Piano for Beginners: I Can Play A Song!

I recently made the decision to learn to play the piano. Now, I love music and I have played guitar and banjo before. And I love to sing. But one thing that all of my musical experience has taught me is that I am not very talented musically. So, to learn an instrument, I need it to be relatively easy and pretty basic.

When I decided to learn the piano, I first thought of getting a real, live teacher. Well, that's an obvious way to learn an instrument. But I thought I would have too much trouble keeping appointments. A self-employed mother of two school-age kids, I know that I can't always be someplace at the same time every week. So I decided to try to teach myself to play piano. And I thought of an online piano method because I don't want to have to depend solely on piano music books. I also want to be able to hear recordings of what I am learning played by someone who knows what they are doing.

After I looked around on the web for various online programs, I decided to try RocketPiano. There are a few things that I like about that program. First, they emphasize learning to play songs. Since I am learning piano precisely because I want to learn how to play piano songs, I liked that approach. Secondly, they teach a large range of styles, from classical to gospel by way of pop, rock, country, jazz and blues. Of course, they give you sound tracks so that you can hear what you are learning to play. But most importantly, they offer a free six-lesson trial package, so you can try it out before you pay for it. When you sign up, they let you choose whether you want piano for beginners, for intermediate level or for more advanced students. Then they send you an email every four days with a link to the lesson. After you have had a couple of days to learn the material, you get the next lesson, also via link in an email.

Well, I got the first email and took the first lesson. I signed up for piano for beginners and the first lesson is quite appropriate for beginners. They start with the very basics. First, you learn how to sit at the piano. Then they show you a method of numbering each finger of each hand (the thumbs are number 1, the pinkies are number 5) to communicate which finger to play which note with.

After these preliminaries, you take a look at the keyboard. If you look at the black keys, you will see groups of two alternating with groups of three. The white key before each set of two black keys is always a "C." From there, you can recite the alphabet up and down the keyboard. That pattern orients you to the keyboard.

This class starts with the very basics of reading music, too. You learn to count out quarter notes, half notes and whole notes. They don't cover pitch yet.

But even though I didn't learn anything in this first lesson that wasn't very, very basic, I still got to learn a song! They tell you what keys to put your fingers on, and tell you which keys to press using the finger-numbering system. They print out notes, not to show you what keys to press, but to show you the rhythm. And voila! Mary Had a Little Lamb! What fun! I played it over and over again, just because it was so much fun to be able to play a song on the piano.

At the end of the first lesson, you get a link to download a gift. It is a copy of a computer game that teaches you how to read music. It's called Jayde Musica. It was fun to play. Staffs of music float across the screen and you need to identify them. If you win, you advance to higher levels where the notes pass faster. It's good exercise and it was nice to have a fun, creative way to learn music.

Now, I'll go back over the material again, and play Mary Had a Little Lamb some more. I'll also keep practicing with Jayde Musica. When I get the email with the link to the second lesson, I'll take the lesson and blog it. See you then!