
Ask HN: How to learn to play piano? (kids and adults) - dawidw
I&#x27;m looking for software, setup, ideas of how to learn to play piano in efficient way. For kids and adults.<p>Is there any software which may help to learn to play notes on the piano? I imagine that you could connect piano keyboard via MIDI interface and the software would present note which you are supposed to play. Then another note, and then revise the notes already learnt (in a Anki way&#x2F;algorithm). Or maybe there is other, simpler&#x2F;more efficient way?
======
finaliteration
I started playing the piano when I was 8 years old and I’ve been playing
regularly for the last 25 years. Here are some things that helped me:

\- As others have mentioned (and you’ve said you have), find a good teacher.
Apps, etc., can be helpful supplements but nothing beats having a real person
sit next to you and give you feedback.

\- As with a teacher, nothing beats consistent and quality practice time. The
more time you spend in front of the piano the more comfortable you’ll be
playing. Also: Don’t use those stickers you can buy that show the notes and
letters of the keys. They’ll become a crutch and make it more difficult to
read music in the long run.

\- Ear training and sight reading are very useful tools, as well, and really
are vital for most people to become competent musicians. There are many apps
and programs out there to learn these two skills.

\- This probably seems obvious, but listen to music from many different genres
and time periods. I naturally learn by ear and listening to a piece before I
sit down to learn/play it helps tremendously.

\- Lastly, make sure this is something fun for you and your kids. I’ve tried
to learn a few instruments and I was miserable with some of them but stuck
with it anyway. It made my playing sloppy and honestly pretty terrible. Spend
some time at the piano just messing around and enjoy the process of learning.

Don’t expect yourself to be the next Rachmaninov in a year. I’ve been playing
for many years now and I’m still learning and fixing things. There are many
pieces out there that I just physically can’t play. So keep the pressure off
and enjoy. :)

Some specific recommendations:

\- The Suzuki Piano Method (book)

\- Alfred’s Basic Piano Library (books)

\- EarMaster (ear training app)

\- Tenuto (theory app, learn notes, intervals, chords, etc, from
[https://www.musictheory.net/](https://www.musictheory.net/))

\- The Virtuoso Pianist by Hanon (This is a book to learn dexterity and finger
independence. It’s somewhat advanced, but you can tackle it slowly and
gradually increase your speed as you get better.)

------
acd
Take Piano lessons by a professional teacher.

Software Playing the Piano can recommend Simply Piano by Joytunes on the Ipad,
Android tablets. For Ipad you need an Apple camera connection kit to connect
the USB from a usb midi keyboard towards the Ipad. Tip get the Camera
connection kit with build in charge so that you can charge the ipad while
playing, the screen is always on so it drains battery from the Ipad.

Also can highly recommend Superscore by Timewarp tech which allows play along
midi tunes. There is a built in store for buying scores. Superscore follow
along and pauses on the different notes and fills in accompaniment to make
your playing sound richer. [https://timewarptech.com/shop/music-software-
apps/software/s...](https://timewarptech.com/shop/music-software-
apps/software/superscore/)

Flashnote Derby which is an Ipad game which teaches Note reading its mostly
focused towards kids but are good for adults too.

Get a 88 key piano with weighted keys in that way you are not limited to what
you can play. Piano review site with detailed review azpianonews
[https://azpianonews.blogspot.com/2018/03/digital-pianos-
unde...](https://azpianonews.blogspot.com/2018/03/digital-pianos-
under-1000-review-report-2018.html)

------
proofofhat
1.) If you can count to 7, you can play the piano.

I really wish someone would have told me how easy it really is. I played
guitar for years before I found this video. ( learn to play the piano in 5
minutes. )

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gnMDpBQ_bDQ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gnMDpBQ_bDQ)

Press ANY key on a piano. Count up 4 keys. Press that key too. Count up 3 more
keys. Press it. Now do all 3 at the same time.

Bam. Major chord.

Start at any key. Count up 3 keys. Press it. Now count up 4 more. Press that
key too.

Minor chord!

Other chords are just a variation of that basic structure.

Of course, it takes awhile to make everything sound good. And if you want to
play songs note for note then...

2.)synesthesia

[https://synthesiagame.com/](https://synthesiagame.com/)

------
impendia
I started piano lessons two and a half years ago, essentially a beginner, at
the age of 38, and have been keeping them up. I love it and expect this to be
a lifelong hobby.

I'm mostly going to echo the advice given by several others. First of all,
find a good teacher.

If you intend to take this seriously, I'd strongly recommend that you learn
how to read music. Software might be fun and useful -- but I'd recommend it as
an aid, rather than a substitute, for learning traditional music-reading.

Buy a good piano. An acoustic is ideal, but there are also good digital piano
options in the $1,000-2,000 range. Don't practice on a low-end $200 keyboard
if you're in this for the long haul: it won't have properly weighted keys, and
you'll develop bad habits.

Finally, the advice that my own teachers have given me: the way to be
efficient in the long term is to be anal-retentive and slow in the short term.
Practice scales regularly. Practice new pieces very slowly at first, one hand
at a time, and build up from that only once you're not making mistakes.

I confess to sometimes ignoring this advice, but with the knowledge that the
times when I do follow it are the times that I'm learning the most.

And, finally, I wouldn't expect things to be very simple or efficient at all.
There is no shortcut to hours and hours and hours of practice. Totally worth
it, if you ask me :)

------
arandr0x
Caveat, I'm an adult.

I just bought scores... traditional/folk tunes tend to have easy melodies,
then they have books of sheet music for beginner/intermediate levels at most
stores that sell music books. Sightreading books once you get to that level --
I found playing "new stuff" motivating and there are beginner ones.

There's software (like Synthesia) but I didn't find it that useful. If you get
a digital keyboard they sometimes have tutorial modes that include interfaces
to show you what to play -- didn't find that super useful either once I could
read sheet music, which was very fast. Yousician is an alternative which does
present sheet music and it's super gamified. However, in my experience, it was
hard to translate the game to playing independently; I had no memory of any of
the notes I played, and I would play them fast, but it would be hard to rewind
and redo a section if I made a mistake. Fun game though.

You'd need to play scales and chords every day -- probably a motivation app
can help with that. One thing I do is mix it with improvisation -- I practice
4-5 scales and chords in them and afterwards it gives me new ideas to
improvise. I don't know if your teacher encourages improvisation since it's
not targeted practice though. I don't have a teacher and I'm not planning to
ever play at a concert level, but do want to get better composing, so for me
it's more important. If for a child, place the piano or keyboard someplace in
the house the child can just sit and play, and never, ever tell them they are
making too much noise (or buy them headphones).

There are ear training apps, they actually work, and I think ear training is
pretty much always useful, so it could be a 5min "workout" in between
practices. I don't do it myself I just listen to music I like and try to
reproduce sounds without the sheet music, but I do listen to a lot of piano
music for fun, so the app may be easier for directed practice.

------
ArtWomb
Berklee College of Music offers free courses on Coursera. Including Jazz
Improvisation which could constitute a "hack" for quick learning of scales and
progressions. Regardless of how "intelligent" the music interface is, I can't
see any way out of hours of daily directed practice for mastery.

[https://www.coursera.org/learn/jazz-
improvisation](https://www.coursera.org/learn/jazz-improvisation)

The year 2019 will mark the 60th anniversary of the _Annus miraculus_ in jazz
history. Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, John Coltranes' Giant Steps, Dave
Brubeck's Time Out, Bill Evans' Portrait in Jazz, etc. A great time to get
back into jazz and swing for piano. And even better considering we now live in
an age where online "jamming" is possible with a decentralized band ;)

------
saluki
For simpler/more efficient I would look for a piano teacher. Ask around and
see if anyone you know has a piano teacher.

We have a great piano teacher in our area who comes to your house. Students
(Kids and Adults) progress quickly.

~~~
dawidw
We have piano teacher. I was thinking about additional support. Like we also
use Anki to repeat the foreign language vocabulary on top on standard classes
with teacher.

~~~
Kagerjay
Not sure how useful Anki will be for learning music.

Perhaps for reading sheet music? Or visually memorizing chords. You can add a
mp3 file to it, and have a reverse card.

E.g.

"chord mp3 file plays" → what chord is this

"chord A" → how do you represent this in sheet music, what does it sound like?

I wouldn't go further than this though. Memorizing keys for a song should be
done by practice

~~~
dawidw
Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear in my previous post.

We use Anki to learn foreign vocabulary, not music. My daughter really enjoys
those 'quiz'. Besides she has normal classes with teacher.

We have also piano lessons with teacher. I'm looking for some software here to
improve/encourage piano learning.

~~~
Kagerjay
Perhaps beat-saber/guitar hero for pianos?

[https://www.synthesiagame.com/](https://www.synthesiagame.com/)

Haven't tried it personally but looks like fun

------
jackgolding
Midi + Synthesia
[https://www.synthesiagame.com/](https://www.synthesiagame.com/) worked for
me, also Midi + Guitar/Drums with Rocksmith
[https://rocksmith.ubisoft.com/rocksmith/en-
us/home/](https://rocksmith.ubisoft.com/rocksmith/en-us/home/)

Mind you having 5 lessons with an expert paid off way more than 50 hours of
rocksmith.

------
iansinke
I've been playing the piano since I was 4. Learn from my mistake: don't
"cheat" by skimping on scales and other technical skills! I know it's not as
fun as playing actual music, but as with anything, there is no royal road to
piano proficiency. Now that I'm at a more advanced level, I really regret that
I didn't put better effort into my scales when I was younger.

------
laurent123456
I use Anki to memorise scales and arpeggios. I have decks with all the scales
and arpeggios, then for example it asks me to play "A major scale". If I play
it right on first try I press Good, and the scale will be shown less often,
and if I got it wrong I press Bad and it will be shown more frequently. It's a
good way to filter the scales and spend more time on those you know less.

------
ergothus
I took piano in college...and failed to learn it. Because I failed to
practice, the root cause of which (in my mind) was the utterly uninteresting
and unfamiliar drills.

Now drills are going to be boring, but when there wasn't a single piece I
recognized, your 10th time through "Turkey in the hay" is both uninteresting
and hard to know how your screwing up. I made more progress when I spent two
weeks on my own trying moonlight sonata.

I dont recommend that piece to start with, and I do recommend a diversity to
practice on, but finding tunes at a suitable difficulty that you KNOW can make
a big difference - hearing what's wrong, getting a thrill when it sounds close
enough to recognizable - these were completely missing in my class, and while
I likely still wouldn't have put in enough practice time (dating had more
thrills) it would have been much easier.

I've been kicking around the idea of taking it up again for 20 years, and this
is the one change I would make.

------
itnAAnti
I disagree with some of the advise on this thread so far. Scales are boring (I
agree that you need them to get proficient, but if you start there, you’ll be
bored to tears and give up before you get anywhere fun). Watching YouTube
videos and trying to recreate what they’re doing is hard. Learning to read
music from a human teacher is frustrating.

The traditional way to learn piano takes discipline, hours of slightly
frustrating study and incredibly boring and repetitive practice. Though I
tried a few times in my life to learn piano the way everyone said I should, I
always found it mind-numbingly boring. Why does it have to be so damn hard?

I’ve only recently found a better way, and I’ve been learning faster, staying
interested, and having way more fun than I ever did before.

The better way is:
[http://pianowizardacademy.com](http://pianowizardacademy.com)

(I know this sounds like a sales pitch, I’m not at all involved with the
company, I’m just a happy customer and a big fan of their method.)

Basically the method hinges around software that turns playing a piano into a
game. Similar to guitar hero, but where it leads you through a progression
until you’re sight-reading the paper sheet music as you play. It makes it
really easy to get started playing real music from day 1, then your excitement
about your progress builds faster than the difficulty, so you stay interested.

Basically it inverts the learning. Play first, and learn reading music, notes,
fingering, tempo, theory, etc as you go. It makes the whole process way less
frustrating and way more fun.

The software looks straight out of 1998, and the DVDs are similarly a little
silly - but it all works really well.

The DVDs are geared towards parents who have never played Piano, to teach
their young kids how to play, while learning themselves. Watching the videos
as an adult without kids, I sometimes feel a little silly playing along with a
4 year old, but since it works, I’m not complaining.

Generally, they explain the bit of music theory after you’ve been playing it
for a while (ignorant to the fact that you were doing something deeply
important to music), so by the time they explain the concept, it just makes
sense - there’s no struggling to wrap your head around some obtuse concept
that you don’t have a mental framework for yet.

Anyway - I highly recommend it. It’s not cheap, but so far it’s the best money
I’ve spent on learning piano.

------
colebowl
Story time. I have tried many online videos (Youtube etc) and I really never
got anyway. I had wanted to learn how to play the piano most of my life but
for multiple reasons (primarily fear) I never tried with a teacher. A year ago
at age 31 I serendipitously ran into a woman who turned out to be a piano
teacher in my town. Long story short, I started taking lessons and now I am
finally playing the piano and it feels amazing! In cannot emphasize strongly
enough the benefits of having a teacher. There is no way I would have gained
the skills I have from taking online courses.

In my opinion, there is nothing more valuable that being able to have someone
show you when you are making mistakes and has the experience to explain how to
fix them.

------
lodi
Anki won't really help here. Flashcards work for natural languages because
there's a huge vocabulary that you have to learn (10k words minimum for
'simple speech'). Sheet music is written with a very small "vocabulary": 12
notes that just repeat up and down the keyboard; a few dozen common symbols
for dynamics, articulation, etc; a handful of note "lengths"; and that's about
it.

The hard parts are getting your fingers to actually execute what they need to
do, sight reading, ear training, and--most importantly--music interpretation.
Ear training is the only aspect where I could see software helping.

My advice:

1) Definitely get a teacher, even if you only see them every other week. The
function of the teacher isn't to "teach" per se--you'll be doing most of your
"learning" in practice anyway--but you need someone to check up on you every
once in a while to catch and break bad habits that you don't know you're even
forming yet.

2) The most effective practice is the kind of practice that's extremely
directed, focused... and boring. Practicing scales, trills, and arpeggios.
Playing one bar of music over and over slowly until it's memorized and you can
play it perfectly 10x in a row, then moving to the next bar. Every once in a
while you have to put everything together to practice musicality, but that's
generally going to be a small fraction of your practicing hours.

3) If you actually want to learn _efficiently_ , you have to put in a pretty
solid, consistent effort, i.e. 1h every day for you, 30min every day for young
kids. Doing a bit here and there is like exercising once in a while: you just
spend all your time losing muscle memory and regaining it with little forward
progress. It took me 11 years of half-assed practice as a kid to play ARCT
(university-level) piano, but only about a year as a young adult to get my
flamenco guitar up to about 70% of that level. The difference? As an adult you
can sit yourself down and slog through the boring stuff in order to save
yourself time in the long run.

4) Keyboard is fine, but it has to be one of those high end, full size,
weighted keyboards with synthetic ivory keys, etc (roughly $1-2k). These are
usually marketed as "digital pianos", not "keyboards". The cheap half-length,
unweighted, plastic key keyboards with tons of knobs and sound effects (e.g.
$200-400) aren't meant to be used for playing piano. Those are more meant to
be MIDI controllers for triggering synths, etc.

------
Josh379
I have had amazing results using the Simply Music course teaching my two
children starting at 3 and 6 years of age. They have introduced a new free
online program:

[https://pianoonline.com/](https://pianoonline.com/)

------
HenryTheHorse
I have some questions for you:

* What do you mean by "efficient way"? Piano pedagogy is an old system that's been perfected over 200 years. What aspects of this system do you believe to be inefficient?

* Are you trying to supplement piano lessons taught by a teacher or are you trying to replace a piano teacher?

* Are your target students looking to learn classical piano or pop or jazz? Do they want to learn basic chords to sing along with, or do they want to learn to play instrumental pieces?

------
tathougies
Been playing piano for 21 years. You dont need software to learn piano. This
is really the worst way to do it. You need a teacher and a desire to learn to
play. Then just practice. It will come eventually.

To learn sight reading, you play through books and books of music. To learn to
play by ear, you play every song you've heard throughout the day. There is no
secret to learning piano and no shortcuts either

------
Jemaclus
Sort of a dumb question. I'm hearing impaired (profoundly deaf), but I enjoy
music. I play guitar, albeit very badly, and I can't sing to carry a tune. Am
I going to be wasting my time learning piano, or should I just do it and enjoy
it even if it sounds awful to everyone else? :)

I'm mostly concerned that I won't be able to tell if I hit the wrong note or
something and it just sounds awful.

------
ClaudeHenri
I took piano lessons in childhood. I hated it. After college, I decided to
pick it up, again. I bought a Yamaha 61key keyboard from Walmart when I was
about 23. I also bought a Jazz Piano book. I taught myself "The Girl from
Ipanema". I love that song. The keyboard costs about $120.00. The rest is time
to practice. And you have to really LOVE music.

------
pvaldes
Move towards the closer piano that is solid and has the correct key size.

Set up the seat height at the correct position

For your family's mental wellbeing, assure that you can plug good headphones
in your piano.

Start repeating the same sequence of notes one hour each day and counting
fingers. Try it until it sticks and you develop a muscular memory, then go to
the next scale.

Is much easier than a guitar in any case.

------
leafo
I built this tool that you might find useful. It uses chrome midi api to let
you play piano into your browser:
[https://sightreading.training/](https://sightreading.training/)

It's not going to teach you how to play piano, but it's good for drilling
reading notes.

------
hluska
I'm a terrible piano player, so I have no specific advice about that
instrument. However, when I was learning how to play trumpet, having my Dad
introduce me to his Miles Davis/Louis Armstrong records really helped. For me,
it was helpful being able to listen to something before I tried to play it.

------
sumosudo
SCALES. SCALES. AND THEN SOME MORE SCALES.

Reading music is actually easy. Comprehending the rhythm is the hard part.

------
epaga
A piano + an iPad with access to YouTube is all my son needed. He worked his
way through the "Free Piano Lessons for Kids" channel, just one of many
channels like it.

Just amazing what can be self-taught via YouTube these days.

------
j7ake
Get a piano teacher. Injuring yourself because of bad posture or habits is not
worth it.

These habits and postures are easily picked up by teachers but not easy to
notice by yourself.

------
new_guy
Forget technology, it's not the answer. Just get a piano teacher!

------
zvikara
Try SimplyPiano app for ios or android.

------
progressiveweb
Alright here's "hacks" and unfortunately there's no software or books to help
you here, you simply cannot substitute the sheer number of hours needed to get
to a point where you can comfortably sight read almost any music. I used to
skip several Royal Conservatory of Music grades using these "hacks". But you
are gonna be disappointed because it requires serious commitment, used to
practice like 12 hours a day when I was a kid and eventually slowed to a point
where I no longer actively play but able to pick it up and play the
Rachmaninoff's Moment Musicaux from memory, this is the highest point I was
able to reach, something that child prodigies master before they turn 10....
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯:

1) You need to get into the habit of not looking down at the keyboard. This
was the very first lesson and took years. Eyes on the sheet music as much as
possible. You should not have to move your fingers a lot when starting out.

2) This one will be a bit controversial but dont worry too much about form
yet, just focus on hitting the right notes first. You do need to address it to
avoid physical limitations when at the advanced level, I just didn't because
I'm a rebel.

3) Practice reading new sheet music until you feel comfortable not looking
down at your hand positions other than to check you are in the right octave
and placements. You should be able to directly recognize and translate not
only bars but entire paraphrases into "guesses". For a lot of people, those
"guesses" are wrong but eventually I got to the point where I could sight read
Chopin Waltz. This skill also translated well when I took up cello and was
able to join a local orchestra within a half a year. Nobody believed me but
being born to an immigrant family, I didn't have the luxury of taking things
nice and slow. Basically, my mom had only limited budget so I had to somehow
make the best out of each lesson and just practice the hell out of it. I did
think briefly about a career as a pianist but that fizzled out.

4) Now the true hacky bit, which builds upon the previous skill that requires
you to translate the notes to finger positioning without thinking. Challenge
yourself to sheet music you can barely play both hands. I recommend Bach
because it is missing the expressive dynamics and focused on rapid eye hand
dexterity. Inventions a Deux voix or Trois voix play two and three separate
melodic sequences.

4) The biggest break through and the aha! moment in rapidly mastering an
instrument was to keep sight reading progressively more challenging pieces. By
the time I finished the Bach Inventions, I was tired of the mechanical and
depressing themes (the dude had to come up with new material or the
guillotine) and naturally gravitated to Chopin.

5) Once again I applied the same routine. Finish the Chopin Waltz then the
Nocturne and dabbled with Fantasia Improviso where I felt I hit a physical
limit due to the horrible hand posturing habit that I developed due to
focusing soley on sheet music reading.

6) At this point I could take on pretty much any challenge and boy did it take
a long ass time. Just being able to play Moment Musicaux No.3 at 3/4 of
Lugansky's speed (I consider to be the best interpretation....not because he's
russian btw...well have a listen below) took years and years. I still can't
reach his level. This is where the pros and amateur start to distance.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhLDse5R8dQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhLDse5R8dQ)

TLDR: Theres just no hack to mastering the piano. It's a lot harder than other
instruments imho in some ways because you don't just play the melody like
string instruments although it's easier in a sense that all notes are tuned
and requires no other effort than striking a key. Not so with cello, without
perfect pitch, it's tough to know if I'm in tune or if my "key" is right. When
you hear amateur orchestras and professional you can tell the difference
immediately because pros are so well synced along with high quality
instruments.

~~~
arandr0x
Do you have advice on learning rhythm for the piano? (Aside from "use a
metronome", I do do that.) Are there exercises? I also have trouble
recognizing how long a note is "in the wild" without a metronome or having a
good idea what the tempo is for a song I like, so I suppose there's a
listening component to this as well. Making sure to hit the notes at the right
times if you haven't memorized the song just from looking at the sheet music I
mean.

~~~
twoquestions
S L O W D O W N.

As much as you possibly can. If a song is in 4/4 and you're having trouble
with it, pretend it's 8/8 and count by eighth notes. Still tough, go 16/16\.
Once you have it _down_ , then increase speed S L O W L Y.

(much easier said than done, let me tell you, but it is effective)

~~~
progressiveweb
^ this. Use a pencil to write the number of seconds. For advanced pieces you
need to actually sit down and do a division and it's tricky to practice with
both hands (like Fantasie Impromptu).

it's so tempting once you get the notes right to just let her rip at full
speed but this was a bad habit and hard to break.

Now I try to play as slow as possible as often as possible. Only when you have
it down _perfect_ can you then start adding dynamics, expressiveness and your
own take.

