How Learning to Play the Piano Impacted My Life
I was one of those people who always dreamed of playing the piano but never thought I could. At least I was until I came across some short, simple lessons on the basics of piano playing. I decided to give it a try, and I have been practicing ever since.
The first lesson that really opened my eyes to how accessible the piano actually is was a simple explanation of how the piano keys make a very important pattern. It turns out those white and black keys are separated into sections which makes it much easier to learn how to play them correctly. I never really thought about the piano in this manner before.
With those first lessons, I was able to start practicing the basic principles of piano playing. I started clapping out rhythms, writing and playing individual notes, and eventually I was tapping out simple melodies. Each lessons taught me something new and I would practice over and over, later on testing myself on each new skill to see how far I had advanced.
I developed my own practice schedule, finding time between my work and daily chores. It was satisfying to accomplish so much so quickly. The slow pace of formal lessons may be good for children, but as an adult, I appreciated the ability to go at my own pace.
As I improved I had a craving to play music that was not presented in my lessons. I wanted to play something familiar and recognizable. That is when I followed suggestions in my lessons and purchased my first music books. I brought home an Easy Piano Book and a Fake Book.
My Easy Piano Book was filled with familiar Broadway show tunes that I had heard throughout my life, and after learning rather quickly to sight read I was able to actually play many of them quite well.
It was when I opened the Fake Book that I really had a challenge before me. I didn’t know all of the chords used so would have to look the new ones up before I started a song, and since they were modern pop songs it was more difficult to get them down.
Soon I was playing songs that I had heard on the radio. This was just as fun as the Broadway songs, and my friends seemed to like it even better. It was a lot of fun for everyone, me included.
I am so glad that I took the time to learn the basics of piano playing. I am not a pro by any means. It does not matter to me. I never wanted to take the world by storm. I just wanted to learn something that would make me personally a little happier. And that is just what I did.
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 4:25 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.