Why is Piano so hard to learn?
Depends, really... it employs a lot. Touch typing for example, is not too dissimilar from playing a piano w/o looking at your hands. Then there's the hand-eye ques, see such-n-such = play such-n-such... then there's the technique involved, play such-n-such this way or that way... and that's like, one note, lol now multiply that process times all the notes in a song, in the order they appear, at the speed it's meant to be played, etc etc, yeah it's not easy. As has been said, practice makes perfect. The best way to learn piano is by first committing yourself to learning it. Start off small, practicing drills, such as your scales, arpeggios and cadences. The "Dozen a day" books are awesome for early beginners, but dunno where you're at skill-wise. When taking on a piece, usually beginners start by playing the right hand first, then the left hand, before putting it together. This is ok to do, but try to move to playing both at the same time as quickly as you can. Don't worry about mistakes, but don't ignore them either, train yourself to recognize an error and replay the passage until it's error free. Don't sweat tempo, just because the song calls for "vivace" doesn't mean you have to learn it at that speed. The slower you go, the greater the chance you'll hit every note correctly.
It wouldn't hurt to take piano lessons, either. A piano teacher is able to correct errors in technique quickly to prevent bad habits from setting in. They are able to gauge your ability and feed you pieces and excercises accordingly, just like any other subject matter that's taught, like math or English.
I'm ordering my weighted keyboard Monday. I already know my scales, and I played mariamba in indoor drumline, and my cello gives me practice with using bother fingers, so I think I'll pick it up pretty fast. the main thing I worry about is learning the technique properly. Once I get that down and get my hands able to play two separate rhythms perfectly, then it should be easy clearing from there, right? Or is there something else difficult about learning it that I'm not aware of?
Sweet dude! Which one did you decide on?? Learning to play two different things at once hand wise is certainly a decent challenge, but actually I'd say the most difficult aspect to piano is the technique. There are TONS of techniques, it's ridiculous. One of the first ones to learn is proper hand placement on the keyboard.
I forget if I ever saw a picture of your hands, but if they're large, you'll wanna get a grapefruit, if average, a baseball, etc... wrap your hand around it, to train your brain to recognize "ready" stance with the hand. This is how your hand will be positioned when ready to play at the piano. Another method is to form the "cat's paw" shape. Always keep your finger nails clipped. Not only is it annoying to hear click click click, but it ensures you're pressing the keys with the right part of the finger, which enables superior control, and muscle memory. Try to press the keys with the very tips of the fingers, and the side of the thumb... press firmly at first when learning a piece if you get to a passage that's difficult. It should feel as if you're squeezing the finger tips/thumb.
When sitting at the piano, sit upright, with the bench properly raised/lowered for maximum efficiency. Feet are flat, ergonomics at its best. Then look down at the backs of your hands, and ensure that that they are turned slightly outward. They should be flat with the piano, arms at right angles... elbows not sticking out or scrunched in, but comfortable. This is ready-stance technique, and essential for any good performance, private or otherwise.
Most piano music will be forgiving when it comes to multi-part rhythm. The "left hand" or "bass line" will normally be repetitive, to allow the "right hand" to stand out more and be recognized. But if you're worried about mastering left/right independence, there's the popular African technique which drummers employ more colloquially as "together hand-foot-hand." Doing with both hands is interesting. In split time signature, the RH is for instance playing 3/4 and the left is playing 4/4... training your brain to do this is kinda difficult at first but you can attack it the drummer's way with "together (as in tap your knee at the same time you tap your foot) then hand (tap your knee) - foot (tap the foot) - hand (the knee) you can learn this. Using both hands and a table just start by tapping one hand at a stead pace. Then add the other hand at the offset steps. Together. Right left right, together right left right etc. So long as both hands are doing this and both are tapping steady paces, you've got it. The brain center accessed is the same as from when rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time.
Another difficult task especially in piano is getting your 4th finger to behave. Franz Liszt actually devised a contraption to help with this biological anomaly (the 3rd and 4th fingers are "connected" further back in the hand making independent movement between them difficult) which didn't work, and actually ended his career as a pianist as he caused himself permanent damage. The best practice for beating this pianist's-bane work simultaenously as an excellent technique for learning staccato (fast plucky hits) ... again with the cat's paw, place your hand firmly in start position and remembering to ensure you're hands are level and at correct playing height. Then one by one, raise and lower each digit as high as possible, stretching the muscles and getting them to remember what it feels like. When you get to the forth finger you'll notice it barely moves in comparison to the other digits. No worries, with practice you'll get it to raise and lower a sufficient amount of height. It's not about the height so much as the independent movement, so as to keep it nimble. This is also why it's a good exercise in general for staccato.
Sound technique is a different animal. p or
piano and f or
fortissimo are the endpoints, though technically you'll find ppp and fff to demonstrate a song-wide medium of sound control. We refer to this as Dynamics. Practicing Dynamics is good while practicing scales/arpeggios/cadences. While going through them, start soft, get louder as you go up the scale, softer as you decline, etc etc. Experiment, play around. This trains your brain to think of the 2 things separately, while also training your ear to respond to the piano's volume. This way you can master controlling your hands.
Ear Training is important also. To be able to recognize which note is being played just by its sound, aka relative pitch, is a skill that takes practice, but once mastered will quickly lend itself to playing music more accurately, especially when sight-reading.
There's a million more pointers/tips/tricks/lessons/strategies, lol. You've chosen an excellent instrument to learn. Just remember the depth that you wish to take your expertise is all up to you. You can aspire to be classical like Van Cliburn, or you can hope to throw down like Ben Folds, it's all up to you and what you want out of it. But regardless of what you're going for, make sure you practice at least an hour a day. Start with the drills, then move on to the songs. When learning songs, start with hands separate, then together. Then without the music.
Having no teacher on hand could make things more difficult, so to ensure you're playing things correctly, you can employ the Suzuki method, whereby you learn by ear. This way you'll know if what you're actually playing is right cause you have the reference. But when starting off, you're best choices are going to be easy songs, like 3 blind mice, etc. cause you'll already know what it's supposed to sound like.
There's a slew of books for piano that can help and that I'd strongly recommend. John Thompson's Modern Course for the Piano is an excellent place to start. I believe they still go First Grade, Second Grade, etc. These books have hundreds of songs in the them, all based on skill level, and are progressively laid out so you can go from total beginner to fairly advanced. They come with prefaces etc that help guide you through your lessons, no teacher required. Also again the Dozen a Day books are great for drills.
haha I could go on for eons
). You just have to replicate the sound that you hear. Reading sheet music is where it can get difficult.
