Skip to main content

How to Play A Piano / Keyboard

nowing how to play either piano or keyboard will allow you to perform increasingly complex pieces and improve your musical ability. Both instruments require the same fundamental techniques and function in the same tactile manner. Both instruments use a clavier, or set of keys, to produce pitches and require great finger independence to play melodic lines smoothly and easily. Learning how to employ these techniques will help you increase your skill and versatility.

Step 1 Sit at the keyboard or piano with proper posture. Sit tall and allow your elbows to fall just below the line of the keys. Your arms should be free to move up and down the keys.

Step 2 Practice finger exercises to increase your finger independence. Place all five fingers of one hand on the keys of the instrument and slowly press down each key five times, without moving any other fingers. Start with the thumb and work toward the index finger. Then, switch hands and do this again.

Step 3 Play major and minor scales using the appropriate fingerings. The fingers of each hand follow a numbering convention from one to five, starting with one on the thumbs and ending on five with the pinkies of both hands.

Step 4 Perform advanced Hanon finger exercises and incrementally increase the speed each time. Begin with a slow tempo and then increase the speed by two beats per second each day until you can play each exercise at the recommended tempo.

Step 5 Learn easy piano pieces that require you to play hands together. Play each exercise with each hand independently until you can play each hand separately with confidence, then play with hands together.

Practice daily for at least 30 minutes. Daily practice will provide you with the right amount of repetition to improve.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Similarities of Classical and Baroque Music

Music has evolved through the centuries and undergone drastic changes. One of the most significant transitions was from the Baroque to the Classical period of music. In this paragraph, I will compare and contrast some of the main features of these two styles, such as ensembles, instrumentation, and counterpoint study. The Baroque and Classical periods of music have many similarities. While the style of music changed drastically, certain key elements remained the same between the two styles. Composers in the Classical period sought to simplify music and create clearly audible musical lines. In contrast, composers from the Baroque period were interested in creating complex and highly ornamented musical lines. The Baroque period occurs from approximately 1600 to 1750, and the Classical period extends from 1750 to 1820. Ensembles Ensembles are groups of musicians that perform together. Both the Baroque and the Classical period had similar types of ensembles, such as operas, orchestras, str...

Sunday Stories: The Power of Audiation in Music Composition

Happy Sunday! Today, let’s explore the transformative power of audiation in music composition and share an inspiring story about a composer who mastered this skill. Audiation, the ability to hear and understand music in your mind, is a crucial tool for composers, enabling them to bring their musical ideas to life with greater detail and precision. What is Audiation? Audiation is the process of hearing and comprehending music in your mind without any external sound. It is similar to thinking in a language, where you can understand and manipulate words and sentences internally.  For composers, audiation is an essential skill that allows them to imagine, develop, and refine their musical ideas before they are played or written down 1 . The Benefits of Audiation for Composers 1. Enhanced Musical Understanding Audiation helps composers develop a deeper understanding of music. By hearing and analyzing music internally, they can grasp the relationships between different musical elements, ...

List of Musical Techniques and Their Meanings

Musical techniques are the building blocks of any basic music training. These techniques allow performers to improve their coordination and develop accuracy through repetitive daily exercises. Musical techniques progressively build upon previously learned techniques. Scales Scales form the basis for other musical techniques. Student may study major and minor scales as well as modern scales, such as the whole-tone and octatonic scales. A scale consists of patterns of half steps and whole steps. These whole steps and half-step arrangements will be different for each scale. Scales are musical techniques that can help a performer to play faster and more accurately, and make learning new pieces easier. Chords Chords require knowledge of major and minor scales. Chords come in several different forms that affect the sound. Triads consist of three notes spaced a third apart and classified as major, minor, augmented and diminished chords. Seventh chords build on triads and have an additional no...