How to play the piano (a beginners guide)

My mother plays the piano pretty well, and I wanted to know how to play like her as a little girl. So I started taking piano lessons at the age of 4, because my mother knew it took her decades of experience to be able to get to her level of playing and apparently I was already running out of time.

My memory is still vivid from the early days of my piano lessons. It all began with this one faded-colored book, which I remember took nearly an entire year for me to get to the last page of the book. The end of that book was not particularly exciting either, as I was still stuck with having to play something that I didn’t really choose. When I was only supposed to practice a specific page from the book until my next lesson, I couldn’t help but flip through the book to see if there were some other exercises that looked more interesting than the one I was instructed to play over and over for an entire week. Every time I had completed another book, I usually ended up hating the book and never wanted to go back to the same book ever again. I repeated this process for decades.

I can comfortably say that I can play the piano well today, but it did take me nearly 30 years. Even though I started taking private lessons at a very young age that gave me a head start, it took so much more than just taking weekly lessons for me to feel truly engaged and genuinely interested in learning more about what I was capable of doing with this beautiful instrument, which I only experienced at a much later period of my life.

So exactly what do you do as an adult, when you have less free time during the day, but still want to learn to play the piano?

What is your musical goal?

There may be many reasons why you might want to start learning to play the piano. Maybe you want to learn a few songs to play at a friend’s get-together. Maybe there are songs that you already enjoy singing and want to learn how to light accompany your vocal part on the piano. Maybe you want to learn to play to start jamming with a band.

Depending on these varying musical desire and needs, Yousician Piano offers a catered learning journey so that you can achieve your musical goals to help you get there.

Lastly, You can always start taking private piano lessons at any age. Finding the perfect teacher for you might take some searching, but establishing a weekly commitment can be a great way to build your skills at a calculated pace guided by your private piano teacher.

Start by learning the songs you recognise

Beginning your piano learning journey with Yousician gives you access to a full library of piano songs you already know, and the Yousician Piano Syllabus will guide you through learning with these songs straight away from Level 0. There will be no suffering of having to finish that one book before learning something new, and the extensive selection of songs will be regularly updated in the Song Library so that you can continue to discover new songs to add to your favorite list.

Find your own learning pace

We live in a busy world with little time in our hands. With Yousician Piano, you can set your daily goal to meet your personal expectation without the guilty feeling of not having played enough to improve. The Guided Lessons feature in the Yousician app will take you through step-by-step in your piano learning journey, so that every session with Yousician Piano always feels rewarding, keeping you motivated to return for your next session.

This article was written by Sunny Choi, Music Education Designer for Piano at Yousician. If you want to learn more about Sunny, you can view her online portfolio or on Facebook or listen to her work on Youtube and on Spotify. Photography by Steinway Oslo.