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Hi all

I'm a 30 something reasonable busy person (2 hour round commute to my full-time place of work and a few other hobbies outside of work but currently no children). I'd love learn piano(?) to accompany myself singing (privately and perhaps to family - mainly pop stuff). I also like to experiment (dabble) with music production software so I like the idea feature-rich keyboards. I am in no way musically trained or talented.

A little background. I attempted to play the guitar whilst at university but didn't get very far as I stopped my lessons to focus on my final year which I was finding quite stressful. I graduated with the highest honours but it came at a great sacrifice. I don't feel as though I am the type of person who can focus on many things at once. I work in the medical field and my career often gets in the way of things ... for instance if I need to learn something new I would normally drop everything in my personal life to become proficient and then go 'back to normal' when work is not encroaching on my home life.

I started to look at keyboards / electrics (Yamaha PSR 363 / P45 etc). I thought a budget of £300-400? I would love something I could connect to computers and apps to help me progress. I would need headphones due to shift-work. I wouldn't be averse to getting a teacher if I could commit to learning too. Do some keyboards come with the ability to play a song's drumbeat in the background? Apologies if any of the sounds stupid or conflicting.

There is likely no chance of me becoming a proficient piano/keyboard player, but I wondered, given my time-short lifestyle and history of not prioritising music, should I still attempt to play and enjoy it? If so could I start with any particular apps / books? How much time should I be willing to commit as a minimum? Is there such thing as a casual player?

I should have probably mentioned - I also don't love the idea of rote learning or spending forever copying a video of which keys to press and learning a song without developing any transferable music skills. I feel like I'd just forget it eventually and it wouldn't benefit me as much as learning how to read music and play chords(?) etc.



Many thanks

Not sure how far you intend to go. Some people intend to get seriously into Classical music and spend years with a teacher. I tend to take a middle approach. I have a teacher but at the same time download pieces off the Internet and learn them on my own.

For someone who gets into music to accompany singing, the place to start is to learn a few chords with the left hand to accompany the singing. After that throw in the melody with the right by ear. Not sure how good your listening skill is to be able to reproduce melody lines.

You may even ask around for a teacher that specialize in Jazz & Blues and just focus on learning off lead sheets (music written with chords instead of a bass line). You learn to improvise as you play. I can read music reasonably well but not always consistent. I'm practicing to be a better reader so I can learn songs faster.

For some people like myself, the hardest in the beginning is the L & R hands coordination. I have a good ear and can playback tunes I hear on TV and radio easily. Once I got over the hands coordination problem, learning songs get much easier. For other people, their listening ability is weak and have to rely on reading music. There are basically 2 ways to reproduce a piece of music: either what is on paper which means you have to be a proficient reader or have a good ear. I've seen people quit playing after a few years because they don't read music very well and don't have a good ear.

Start by learning some simple chords and play along with some recordings. Just have fun and see where it takes you.

FWIW (I don't teach, or play to a high standard) --

If you start out by saying "I'm not willing to commit to becoming proficient, or to prioritize music", you're not likely to become proficient, or to become a competent musician.

If you want to learn to play piano, expect to spend time, most days, _on the bench_, playing. How much time? -- that's up to you. More time = faster progress.

"Talent" becomes really important for high-level playing:

. . . for _competent_ playing, you just need to practice regularly.

A lot of "learning to play" is developing "muscle memory". It's hard to do that without consistent, daily practice. In my experience (and others will disagree), it's easier to do that if you have a teacher guiding you.

Some of what you want to do -- like composing with a DAW -- is a lot harder in real life, than it seems to be on paper, or on YouTube.

If you want to learn to play piano, start with an 88-key, weighted action. A P45 qualifies; a PSR-363 (short keyboard, "synth-action" keys) does not.

I found it really difficult to sing and play at the same time. I didn't know how hard it was until I tried it. Anyway, you should probably narrow down what types of music you'd like to play/sing and go from there. One advice I would offer is to try and find people to play with. You will have fun, not be alone, learn from other people, and be less likely to quit. Find other beginners and play duets, find a singer to accompany, join a group class.

Well no one here will tell you not to start learning the piano.

But expect a lot of hard work and practice. I am not an expert on this, but to put it into perspective, I believe it takes years (2-3) of daily 1-2 hours of practice, with the help of a teacher, to become competent. By competent I mean you can learn intermediate pieces that others can also enjoy.

So by all means, go for it, but
1) prepare yourself to put in the work and practice daily, as you will never learn it if it is not high priority for you
2) get a teacher, you will progress much faster, and as you said, you will actually learn transferable skills, and not just copy notes from a video

But there is also nothing wrong with playing and having fun with an app, but it's easier to learn football on the field than from FIFA.

Once I stumbled upon a YouTube channel of a pianist Bill Hilton.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZlOvB5LcAgJv3wwvWFOFLg

It's pop/jazz oriented and I think you might like it to begin with. He's also published a book with his learning course.

No one can tell you in the beginning of your piano journey where it will take you to, but it's worth trying.

I would suggest that you ...

Purchase the Kawai ES8.


Get started.


You will love it.

One possible way to start is with a keyboard and one of the commercial apps like Piano Marvel or Playground Sessions. These are a fairly inexpensive way to develop the “absolute beginner” skills that can kind of bootstrap you up to where you might end up going, whether that is to actual acoustic piano with a teacher or any other kind of music making.

They actually teach quite respectable pedagogy using musical notation, introduce you to the idea of rhythm, note durations and sight reading in general. They are a lot more than just learning what notes to press from a video. There is a range of different music genres to choose from.

I study acoustic piano with a teacher now but I started with Playground Sessions and I don’t regret it in the slightest, quite the opposite in fact. I think these sort of apps are a great way to find out if keyboard based music is something you want to continue with.

Would Simply Piano fit the commercial app bill to get me started before getting a teacher (after lockdown)?

More use PianoMarvel here IMO. Looks like a good App though to try. Wish these things were available when I was young

There is an ongoing thread here of Piano Marvel users. Check it out and feel free to ask questions


http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/2710598/other-people-do-piano-marvel.html

- You do sound like a casual player.

- A traditional classical approach will probably take more commitment than it sounds like you will be able to give.

- But learning popular music styles should be very do-able (Pop, Rock, Blues, Latin, Gospel, Country etc.)

- I suggest starting with vocabulary books for popular styles. Vocabulary books have short phrases that you can quickly study during a short break. Look for books that have riffs, bass lines, grooves for keyboards.

- TIP: In general.- Riffs=Right Hand, Bass Lines=Left Hand and Grooves=Hands Together

- With basic vocabulary under your belt you can start "making" your own music - and play along with a drum/backing track.

- If you are constantly on-the-go - you will be relying on a portable keyboard and phone/tablet.

- Almost all portable keyboards have un-weighted keys, so you'll be learning to play the keyboard and NOT the Piano (which has weighted keys).

- Some portable keyboards have drum/backing tracks. There are also many drum tracking/backing apps (my favorite are the Lumbeat apps by Luis Martinez, iOS only).

- If you want to use your phone/app audio with the portable keyboard, make sure it has an AUX In port.

If you want to play like this after 1 year ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fx562ygNNE


Sure .... go ahead.

- Piano Marvel is probably overkill for your on-the-go situation - it's designed for the sit-down, "I've got time" - traditional classical approach.

- For a portable on-the-go setup I'd recommend something like Note Trainer Pro by Thoor Software. It's an app that works with or without a keyboard - it does short, quick drills for notes and chords. Perfect if you're on-the-go.

Some people may disagree with me, but I started piano when I had little time. I had a demanding job. but my mom had alzheimer’s and I thought if I started lessons with her it would help. She hadn’t played in over 15yrs and was very discouraged, anyway with just a few lessons I was able to play some super easy songs with her. She then remembered either playing and teaching some of the songs and was adding notes and chords not on my super easy sheet music... My point, if you want to play piano, you can do it!

I found a teacher and told her I’d do my best to practice a least 20-30min every couple days. She was OK with that. There were weeks when we had a major server overhaul that went butt end up that I never touched my keyboard, but she just said come in and your lessons will be your practice for the week. Even with my less that stellar practice schedule I LOVED IT. I started with half hours lessons then bumped up to 1 hour so we could add some music theory in, or do some easy improv.


One suggestion, I found once I got the basics down it was easier if I could get up even just 20-30min earlier and practice then. Then maybe before bed if I had some extra time i could practice again. If I could practice at least 4-5 time a week it was better, even if it was only a few minutes a day. The better you get the more you’ll want to practice. Find a song you really want to play and have your teacher help you work toward it. I was playing some easy Thelonious Monk and Jazzy tunes, and some Bach within the first year. Again, even with my shitty practice schedule.

I also second Bill Hilton’s videos. I joined his patreon group, but he has TONS of free vids! I still use his “4 minute improv” as warm up.

Have fun!!!
Odd

The most important bit of advice in this post is where you say .....
That pre-supposes the OP will have a teacher.

I hope you are right.

Good point. It's worth spending a little extra and make sure you do not buy anything lower in the range than a Yamaha P-45 (or the equivalent from Kawai or Casio or others). This will get you a digital piano with spring-weighted keys. These are a reasonable simulation of an acoustic piano for a beginner, and are fairly "one-person portable" and don't take up much space.

But if you think you might end up wanting to play acoustic piano, a good long term plan might be to envisage selling the DP after a couple of years. It will do for the beginner stages but there's just too much difference between the way the keys respond on an acoustic and a cheap digital to be useful for long-term acoustic piano study. You should be able to sell it second-hand and get back a good chunk what you paid for it.

For a point of comparison, I'm 42 and decided that since I'm home a lot now, it would be a great time to learn to play the piano. I played sax in various school bands from middle school to college, but never learned piano or much music theory.

Over the past month and a half, I've played 20 - 30 minutes every day and it has been a great experience. While I've read others suggest 1 -2 hours a day of practice are needed to be good, I suspect there's significant diminishing returns to the extra time when first starting out. That level of commitment would have also deterred me from starting.

I looked at a few options regarding how to learn and settled on Piano Marvel after evaluating several. I started at lesson 1A and have worked my way up to section 3B in 40 days (it's now certainly challenging). I also picked up a music theory book to supplement my learning. Overall, I'm quite pleased with my progress and not over-committing has helped me develop a habit I can maintain.

Piano Marvel is a good start for familiarizing yourself with the keyboard and learning to read music. I would highly recommend augmenting it with some sort of online teacher. The reason I suggest this is that while Piano Marvel does a good job of "getting you to press the right key at the right time" (which is important, don't get me wrong!) it won't help you understand proper technique or musicality. For example, is your posture correct? Are you holding your hands the right way to get maximum musicality and minimize injury, fatigue and tension? How are your dynamics? Those are all things a teacher can help with that Piano Marvel can't.

One possible place to start would be Hugh Sung's course on ArtistWorks.com. I suggest this because I use it myself and am very happy with it. I also use Piano Marvel for drills/sight reading AND I have once a week lessons with a local piano teacher (via Zoom right now alas.) I joined Artist Works because I was interesting it branching out in to some popular music and my it's not my local teacher's forte or interest. Hugh Sung's class works pretty well. He has a bunch of videos that walk you through all the basics, and then has a progression of pieces, and you're welcome to work on your own selections as well. Every week (or so, sometimes he misses a week or two due to travel) you video record yourself playing your pieces and then the next day he sends back a video of feedback. It's a low stress way to get some human instruction without having to commit to a "regular" teacher. I think for a beginner right now during lock down, it would be a good option.

Anyway, enjoy! I was in your same place 4 years ago, and I've been absolutely loving learning piano. It's my primary hobby right now (well maybe that's a lie, for the last month I've also been playing Animal Crossing :D)