Advice on learning / self-teaching

[gadogry]

Hello Everyone! Here comes a musical n00b seeking your expert advice. For the old-ish regulars here, you may remember me as the guy who did some stats "analysis" for the NGADM scores for a couple years. I've been inactive on NG for the last little while as my life went through some pretty dramatic changes, but recently the conditions have finally aligned for me to settle down for a while. In the last 10 years, the thought of (re)learning how to play piano has been lurking in my head, and now I may actually be able to do it. But... how should I ACTUALLY do it?

For your perspective, my piano "experience" started when I was ~8 years old. I picked up playing the piano at school as an extracurricular thing. Parents were encouraging to the point of pushy. I was a relatively quick learner, and passed the Grade 2 exam with distinction. On the spot they paid for my Grade 4 exam and scheduled it to be in 2 months. That basically killed my enthusiasm to keep playing. Much to my parents' chagrin, I didn't even go to my Grade 4 exam. But I still retain some very basic theory things today.

In 2014 I got myself a $100 Casio keyboard, played it everyday for a few weeks (mostly trying to learn by ear and replicate some basic pieces). Thoroughly enjoyed the experience, which convinced me that if I made a more substantial investment for a better piano, I'd actually play it. But at that time I was about to move to another country to start a new life. And I knew the Casio keyboard (with just 61 and non-weighted keys) wouldn't be a long-term solution, so I gave it away.

For now, my draft roadmap of learning how to play piano reads like:

1) Wait for a decent sale on a digital piano set. Something like a Yamaha P115 -- not TOO pricey but nice enough that I won't outgrow it in at least a few years.

2) Learn songs by the ear and practise until I can replicate them, starting with least technically demanding songs. I'm visually impaired so while I can read sheet music on a computer screen (shown on a big, bright monitor), I can't do so when I'm sitting in front of the piano.

3) Complement my learning by reading up on theory (such as learning more complex chords / progressions), and observing others play online to watch for technicalities like gestures and finger placements and stuff.

4,5,6) ???

My ultimate goal is that I can play the piano as if I'm speaking a new language. To me that has 2 main parts: I want to reach a level of musical sophistication so that I can adequately express an imagery or emotion in my mind as a piano melody, and I want to be able to mechanically execute that with my 10 fingers.

And that's where I'd need you guys -- to round out / critique / overhaul my plan above. Things I'm particularly looking for:

-- Any piano recommendations that are, say, around $1000CAD? Currently I'm slightly partial to Yamaha (from my naive ears they just "sound" a bit more natural than the Casio models I've heard/tried), but again I'm very open to suggestions.
-- Any resources (online or otherwise) you'd suggest that'd help with step 3) above? Free is awesome but I'm also willing to invest $ if it's worthwhile and affordable.
-- Should I consider taking personal piano lessons?

Thanks for reading my exceedingly long-winded and personal post, and thanks in advance to the ones generous enough to share their thoughts.

[Qu4drupleForte]

First off, I'd strongly reccomend the Roland FP-30, I've had it for 2 years and I love it. The keys are perfectly weighted, so much so I actually prefer it to my upright piano; you won't feel like you're constantly adapting your technique to accomadate hollow keys like is necessary with low-end keyboards. it also doubles as a damn good MIDI keyboard. The price is pretty good too, I can find deals here (in Australia) for about 830CAD. Sound wise these keyboards are the bomb and have plenty of additional sounds to curb your appetite.

I come from a similar background in terms of my piano playing and have a similar goal, and having made decent progress over the years I feel i can lend a hand to your second question: The key is playing every day, but building you understanding of what you play. Find pieces you like (that are reasonably easy), find tutorials/ sheet music and learn them. Playing by ear can be damn good, but building your understanding of the building blocks of harmony is perhaps the biggest chunk of learning piano like it's a second language, and that's best done by reading, be it a score or a piano roll. So I suggest you pick up small songs, learn them to a decent degree, but also (when possible) try to use Roman Numeral analysis to dissect the harmony (good explanation if you don't know what that is: https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/44). That is as much as I think is applicable at this point, the rest I'm afraid is up to you, you'll find you're own ways of learning that come naturally. Good luck!

[zybor]

Man, just do whatcha up to and forget about the whole world. Don't follow the rules, follow your heart instead.

[gadogry]

At 1/1/18 05:27 PM, Qu4drupleForte wrote: First off, I'd strongly reccomend the Roland FP-30, I've had it for 2 years and I love it. The keys are perfectly weighted, so much so I actually prefer it to my upright piano; you won't feel like you're constantly adapting your technique to accomadate hollow keys like is necessary with low-end keyboards. it also doubles as a damn good MIDI keyboard. The price is pretty good too, I can find deals here (in Australia) for about 830CAD. Sound wise these keyboards are the bomb and have plenty of additional sounds to curb your appetite.

Thanks for pointing me to Roland FP-30! After doing some digging, it does seem like a great piano. The best deal I can find now is $1000CAD, +$100 for stand, + another $100 for the 3-pedal add-on. I'd be interested in those two things because I'll mainly use it as a piece of stationary furniture at home to play on (rather than carrying it around).

The Yamama DGX-660 also intrigues me... it's similar in price and has many interesting features. And a higher level of polyphony (192 vs 128 on the Roland... which won't matter for n00b players like me :P). But Roland does seem to have superior touch and more powerful speakers.

I come from a similar background in terms of my piano playing and have a similar goal, and having made decent progress over the years I feel i can lend a hand to your second question: The key is playing every day, but building you understanding of what you play. Find pieces you like (that are reasonably easy), find tutorials/ sheet music and learn them. Playing by ear can be damn good, but building your understanding of the building blocks of harmony is perhaps the biggest chunk of learning piano like it's a second language, and that's best done by reading, be it a score or a piano roll. So I suggest you pick up small songs, learn them to a decent degree, but also (when possible) try to use Roman Numeral analysis to dissect the harmony (good explanation if you don't know what that is: https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/44). That is as much as I think is applicable at this point, the rest I'm afraid is up to you, you'll find you're own ways of learning that come naturally. Good luck!

Yes, I do agree wholeheartedly on reading -- my vision just limits me from doing that AND playing the piano simultaneously. But I do feel the need (and have the thirst) to learn more theory. It's like when I'm happy I don't want to just be able to say I'm "happy". I also want to be able to know how to do "joyous", "delighted", and "totally lit" XD

Thanks again for your detailed and awesome suggestions!

[gadogry]

At 1/1/18 06:55 PM, I0TA wrote: Man, just do whatcha up to and forget about the whole world. Don't follow the rules, follow your heart instead.

I agree to an extent, but it's a fine balance. I'm not gonna completely reinvent the wheel (or the piano). Just want to at least KNOW the rules before I decide to follow them or not.

Thanks for your input!

[ADR3-N]

Personally, I use a free piano library Headroom Piano and midi controller/programming for my piano sounds (see here), so I'm going to be pretty out there as far as recommending pianos. To me, any will do, haha.

Learning, however, firstly, I would start by learning to read music, specifically of the pieces you've learned to play. If you already know how to read music, endeavor to learn the theory behind it. That is the meter, the tempo, the dynamics, the expression, and finally, the chord structures and progressions. Think like Hans Zimmer about which chords are generally associated with which emotion, and how you can bring those about. Theory is the language of music.

There are lots of great intro to theory vids on YT. Since you have experience playing piano, you may benefit from them more than I do, since you can practice them all live, whereas I have to program it all. :P

Once you know all the rules, you can break them in ways that beautify your sound, rather than destroy it. Think jazz and its kooky 9th chords or swing and its jaunty beats.

[gadogry]

At 1/2/18 11:14 PM, ADR3-N wrote: Once you know all the rules, you can break them in ways that beautify your sound, rather than destroy it. Think jazz and its kooky 9th chords or swing and its jaunty beats.

I agree that sometimes jazz sounds like people don't know the moves and are just smashing buttons/keys. But then when I try to do that on a keyboard myself it sounds... not like jazz :P

[shayanjj]

Hey if you're still interested in learning about music theory check out my brand new music theory app called Solfej https://www.solfej.io/