What do you need to know when taking piano lessons

Are you a piano enthusiast planning to take piano lessons in the future? Are you wondering what you need to know before committing yourself to weekly piano lessons? Learning how to play the piano is not just a temporary hobby that you learn during your summer vacation or just something you take in order to learn how to play your favorite song. Being a piano player can be considered a lifestyle. It can be your regular pastime during weekends, or can be an occasional performance for an event if you plan to become a piano performer.

If you are wondering what you need to know before you take piano lessons, you are in the right place. In this article, we will be sharing the facts that will help you make your piano journey more effective and enjoyable.

Learning Takes Time

Many learners, especially adults, wonder how long it would take for them to learn how to play the instrument. Some would like to know how much time it will take until they learn to play their favorite song. Of course, who would not want to learn their favorite song as soon as possible. That’s probably the reason why they want to rush learning the piano.

What some learners do not understand is that learning how to play the piano does not happen in a short amount of time. It is a skill that needs to be learned and practiced repeatedly for countless hours before you become proficient at it. Piano playing is a physical activity, it is like a workout. You need to train your body in order to become acquainted and eventually master the art of playing the piano.

You Need to Practise Religiously

If you want to become proficient in something, you should train yourself regularly with it. Because piano playing is a physical activity, you need to practise and train your body as often as possible so that your whole body, especially your fingers and arms, will develop the muscle memory needed to execute piano passages efficiently.

Practising daily for at least thirty minutes is advised for all piano beginners as it helps in developing finger muscle strength and dexterity. Missing a day of practise can affect your progress. If you practise a skill as often as you can, it will surely increase the effectiveness of your practice and help in speeding up the progress compared to practising less frequency.

Progress Happens Mostly During Your Practise Time

When you are learning to play the piano, the real magic happens at home or in your practise room. Most of the progress and improvement are developed during your practises in between lessons. The piano instructor’s role during the lesson is to guide you through but most of the work is really done by the student. The piano teacher may give all the information and guidance but if the student does not understand and apply it in his or her practise time, the lesson will not be very effective. That is why it is important to practise at home what you have learnt during the lesson.

Do Not Skip Your Lessons

It is important as a piano beginner to not skip lessons. Regardless of how much you have practised for the week, it is still best to show up for your piano lessons so that the piano teacher will be able to monitor your progress and help you with whatever that you might be struggling with.

There are piano students who would cancel their lessons because they were not able to practise that much, which is not a good mindset because going to piano lessons is like bringing your car for a maintenance check. It is the moment when you will see if there is a problem and find out which particular part needs some cleaning and polishing. Still practising in between lessons is a must to ensure your improvement.

Have Your Own Piano at Home

If you are a piano learner who has no piano at home, getting your own is the wisest decision that you can ever make. Because it will be hard or almost impossible to make evident progress if you do not have a piano to use during your practises in between lessons. You will not be able to practise and get a grasp of what you have learnt in your piano lessons. Because what you have learned inside the lesson should be practised as much as possible in order to improve also your finger strength and muscle memory.

As an adult, schedules can get hectic at times and allotting practise time for yourself can be challenging. So, it is ideal to own a piano at home which gives you access to practise the instrument at any time of the day that will suit your busy schedule.

Enjoy the Process

No matter how much progress you make in your piano learning, it is extremely important to remind yourself to enjoy what you are doing. It does not matter how big or small the achievement you make per week, what is important is that you are enjoying every time you sit in front of the piano creating beautiful music. You must feel proud of yourself for putting in the effort to learn.

If you are still a beginner in piano playing, you might tend to compare yourself with another piano player who can play more advanced pieces than you. You might be hearing someone who plays skillfully on the piano and ask yourself why can’t you play like that person. If this happens, you must remind yourself that each person’s progress is different from another and learning how to play the piano is not a race.

Taking piano lessons is the best way to learn how to play the instrument. It is surely useful when it comes to gaining knowledge and becoming skillful with it compared to learning it on your own. Learning from an excellent piano instructor gives you the advantage to be guided in becoming a skillful piano player as he or she is equipped with the knowledge and experience that will be imparted to you according to your learning style.