There are a lot of people looking for piano lessons for beginners who believe that they are really too old to learn piano. This cannot be further from the truth. The fact is that the older you are the more thoroughly you will learn and the less likely you will be to give it up.
I have written extensively on this subject before and will not go into it here (Am I Too Old To Learn The Piano) but if you are looking for a complete home study course that will serve as piano lessons for beginners then there are at least two that I can highly recommend. I have done a couple of extensive reviews on these piano learning products including a video sneak peek into the products. I have used both of these courses personally and apart form having hours of fun I improved my playing and learned to play in multiple styles.
Here is a quick review of the top two home study courses offering piano lessons for beginners.
Piano Lessons For Beginners – Best Piano Courses
This is my list of the top piano courses of the many I have checked out and tested personally.
This product consists of 7 books all with their associated audio and video files. They will teach you right from the very beginning how to play the piano or the keyboards and will go on to teaching you Gospel for beginners, Jazz for beginners and there are also some general technique books. You will get access to a load of software for MAC or for PC which includes several music learning games and a very useful metronome application. This course seems to be the current market leader for piano lessons for beginners. It is an extremely complete course which contains over a years worth of piano lessons. Great for complete beginners and intermediate level players too.
This really complete package comes with 10 books which all have audio and video embedded. You get taught how to read music and how to play by ear at the same time. Right from the outset you will be playing authentic sounding music. The course contains Innovative teaching methods which will hold the interest of most students and will have you playing great sounding music very quickly. The overall presentation of this product is not quite as smooth and professional looking as some of its competitors but the content is without a doubt far superior.
Both of the above products come with a 60 day no questions asked guarantee in case you are not completely satisfied with your purchase. They are both suitable for adults or young people though not really geared for small children to use. They are both a great way of getting piano lessons for beginners in your own home.
Piano For All Review
Reviewer: Andy Penbram
Rating:
Website Reviewed: Piano for All
This is one of my favorite home study piano programs. It is not as slick looking as some of it’s competitors (Rocket Piano) but it has its own special character and on the whole I really like the way that the whole course is planned to guide the student through the learning process.
What You Get
The course consists of ten hefty work books in a printable pdf format, 200 video lessons and 500 audio lessons. No fancy software here but the lessons are top quality and extremely well planned out.
The Unique Learning Process
This course is a little different from the others in that it teaches you how to play by ear, how to use chord charts and how to read music all at the same time right from the absolute basic level.
Here is a Video Review showing you what you get when you purchase
The Books The first book is called Party Time – Rhythm Style Piano. This starts you off assuming you have no musical knowledge at all and have never touched a piano before. It teaches you how to find the notes on the keyboards, and by
means of simple diagrams it shows you how to place your fingers and has you playing simple melodies straight away. It then shows you how to recognize the notes you have learned on the musical staff. Then as you advance you get shown some chords. The whole basis of this book is to play like a pianist with real rhythms. You are taught how to play basic chords but also how to use them with authentic rhythms using both hands. The results sound reall
y great. The best thing about it is that as you progress you also get taught how to read music… little by little until before you realize it you discover that you are able to play by ear and read music or chord symbols.
Once you have learned the basic principle of these books, t
he rhythm method for want of a better name you can then progress onto the more advanced books.
There is the Blues book where you learn beginners blues patterns and riffs.
The next book is
called Chord Magic. This teaches you how to play the basic chords in different inversions and how to combine them in chord sequences with rhythm that is really superb and has you sounding like a seasoned pianist.
This is then followed by the Advanced Chords book.
By the time you get to the next book, Ballad Style you are really playing like a professional. In this book you learn how to take a melody and improvise around it giving a ballad style to your playing.
The final book is Jazz Piano Made Easy. This is just that, it de-mystifies jazz playing and with some quite simple chord progressions and runs you will be playing authentic sounding Jazz pieces in no time at all.
Each book contains audio and video clips which you can simply click on and they open right there.
The Negatives
The most annoying thing about this course is that the teaching material is all traditional songs and melodies. This is due to the copyright laws prohibiting them from using protected material which leaves only the traditional and anonymous compositions.
The Positives
The whole way of learning using basic chords combined with rhythms has you playing authentic sounding piano right from the start. You can easily start this course if you are at an intermediate level too as it progresses up to quite an advanced level at the end.
The absolute best thing about this course is that it has you playing great sounding piano from the start and enables you to advance extremely quickly.
To Help You Decide To help you make up your mind you can download a sample page so you can see how the course is laid out and how it works. There is also a 60 day money back guarantee in case you are not entirely convinced. For more information see the Teach Yourself Piano Page.
Conclusion
This course I give a definite five star rating. It is my personal favorite and although the look of the books is not as slick as some of the other courses the content, material and teaching method is superb.
Some people have a natural musical inclination to play almost any instrument by listening to a particular song and transferring this sound to notes or chords. This is referred to as playing by ear. The average person cannot remember the exact scale of sound in a tune and this ability is unique.
If you feel that you possess such a talent, learning the basic scales could be very helpful in expanding your piano playing experience. A scale on the piano is comprised within a set of musical notes in any given octave. Octaves ascend and descend from the middle of the keyboard and define higher or lower pitches. Instead of laying your hands on the keys and fishing for the right combination, you will know for sure when first hearing the chord, where this chord lies on the piano.
Notes will still need to be learned but this is not much more difficult than learning your basic ABCs, perhaps even easier because the notes on a piano only range from A-G. These keys are always white and the black keys represent the ½ steps. When a combination of the white and black keys is struck in a certain uniform arrangement, a scale is delivered.
With a natural skill for playing music by ear, learning the scales should not be difficult. Reading music may be more of a challenge but by understanding and learning the basic steps of scales and chords, your ability to read music as well as play by ear will make you sound like a pro in no time. When you are able to read music, you will find yourself automatically grouping notes together into scales and this is great since scales is what most music is based upon.
Playing by ear can be an advantage to the beginning piano player with other tools at their disposal. If you have already mastered another type of instrument through self-taught scales, learning the piano will be a piece of cake. Another trait of many that play by ear is the natural way that songwriting can be produced once the piano basics have been learned.
Listen to a song. Does the combination of notes stay in your mind as a blended effort or do you just recognize a good sound? If you are a master at blending and transferring without much effort, you can probably play by ear and should learn to play the piano to further your passion. Creating a certain rhythm comes next in the learning process. This may come easily or need practice to perfect. Simple keystroke exercises are readily available for any type of musical style that you like and to strengthen areas that may be weak. You may even come up with melodies of your own while practicing different, harmonic scales. See the Piano Lessons For Beginners page for more info.
To learn piano by ear and by reading music is by far the best as you are open to all posibilities and yet not restricted by having to play exactly what is written the page.
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