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Transcript for Don't Learn the Piano Until You Know This by Merlin
In this video, I will tell you 8 things I wish I knew before I started learning to play the piano. If you are new here, my name is Jeremy See. I've been a musician and music teacher for more than 30 years as well as the author of the best-selling Arrange Your Keyboard course at JeremySee.com. From my experience, these 8 things will help you focus on getting results quicker when you learn to play the piano. I'm gonna give the first 1,000 of you access to free music classes for a month. So make sure you watch till the end of this video to find out how to get your free offer. Let's get cracking.
The number one thing that you want to do is to have a fixed practice schedule. You want to make sure that you have scheduled a fixed time of the day and the number of times in a week. Minimum, you should be practicing at least half an hour to 45 minutes a day, 4 to 5 times a week if you want to improve because it takes time for your muscle memory to develop. It takes time for your brain to coordinate between your left and right hand. It takes time for you to practice the skills that will allow you to become a better musician.
So if you are someone who just practices whenever you feel like it or you are just playing on the piano when you pass by your piano and you open it up and you just play for 5-10 minutes, that is not gonna get you to your objective. You want to have a fixed schedule in the same way that you go to school or you go to work. You want to have a fixed commitment where you can ensure that you will sit down on your instrument and work on the skills.
The next thing you want to do to make sure that you improve dramatically is that you want to have short-term achievable objectives. I have met students who come to me and tell me I want to play Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen or I want to be a concert pianist, I want to be a well-known musician. That is not a wrong ambition but that is a long-term ambition. Along the way you need to have short-term achievable objectives. So you want to have a deadline for yourself and you want to have a realistic deadline. You know yourself. You want to know that you are able to achieve that level of competency in that set level of time. If you are still looking for your first keyboard or digital piano, you can find a list of those I recommend in the description below.
The third thing you should do is you must not think about only learning.
about only learning popular tunes. So there is a difference between learning pieces and learning technical stuff that will improve your skills versus learning a popular tune. If you're learning a popular tune, it will not be popular forever. That's number one. The second problem is that it might not be progressive. You want something that goes on a progressive level that ensures that you learn different steps of that musical journey to eventually reach a level of proficiency. What you should do instead is to get a book of progressive pieces or progressive etudes which are study pieces that will drill different aspects of your finger skills, your musical skills and that will help you to become dramatically better much quicker. You can find a list of my recommended books to help you focus on your piano techniques in the description below.
The fourth thing you need to do is Music Theory. A lot of students have no problem sitting on their instrument and doing their practice and playing their song because it is definitely more fun. The knowledge of music theory allows you to improvise, allows you to play with chords, allows you...
more fun. The knowledge of music theory allows you to improvise, allows you to play with chords, allows you to know what is the relationship between different harmonies. Knowledge of music theory will allow you to make more sense of what you are actually reading on a page. Most students start off by learning how to read notes on a page and there is nothing wrong with that but it becomes a problem when you are only dependent on the notes on the page and you do not realize the harmony structure or the chord progression that you are playing. So not knowing all these music theory will definitely hinder your playing. I'm gonna help you out on your piano learning journey. I worked with the sponsor of today's video, Skillshare, to give the first 1,000 of you who use the link in my description a one-month free trial to Skillshare Premium where you access an unlimited number of piano classes from many established teachers from around the world. Whether you are an absolute beginner trying to learn your first piano tune or an intermediate musician interested in jazz improvisation, being a Skillshare member gets you unlimited access to thousands of inspiring classes for different skill levels. Even an advanced musician like myself has benefited greatly from Wayne McConnell's Art of Jazz Piano.
benefited greatly from Wayne McConnell's Art of Jazz Piano classes on the Bebop Jazz Musical Language. Wayne McConnell is a renowned jazz music lecturer at a university in the UK and I'm giving the first 1000 of you unlimited access to all of his classes and more. Head down to the description and claim your free Premium Skillshare Membership right now. The fifth thing you want to do is to learn your skills, your arpeggios and your broken chords. These are technical work. These are the things and the skills that will stay with you for life and for your entire musical journey. You know, popular songs come and go. You get pop songs which is the hottest thing at the moment. It might be hot for the next couple of years and then it fades away. But what remains are your technical skills, your arpeggios, your scales and your broken chords. You need to know how to immediately be comfortable playing in a key that has 4 sharps, 5 flats for example. You must be able to very comfortably maneuver your fingers around the scale structure of a minor key. The harmonic minor, the melodic minor, the natural minor. And if you're playing blues and stuff like that, you want to make sure that you know your blues scales.
of a minor key. The harmonic minor, the melodic minor, the natural minor and if you're playing blues and stuff like that you want to make sure that you know your blues skills. All this stuff will contribute to your knowledge and your muscle memory in being able to move comfortably between different keys. Many students are just fearful of playing a song with four flats and that fear is stopping you from becoming better and how do you overcome that is you want to play a lot of scales, a lot of broken chords and arpeggios in that key signature to become really conversant and really smooth in that key. You can find my recommended book of scales and arpeggios in the description below and if you intend to do anything serious with your music you want to work on your sight reading. Why do I say sight reading? If you want to be a session musician you just be thrown a set of score, music score, by the music director and you are expected to be able to play for either a musical or some music stuff that you're doing. Sight reading allows you to pick up pieces quicker and therefore remove the fear of you approaching new songs. It also helps you to build up a repertoire of pieces quicker. So I have many students who just simply hate sight reading. They have no problems playing. They love playing songs but when it comes to sight reading
I have many students who just simply hate sight reading. They have no problems playing. They love playing songs, but when it comes to sight reading, you can see that they're just frozen there and they don't want to do sight reading. So the more you fear sight reading, the more you wanna spend time to overcome it. Because once you overcome that fear, you would have no problem sitting down and working through a piece of music. The seventh thing is to get a teacher. Some of you might just go like, duh, obviously I should get a teacher. Many students feel that they can do without a teacher, without a mentor. You can pick up skills from online resources, from videos and from different course sites, but there is a limit to that because teaching is an interactive process. You need a teacher who has been there, who has done that, who has the experience to impart knowledge to you and who can correct you if you're doing something wrong. When you're watching a video and learning from the video, it is a one-way teaching process. There's no way to tell you you are playing something wrongly. There's no one to tell you if you're positioning your fingers correctly or if your timing is out. You would always think that you are correct. That's why you're playing it a certain way. The eighth reason I have for you is not to get fixated on gear. There are just too many people out there who are just chasing the latest gear.
chasing the latest gear, who are just thinking of the latest samples, the latest VSTs, the best sounds out there. They spend more time thinking about the newest equipment than actually getting comfortable with the instrument and practicing on their own instrument. In this day and age, technology has come such a long way that pretty much most keyboards out there or digital pianos out there are pretty decent. You know you can go very far on even a very basic entry-level digital piano and keyboard and there is really no need to spend hours trying to buy the perfect instrument or to find one that can replace your current instrument. So if you think that you're not playing very well now, buying a better instrument is not gonna make you play much better if you don't improve your skills. Oftentimes it is your skills that may need improving rather than the equipment itself. But if you are still looking for your first keyboard or digital piano, you can find a list of those I recommend in the description below. I hope you found this video useful. My name is Jeremy See and I'll see you in my next video.