And I have to disagree a lot with you. I had a piano teacher when I was young and that person put me off piano for the next 45 years or so. A good teacher will help you, a not so good teacher may well cause you to lose interest.
Right now I'm practicing on my own, when I want, without a set schedule and without the goal of getting good enough to satisfy my - nonexistent - teacher.
Likely a good teacher would help. But good teachers cost money, have their own schedules to keep and their goals may not overlap with mine. So this time around I'm taking it as slow or as fast as I want, when I want, learning pieces that are probably way above my level but that keep me motivated because I like to play them.
If at some point I feel that I hit a plateau then I might go for a teacher for a while with the express goal of getting unstuck.
Finally, not everybody learns in the same way and not everybody has your budget. I love learning by doing, not by being told how to do it and there is as sense of pride in learning a skill by yourself instead of having it handed down, it also allows you to develop your own style rather than to become a carbon copy of what your teacher considers to be 'proper'. There is room for all of this and yours as well but I don't like the way you are all over this thread proclaiming the 'one true way', there are as many ways as there are people and what works for one person could easily be someone else's nightmare. It would be nice if you at least acknowledged that you have not taken into account the goal of whoever you have in mind as your hypothetical piano student and that not everybody will fit that image.
We agree that there are not shortcuts and that there is no magic method, but I think everybody that is somewhat serious about any instrument would agree on that.
Bad teachers are an issue, of course. But bad apps can be an issue too. No matter the method there's always the risk of not implementing it correctly.
> their goals may not overlap with mine.
That's a matter of talking with the teacher and setting down the goals.
> Finally, not everybody learns in the same way and not everybody has your budget.
My point is not "I did classes and I'm good now", is "I didn't do enough classes and now I see how that wasn't the best".
> I don't like the way you are all over this thread proclaiming the 'one true way'
If that's the way I'm coming across I'm sorry. My point is that there's more to music learning that people think (specially in HN, where I've seen really bad takes in some posts), and that they should be mindful that an app will not be a magic method. I've seen friends that had very high expectations and then got discouraged quickly. I prefer that people know what's ahead, and align the method to use with the expectations they have.
I think most people are more than mature enough to make their own decisions about what works for them and what doesn't. Good teachers are worth their weight in gold, but also, they cost money and if you are not doing this with a set goal of achieving a certain level but just enjoying yourself then that can be all the motivation that you need to keep going.
I'd advocate for the occasional review by a teacher to see whether you are picking up any bad habits but to most importantly focus on having fun so that you stay motivated. Nothing will kill interest in an instrument in the early stages of learning as much as drilling boring stuff, even if that has long term advantages, after all if there is no long term because of that then what's the point?
Of course, and to make decisions you need information, that's what I'm trying to do.
Also, you can have a teacher where the focus is to have fun with it and not drilling boring stuff. That's precisely the conversation I had with my current clarinet teacher. We still do boring stuff but he also brings me jazz songs and classical duets to play according to my level. It's a matter of establishing your goals with the teacher the same way you put them with yourself.
- Teachers can not give you motivation but they can sure kill it.
- An app that keeps people motivated is better than nothing at all.
- Horses for courses (not everybody is the same, and equally affluent, what works for you may not work for someone else) and if people are on a budget and they find a way that can make them enjoy what they are doing without breaking the bank on teachers and piano tuners then that's a benefit.
- With what is available online + a $400 digital piano you can get surprisingly far if you are self motivated, and occasionally spending an hour or two with a teacher (or simply a better pianist) will stretch your abilities further.
- if you feel that you are not comfortable or maybe even are injuring yourself then stop whatever you are doing and ask an expert.
- If you have a goal and/or want to be able to perform and value your time over your cash then a good teacher is the way to go but beware, not all teachers are good.
- if you can afford it, want it and you can find a good teacher definitely go for that.
- An acoustic piano is not a 'must' to be able to learn and practice, in fact, a digital has some advantages (the ability to practice with headphones). Silent pianos exist but are usually quite pricey.
Finally, I'd like to plug http://forum.pianoworld.com/ which is an excellent resource for people interested in playing and teaching piano.
Yeah, I fully agree with that. Only thing is that I do think that a teacher can give you motivation by pointing you towards a next step that is both achievable and interesting for you.
> I think most people are more than mature enough to make their own decisions about what works for them and what doesn't.
Nice point.
As a teenager, I took piano lessons for several years from two good teachers. Nearly fifty years later, I still enjoy playing the piano every day, so lessons obviously worked for me.
But if I were starting out to learn to play the piano now, I probably wouldn't go the teacher route at first. Rather, I would sample various apps, method books, websites, and, especially, YouTube videos and see what I could learn from each of them. I expect some would be too hard, some too easy, and some focused on styles of music I'm not interested in. But in the process of sampling various approaches, I would be able to find out what benefits and motivates me and what doesn't. I suspect that I would end up at least as satisfied with the results as I am now.
I was exactly in the same situation. And I would say ..if it wasn't for COVID, I wouldn't have landed on this.
learning using an app is low pressure, very pleasant, very game-y. Im at the point, where the game has gotten me interested enough that I wandered on the internet towards "Taubman method for eliminating RSI", etc.
I strongly recommend it for kids even. Im pretty sure this will get me flamed by people who play piano already, but I'm willing to bet money that for non-musical parents, they would be pleasantly surprised that their kids are doing something other than playing videogames...and kinda learning something awesome while stuck at home.
The 'hacker way' to me was to use my programming skills to write some software that helps me to achieve my goals. The project is steadily picking up steam and now has a small but quite dedicated following. It has helped me to build up a repertoire of pieces that I can play well enough to execute them fault less which leaves me free to concentrate on how I want to play them, good enough that the people I live with will ask me to play a certain piece because they enjoy it.
The next step is to outfit my ancient Yamaha G3 (1966), that I bought relatively cheaply with a sensor bar so the software can be used on the acoustic piano as well rather than just on the digital one. I love the sound of the acoustic.
The software will be further expanded over the next year, we have a very long list of things we want to add and make it do, hopefully without cluttering the user interface by making most of it completely automatic. Some of these features will be groundbreaking, the current iteration is more of a testbed than anything else. If you want to mess around with it or hack on it feel free: https://pianojacq.com/ the code is on gitlab as well.
This is why I'm so happy with the Mayron Cole material, I will try to transcribe all of it to midi files so it can be used with the software. It turns a 'neat little toy' into a complete computer assisted piano course.
For the moment though your best bet is to simply download a bunch of midi files and pick some that you would like to learn.
And I have to disagree a lot with you. I had a piano teacher when I was young and that person put me off piano for the next 45 years or so. A good teacher will help you, a not so good teacher may well cause you to lose interest.
Right now I'm practicing on my own, when I want, without a set schedule and without the goal of getting good enough to satisfy my - nonexistent - teacher.
Likely a good teacher would help. But good teachers cost money, have their own schedules to keep and their goals may not overlap with mine. So this time around I'm taking it as slow or as fast as I want, when I want, learning pieces that are probably way above my level but that keep me motivated because I like to play them.
If at some point I feel that I hit a plateau then I might go for a teacher for a while with the express goal of getting unstuck.
Finally, not everybody learns in the same way and not everybody has your budget. I love learning by doing, not by being told how to do it and there is as sense of pride in learning a skill by yourself instead of having it handed down, it also allows you to develop your own style rather than to become a carbon copy of what your teacher considers to be 'proper'. There is room for all of this and yours as well but I don't like the way you are all over this thread proclaiming the 'one true way', there are as many ways as there are people and what works for one person could easily be someone else's nightmare. It would be nice if you at least acknowledged that you have not taken into account the goal of whoever you have in mind as your hypothetical piano student and that not everybody will fit that image.
We agree that there are not shortcuts and that there is no magic method, but I think everybody that is somewhat serious about any instrument would agree on that.