a teacher you won't know where you are going wrong, and if there is any complexity in the piece you want have time to think about whether it is correct or not whilst you are concentrating on the playing.

2) Learn how to practice efficiently. Do it in small sections starting with the hardest. If at first you don't get it play it more slowly - continue to ramp in down if you still can't get it. Although some people on here have disparaged it, I still like this guys take (its a bit long winded, but the meat of it is quite short) http://www.pianopractice.org/FOPP3_2.pdf

3) I was recently learning a piece with Jazz rhythms which were complicated to get right. I used Musescore (free to download https://musescore.org/en) and entered the score into it (if its a well known piece you may already be able to get a copy on the internet). Once you understand how to do it its very quick even using just the on screen keyboard (if you have a midi keyboard you can use that but its not much faster). You might want to get an improved piano sound for when it plays back the score. I like this free one http://freepats.zenvoid.org/Piano/acoustic-grand-piano.html#KawaiUpright Musecore has a facility whereby you can select a small region and get it to play with a metronome, on repeat and with a lead in. I used that running on my computer and try and play along with it until you are in time and in tune with it. I find musecore playback to be a bit robotic for long sections, but for getting the feel of just a few bars its quite good.

4) Read the Inner Game of Tennis - and apply the principals to playing the piano. I think there is an Inner Game of Music - a lot of Inner Game books were spun off on the success of the first one - I don't know whether it says anything more than the original as I haven't read it.

no need for scales, arpeggios, ornament tables, counting beats and all that jargon babbling for beginners

see, I began piano as a 16 yo by laying in front of me the score of a piece I liked - Hammerklavier sonata - and now, in my 40s, I'm almost done with it. After it I'll try a Chopin Ballade.

the important thing is to play what you want and follow your dreams

My copies of both the Inner Game of Tennis and Inner Game of Music arrived today. Looking over the books, it looks like the latter is just a derivative work of the former. I think I'll read the tennis one first since I'm guessing it will be the freshest take on the ideas. Thanks for the recommendation!