Introduction to the Best Way to Learn to Play Piano

Do you want to learn piano?

You are certainly not the only person out there. All over the world there are countless millions of people, young and old, sharing the same dream. To be able to make beautiful sounds by moving your hands over a set of black and white keys is something that earns respect in almost every quarter. There is nothing new about that.

What’s new in today’s world is that you have a range of options when you want to take the first step and learn the basics of piano playing. Earlier on, the only way to do it was to look up your nearest piano teacher in the phone book or ask your piano playing friend for a recommendation.

Learning Piano Online – With the arrival of the World Wide Web, things have got more complicated. For example, lots of people look at various You Tube tutorials, to learn to play their favorite piece finger by finger. There are also online courses to take, where the procedure is quite similar to the old way of learning, but where your teacher might be sitting on the other side of the globe.

We probably should be grateful for all these new opportunities. After all, they bring the joy of music making to more people. Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that old style piano lessons – being in the same room as a competent teacher – remains by far the best choice, if you want to be really serious about your piano playing. And here are the main reasons for it:

Learning from a Real World Piano Teacher – When you learn from a YouTube tutorial, there is no one there to respond to your particular needs. A good teacher always has a plan for his or her pupil and will always be able to tell what you need just now to make quick, real progress. Also, to learn only by imitating might lead to fast success if the only thing you want to do is play one piece fairly well, but it will never lead to real mastery at the piano. For that, you need to learn the basics first.

An online teacher can give you that. He or she will also be able to respond to you personally, but there are still serious drawbacks when the two of you are not in the same room together. You will not be able to get the same kind of hands on instruction – there will always be occasions when a piano teacher has to demonstrate by actually touching your hands, forming them the right way for you. Moreover, listening and watching though microphones and cameras simply won’t do for the finer nuances of piano teaching, no matter if you’ve got first class equipment.

To sum up our argument: in spite of today’s many alternatives, the best recommendation is still to try to find a real world piano teacher. Let’s hope there is a good one near you!