Guitarists can learn without teachers. Can keyboardists do the same? How many of you came to play keys without taking lessons? How did you do it?
I am NOT typing this in order to disparage traditional piano education. There are many advantages to that approach. It will show you how to read the double staff, the theory behind chords, scales, modes, and progressions, and it will put you on the path to playing pretty much anything provided you do your part. That is a very respectable method, and if you want to be the next Liberace or Richard Clayderman, I recommend it highly.
I'm typing this for the rest of us: the people who don't aspire to playing Rachmaninoff, the people who just want to play keys in a band, jam and/or compose at home, cover pop songs, etc. Yes, you can become a Dollar Store Barry Manilow using my method. It doesn't carry the same prestige as a real piano education, but it is excellent if you want to get your jam on. That's why I call it "Piano Hacking". (Please see note on Rule #3 below.)
I sat at so many pianos in my high school days wishing I could make sense of that instrument. If JUST ONE PERSON took TWO MINUTES to tell me that I should be looking for a "doorbell sound" from every root, I could have been learning piano while still a teenager WITHOUT ANY TEACHERS. If you have always wanted to play, I may have THE solution for you. It's deceptively easy because you'll need only about 2 minutes to learn the concept, but afterwards, it's up to you to spend the hours/months/years training your fingers to strike the right keys at the speed of a song.
So, when did I finally start seeing chords on piano keyboards? It was about 10 years after high school while taking jazz guitar lessons. That's right - My guitar teacher taught me how to play the piano BY EXPLAINING WHAT CHORD SYMBOLS MEANT. This approach is so easy and life-changing that I wondered why others didn't go this way. So, I made a YouTube video that explains it all. This won't turn you into Mozart, but if you want to visit a site like https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/ so you could get the chords to some pop song that you'd like to cover on keys, my method will help you A LOT.
Of course, I'd love to hear how it goes for anyone who tries my method, but this post is also for discussion from people interested in the traditional path. Students on the traditional path can benefit from the hackers' approach, but it doesn't really work the other way around. Great Value keyboardists like me won't get much from 20 minutes of traditional education. Succinctly put, the traditional approach is supposed to teach you EVERYTHING; my approach teaches only a small subset of that.
---------------------------------------------
P. S. Re: Rule #3: "At the moderators' discretion, a single post pointing out a free resource may be allowed, especially if it's accompanied by a conversation starter. Don't be spammy."
Submitted July 23, 2023 at 04:38PM by TripDawkins https://www.reddit.com/r/Learnmusic/comments/157o1c0/piano_education_what_level_are_you_at_and_what/?utm_source=ifttt