Feedback - and a bit about me

I thought it might be useful to give some feedback as I work my way through Andrew's lessons. Feel free to agree/disagree/put me right about any points I raise.

I'm pretty much a piano/keyboard newbie. I dabbled with guitar a few years ago, but made such limited progress I got disheartened and put it to one side.

I learnt bits and pieces about music theory along the way which I'm now trying to build on with the help of Andrew's lessons.

I'm up to lesson 16 - about identifying intervals and illustrating how they work in songs such as Here Comes The Bride. I found this lesson fun.

Some of the previous lessons have been a bit on the dry side - concentrating on theory without it being immediately clear how to put this into practice straight away.

This lesson has Andrew at the keyboard, showing very clearly how things work and making it very easy to experiment with a few notes and sounds to come up with pieces of popular tunes. It whetted my appetite for trying out a few things - but I had to dash to work.

I'm still not entirely clear about how and what I should be practising. At the moment, I'm trying to go through scales with my right and left hands and doing my best to find some basic chords and inversions. I would like to set aside some time to learn some very basic sheet music pieces. Any suggestions are very welcome.

Hi rayman,

I'm a beginner like you. I got my keyboard one month ago today!

Here is a thread where I started listing the pieces I have learned (and am learning):

https://afpa.hooxs.com/songs-f5/circle-of-fists-beginner-song-playlist-w-links-t1217.htm


Also, a good place to start is here:

http://www.abrsm.org/resources/pianoComplete0608.pdf

This has helped give me an idea of what sort of things I should be learning and practicing as a beginner. Page 2 starts the level 1 requirements, although for the scales I've been learning to play them hands together since that becomes a requirement by level 2.


And as far as Andrew's videos, I really need to start watching them again. All my free time has been on the piano for the past month!

Thanks Circle. That's very useful. I had checked out your thread and I'll continue to keep tabs on it. The other link http://www.abrsm.org/resources/pianoComplete0608.pdf
is good too. It lists various pieces for grade one students. Any idea where I would get the sheet music for these - or is it just a question of googling it and hoping that will bring up a source?

Rayman wrote:Any idea where I would get the sheet music for these - or is it just a question of googling it and hoping that will bring up a source?

I think most of the works in the ABRSM list are more recent works, i.e. still falling under copyright protection. So, the only way to get them is to buy the book (most of the books by ABRSM Publishing, naturally. )

The works of the older guys, like Mozart and Bach, fall in the public domain. Their more popular (and difficult) works are easier to find, but the beginner stuff is hard to find. A couple of them have some songbooks that have been put online, but finding a specific piece in them is no easy task.

I had such a hard time finding my first piece to work on, which was suggested by this link:

http://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/Graded_Pieces_Sorted_By_Difficulty.PDF

After finding it finally, I decided to start that thread to save the time of any beginners coming in after me.

Good idea.

I've just watched lesson 17 - about the importance of posture and relaxing at the piano. It seemed to make perfect sense. I guess it's only natural when starting something new that you get a little tense. I suppose the ability to relax more will come with practice and familiarity with playing.
It's that word practice again - looks like it's the key to cracking this piano lark...

Rayman wrote:I've just watched lesson 17 - about the importance of posture and relaxing at the piano. It seemed to make perfect sense. I guess it's only natural when starting something new that you get a little tense. I suppose the ability to relax more will come with practice and familiarity with playing.
It's that word practice again - looks like it's the key to cracking this piano lark...

Thanks for the tip. I just watched #17. I've been waaay too close to the keys, and my hands have been feeling it.

So, I just put a scrap of paper on my keyboard with "RELAX" on it!

I just watched lesson 18 - all about the importance of relaxation and convincing yourself playing piano is easy. Some good tips here - and I'm going to try to put them into practice.

Lesson 19. How to sight read. Good step by step guide to this very important aspect of learning piano. Delivered in Andrew's inimitable, relaxed style. I'm a real novice in all this - still having trouble working out the bass clef notes and where to place the fingers on my left hand. But I'm going to try to do some basic stuff once a day and see where it leads me.

I'm liking reading this dude, its a nice log. I just got my piano today and am working through a "Complete Piano Course for Older Beginners" book which I got off amazon after reading lots of good reviews. Its really helping me because it gives you little exercises to help your fingers, kinda like mini scales-like songs to start you off and splits your hands separately for you and gradually rises in difficulty as you progress, its great to have all that I need to start out all in one book! Perhaps you could use a book to aid you, I'm sure you can find some good ones like I did! My next book is going to be a book all about Music Theory because I feel I want to progress that alongside my piano playing.

I'm also gonna start writing in a notebook after every practice to record my progress and any trouble spots I need to look up or practice for next time! Good luck to you dude, and remember, you can do it!

Thanks, Klav. I'll check out that book.

I'm off on my hols for a couple of weeks. Good luck with your playing in the meantime and see you all back here very soon.

I'm back from my hols. Well, actually I've been back for a few weeks, but I haven't got round to playing the keyboad for quite a while. I've now dusted it down and it's taken pride of place in our living room again. I'm going to do a mini-refresher over the next week or so to try and take up where I left off. Hope to be ploughing through some more of Andrew's lessons in the very near future.
May all your notes sound perfect.

Glad to see you're back at it!