Beginner Piano Lessons

What is it that a beginner at the piano wants to do? They want to make music! It might be classical, jazz, or something else, but one thing’s for sure; they don’t want to spend months studying boring theory.

What if instead of studying note reading, beginners piano lessons were focused on the student actually learning how to create music? Just imagine the excitement when the notes and chords played are all original and express what is actually being felt.

I don’t know why piano teachers start their students off on note reading. It’s boring, unnecessary for most students, and really doesn’t help the student create anything at all. In fact, you could say that by learning to note read, students are speaking the language of music without really understanding the underlying grammar and syntax – which has everything to do with chords!

Chords are where the excitement lies. And when the beginning piano student starts to play chords on the piano, it naturally leads to music making.

Beginning guitar players don’t have the same problems as newbie piano players. They expect to be able to create something that sounds like music immediately. This isn’t to say that learning the guitar or any instrument does not require serious study. It is to say that one need not spend thousands of hours learning note reading while the world of music is only a few chords a way.

Beginners piano lessons should be exciting! They should inspire students to want to study the art of music further. And they should be easy enough where the beginning student is not easily discouraged.

There are 36 black and 52 white keys (88 total) on a piano. These keys trigger hammers inside the piano that strike the pianos strings to produce sound. The white keys are a piano “natural” notes while the black keys are used for notes that are either sharp or flat. The first key (on the far left of the keyboard) is the note A and the last key (on the right), the note C.

The keys are arranged in half steps (semitones) and in the order of a chromatic scale (half step, half step, half step, etc.). The white and black keys alternate except for the fact that there are no black keys (sharp or flat notes) between the notes B and C, or E and F (the notes B#, Cb, E# and Fb do not exist).

Some think the piano is based on a C scale, but that is really not the case. You can play any scale on the piano (a D minor scale, an Ab 7 scale, etc.) simply by choosing a certain starting point (piano key) and playing the notes in the proper order. Playing left to right creates ascending (higher and higher) notes, playing right to left creates descending notes.

The piano keyboard can also be looked at from the standpoint of octaves. An octave is an interval casually thought of as 8 scale notes above or below the reference note (or the beginning and ending note of a scale). The note names of notes an octave apart are the same (i.e., you can play the note E, then play another E an octave higher). Notes an octave apart (and all notes for that matter) are measured as a certain Pitch (a particular note or tone). Pitch is measured in cycles per second (written as hz). Whereas the note A is measured at 440hz, the A above (an octave higher) is measured at 880hz. The note A above that (another octave higher) is measured at 1760hz. Octaves provide a basic framework for scales and chords.

One of the challenges of a pianist is the stretching of the hands and fingers to play certain combinations of notes that produce chords or arpeggios. It takes time to develop the flexibility and strength needed and certain exercises are used for that purpose. At times, all ten fingers are needed to play the music as written (or desired). As a general rule in music written for the piano, the left hand plays the notes of the bass clef, while the right hand plays the notes of the treble clef. Typically, the melody of the piece is played by the right hand (with the left hand often providing bass notes, runs, and arpeggios).

Portable, electronic keyboards rarely contain all 88 keys. Depending on size and purpose, a portable keyboard can contain as few as 24 keys. The musician is limited in the number of notes that can be played and often has to “rearrange” the melody and chords by playing one octave above or below the intended passages.

Keyboards:

Keyboards are typically smaller than a full acoustic piano in that they tend to have approximately 61 keys (4 or 5 octaves) whereas a full acoustic has 88 keys (6 octaves). The main benefit, however is that the keyboard is portable, able to provide a wider range of sounds, due to sound modification, and the ability to interact easily with computers via MIDI or USB connections.

When playing a keyboard one will notice that the keys are slightly smaller and are in fact easier to press than an actual piano. This may take some getting used to for a pianist that has been playing on an acoustic. The reason that the acoustic is heavier is because they are triggering the hammer that hits the string and makes noise, whereas a keyboard does not require this action to occur. Since the keys are lighter and smaller keyboards are sometimes better for younger children.

Digital Pianos:

Digital pianos are a mix between the keyboard and acoustic piano. Digital pianos allow for a greater variation in sounds because they allow for sound modification. They are however, larger than a keyboard and are usually the same length (88 keys) as an acoustic piano.

The sound quality of a digital piano is often better than a keyboard because they typically have built in speakers, but this also reduces the portability of in comparison to the keyboard. Digital pianos also tend to have “weighted keys” which make them feel more like an acoustic when playing.

Acoustic Pianos:

Acoustic pianos are the original and true form of piano playing. The piano, as we know it today, has been around since about 1700 (for more history of the piano refer to our piano history section in our piano articles).

The term acoustic was recently added to the piano after the creation of digital pianos. Therefore when one refers to an acoustic piano they are referring to a piano which makes sounds acoustically, which means through the vibrations caused by the hammer hitting a string. The vibrations are amplified by a board in the piano referred to as the “sound board.” The soundboard then evenly distributes the sound via the cabinet (if your piano is enclosed) or out the top lid, in the case of a grand piano.

The keyboard is a set of adjacent keys that are depressible on a musical instrument. This is especially in the case of a piano. Keyboards consists of keys that are required to play the twelve notes found in the western scale of music with some longer keys and some shorter keys that gets repeated at an interval of octave. If you depress a key on a piano keyboard it produces sound.

The sound is produced either mechanically or electronically in case of electronic keyboards. The keyboard is also found on a synthesizer and the pattern is almost the same as the piano. The history of the musical keyboard layout can be traced back to the first century. Since then the keyboard has gone through a lot of changes.

The basic layout of the keys has not quite changed from older keyboards; it has maintained almost the same manner as the traditional keyboards. You will find that the modern musical keyboards can play some compositions automatically. These compositions have already been programmed in the memory of the keyboard.

If you press a particular key on the keyboard it automatically starts playing the compositions. There are some musical keyboards in which you can even save your compositions. These kind of keyboards are specially used by musicians who compose and record music for later use.

Musical keyboards are popular as gifts. These keyboards are available in a wide range of sizes as well as prices. You will also buy portable keyboards, which are purposely designed to be used by the children. The price varies according to the quality of the instrument.