I know most of you probably already know what is covered in this article, but this is meant for the newbies. You might call this Level 1 of learning to play your piano or keyboard. With 88 keys on the piano, it may seem very difficult to learn, but fear not! Notice I show the picture of just one octave. There are 7 white keys and 5 black keys = 12 total. This repeats 7 times on the piano. So the only way you know your way around the keys is by the pair of two black keys followed by a set of three black keys. I will teach more about the black keys other posts, but for now we will just focus on the basics. Read the rest of this entry »

This post specifically applies to a popular song, or at least one that already has a recording. To me, practicing a song is fairly boring, tiresome, and very frustrating. I remember when I was learning “It Ends Tonight” by The All-American Rejects. I came close to giving up on that song, but there was something that gave me a little extra enthusiasm. Read the rest of this entry »

Sheet music is a wonderful tool in helping us learn our favorite songs. But it is important to use it to learn the song so that the you do not rely on it to play. When you “learn” a song, you should be able to play it wherever you are even when

you don’t have the sheet music at hand. When beginning a song, look at the sheet music and start with the first few bars. This is the hard part-most of us are glued to looking at the sheets at least 80% of the time and not looking at our hands. The misconception is that good piano players can play without looking at their hands. But this does not apply when practicing. Read the rest of this entry »

I also have a post where I made a diagram of the notes that should be played in each scale. It will really help those who are already getting tired of counting the half and whole steps, lol. You can can see that post here. Also you can see this in a flash program in this article.
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