Can you teach yourself piano? The best way to learn piano at home.
How to Teach Yourself Piano
One of the best compliments I received while teaching class piano was a student saying, “After taking the last class, I realize that trying to learn by myself with online videos is not the way.”
This is a guide packed full of tips for folks trying to figure out how to get better at piano without lessons, and for you if you want to teach yourself piano. I hope that by the end of this piece, you will have chosen the best way to learn piano at home for you.
Fear not, this is not a rant against youtube videos or piano apps. I think those are great tools to supplement learning. Using a learning app can guide and structure your practice and learning in a way that is very helpful in this age of competitive information. I use youtube videos to learn styles of music that I’m not as familiar with, because they give me essential stylistic information that you can’t get from the music notation. Absolutely use these tools to grow your piano playing!
The huge difference between personal learning tools and lessons with a teacher is the curated individual feedback that you get. A good teacher giving private piano lessons for adults will hear where you are stuck and give you the tools to move through that sticky spot. A great teacher will make the practice for those challenging sections fun and rewarding to work through. Taking a piano class or taking remote piano lessons will catalyze your learning and embed structure and accountability into your piano journey.
Music can be a wonderful personal journey, and can be fun and special to explore on your own. But music was never meant to be learned in a vacuum, as with any performance art, its function is to share and connect. Social music shows up in every culture in every time period. Music is a community activity at its core.
There is no reason to live in a musical desert and feel that you have to do it all alone. Take online group piano lessons or beginner piano lessons for adults to connect with another person, and even if you aren’t ready to share a video with friends or perform at the next party with family and friends, you will have another person or small community of other learners to connect with and to share your music with. Piano lessons can be your musical oasis.
If you are ready to teach yourself piano, here are some tips and piano lesson resources to find the best way to learn piano at home. This will be different for everybody, so this list includes options for people playing piano as a hobby, people trying to figure out how to get better at piano without lessons, and for folks who are ready to take their first online group piano lessons or private piano lessons for adults.
Which is the Best Way To Learn Piano At Home?
Teach yourself piano with an app
Piano apps are the newest and most instant access piano lesson resources for people ready to learn piano at home, and who want to know how to get better at piano without lessons. These apps include Simply Piano and Real Piano, and are designed to help you to know how to learn piano fast. They set you up with an array of tools and resources, and give them to you in a simple, straight ahead process.
Many of my students in online group piano lessons come to me after having used the piano app as an initial starting point to learn piano at home. This is because major online retailers are now offering bundle deals where you can buy an entry level keyboard and it comes with all the accessories, and an app to get you started. The students who come to me after working with the app know the basics about reading musical notation and sheet music, because these apps can function as flash cards. Actually, music theory apps are one of my number one recommendation for piano lesson resources, especially for people new to piano or reading music. They also have a sense of keyboard geography- they know where the notes are on the piano.
A gap in learning that shows up when trying to teach yourself piano with the apps is that chords, accidentals, and key centers are taught at a different pace than you might find in other piano lesson resources, including beginner piano method books.
These apps can be really cool for trying to teach yourself piano, because a lot of them teach fragments of familiar melodies and pop songs. I’m not really sure how they are getting around the copyright permissions that the boring old piano books have to contend with, but I’ve had students come to me with bits and pieces of “Old Town Road,” and snippets of old Miley Cyrus hits.
If you are just starting out on piano, or are looking for how to get better at piano without lessons, these apps are a great place to start. These are also a safe way to try out learning piano if you’re not sure that you are ready for the personal commitment of beginner piano lessons for adults. The apps will help you piece together new music theory understanding, and will probably help you figure out how to read musical notation. These apps are also great for trying pop songs for fun, but I’ll warn you that if your goal is to eventually play for other people, you will eventually want to upgrade to private piano lessons for adults. Most of these apps create a sort of rhythmic dependency, as you have to wait for the technology to register that you have played one note or phrase before letting you move on to the next one.
Learn Piano at Home with a Video
While piano apps can be an immediate way to start to teach yourself piano, especially when you are brand new and just beginning, they are still a new concept. Learning from a video is a tried and true concept, and you can find a video for just about anything. Learning from a video is one of the biggest secrets for how to get better at piano without lessons, and musicians use this method all the time- but there’s a catch. When you learn from a video, you will learn how to execute a passage from a song, and sometimes you will learn best technique for that passage. Videos are an incredible resource if you want to learn exactly how to play one part of a song exactly how it sounds in the recording. However, most videos will leave you without musical context. A video is not the best way to learn piano from home if you want to learn how to read sheet music, or the overarching theory behind the music you are playing.
Lieutenant Spock from the original Star Trek series playing the Vulcan harp in a jam session with a woman playing a bike wheel.
The perks to a video include all of the visual information going into the best way to play that passage. That means that you can match the information given to you. If the person recording the video uses their second finger on C, then you’ll know that finger two might be a good option for that note. However, each person is different, and you will want to use your own discretion or consult a teacher before committing to the example that is modeled. When you learn from a video, you will learn everything just one way: the way that the video shows you. That way may not be the best for you, or even the best option that is out there.
Learning from a video is great if you already know a little bit about music, or you are just playing piano as a hobby, without a clear directed goal beyond learning a few songs and passing the time. Learning from a video in isolation may not be the best way to learn piano from home, although it can be a great resource when paired with beginner piano lessons for adults. Professional musicians use videos as a learning tool all the time, but will usually supplement that information with other resources, including secondary videos, chord charts, sheet music, and original recordings. Be an explorer of music, and gather all of your reference information as you prepare to learn something new.
Try Online Beginner Piano Lessons for Adults
Okay, I know this is not the answer you came here for, but hear me out! The best way to learn piano at home is not going to be using an app by itself, or learning from a video on your own. Piano apps are an incredible tool for learning the basics of where the keys are on the piano, and how to read sheet music, and piano videos are one of the best ways to learn a passage of a song note for note. But both of those tools is lacking on its own: piano apps will leave you dependent on the program, without a personal sense of rhythmic integrity, and you will only know as much as you have “unlocked” on the app. Piano videos will never help you gain musical literacy and independence, only how to mirror the video performance. These elements can accelerate your playing when used as piano lesson resources, used in combination with private piano lessons for adults.
Of course, beginner piano lessons for adults will give you what the other learning tools won’t, including a well rounded understanding of music notation and symbols, and the ability to navigate the keyboard. By working one on one with a private piano teacher, you will gain rhythmic fluency and will grow in independence to learn new music on your own. And of course, all of your personal needs are catered to in private piano lessons. One of the really cool advantages to zoom piano lessons is that your teacher can help you adjust your personal keyboard or piano for the best posture, the most conducive practice routines, and the best personal technique for you. That individualized feedback also means that your playing will be stylized and expressive- things that are lost in the apps and videos.
The main reason to seek out private piano lessons instead of trying to teach yourself piano is for the accountability. We all know that it is easy to try something new and even easier to quit trying something new a few days later. By taking remote piano lessons, or online group piano lessons, you are making a commitment to your teacher, your peers, and yourself to show up again and again, and to continue trying. This can be stressful, and that level of commitment is often why people start out with videos or piano apps before coming to lessons. We’re not always sure if we’re prepared to continue trying, and music is a skill that delays gratification- nothing is instant.
If you are truly ready and committed to learning piano, don’t wait! Find a teacher, sign-up for lessons or group classes, and get started! You can use piano apps and videos in between lessons, and you will only learn piano and grow even faster.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard from The Next Generation Star Trek series attempting to learn to play an alien flute.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard from The Next Generation Star Trek series attempting to learn to play an alien flute.
The best way to learn piano at home?
Taking private piano lessons for adults is hands down the best way to learn piano at home. Are you ready to step out of your comfort zone and dive in to all things piano?
Schedule your first free piano lesson with me, Kelsey, take one of my drop-in piano classes for free, or check-out the latest offerings in the music & zines shop.
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