<p>Hello! :)</p>
<p>I'm a sophomore in high school, and I want to play piano/keyboard. I know the basics of the piano (the chords, how to move my fingers up and down a scale), but of course I need to know more than that. I have a 67 key keyboard. What does everyone recommend?</p>
<p>P.S-I'm also a singer; I also take weekly lessons. Thank you for your help! :)</p>
<p>Bump. I need help please :)</p>
<p>You are taking singing lessons or piano lessons?</p>
<p>Tofugirl,</p>
<p>I think the reason you are not getting replies is that no one really knows what you are asking. Do you want to major in music? In piano? In voice?</p>
<p>I take weekly VOICE lessons. I have no professional training in piano at all. </p>
<p>I want to major in voice. But I do know having the ability to play the piano is a great benefit. </p>
<p>So there, I want to learn how to play piano/keyboard.</p>
<p>Tofugirl - I realize you want to study on your own, or use a book of some sort, but how about taking piano lessons? You should be able to find a teacher who will give you basic lessons, for a reasonable fee. You’ll get much more out of it working with a teacher, than struggling on your own. Your voice teacher might be able to recommend someone, or one of your accompanists.</p>
<p>I have to agree, while there are all kinds of self study programs, computer generated ones (most keyboards can attached to a computer via a midi to USB converter) and books and cd’s and so forth, probably You Tube has stuff as well…I would personally recommend trying to get lessons. You don’t need a teacher to bring you to Juilliard level, you simply want to gain familiarity with it. Lots of places offer piano lessons, local music schools, private teachers, piano stores, even some Y’s and such seem to, community centers, etc…and many of these are relatively reasonably priced. </p>
<p>The reason I would say to do that is working by yourself, you can learn bad habits and might not get everything you need out of it. Those self teaching books IME are usually designed around adults or kids wanting to be able to play piano casually, kind of thing like playing at a party, etc…if you want to head into music, I would recommend learning it from a teacher, who can also teach you things about music theory and so forth while learning to hit the keys right:)</p>
<p>My kids high school offered a piano class using keyboards. If your school doesn’t offer something like that, your school music department may be able to recommend materials that the teachers have heard about at conferences.</p>
<p>Decide if you want keyboard or piano. Although similar they are not the same necessarily in technique. If you want keyboard get a younger teacher who is more flexible in teaching methods. Some old school piano teachers are very rigid. I’ll get flak for that but oh well…</p>
<p>Definitely learn from a teacher if you can. In my experience, a fair number of voice teachers also teach beginning piano and music theory well enough to get you started. You may wish to ask your voice teacher about that possibility. </p>
<p>If you do become a performance major, you will have two to four semesters (depending on the school) of piano class and most schools require that you be able to demonstrate basic skills learned in those classes as a requirement for graduation. It is a great idea to get started in high school or earlier to pick up the basics so that those college classes do not become a stumbling block and start eating up a lot of your time. Learning piano can also be very helpful in the first semester or two of the music theory classes that you would be taking as a music major.</p>
<p>If you intend to major in voice, you will HAVE to take piano and it can be even more than 2-4 semesters. Eventually, you’ll have to take and pass a proficiency test on the instrument.
Since you still have 3 more years in high school, my honest advice would be for you to find a piano teacher (your voice teacher should be able to recommend one) and begin taking lessons now. If you do so, you just might be able to pass the proficiency test either upon admission to college or shortly thereafter, thus saving yourself time and money. BassDad is quite right when he points out that the study of piano will really be a help to you when you are taking college-level music theory courses.
Don’t worry if you don’t have a piano at home; perhaps you can talk to the head of the music department at your school and see if there is an instrument there that you could practice on, maybe during a study hall, or before or after school.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help, that’s what the teachers are there for! Good luck!</p>
<p>At Michigan, for example, the piano requirement is 4 hours per week for the first year, so testing out frees up quite a bit of time. I believe the course description of piano 111 and 112 is on their website, so you can get an idea of the requirements. It would be tough to do without a teacher.</p>
<p>At my school we have a piano class, but it’s kind of teach it yourself, and we use Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano Course/ Alfred’s All-In-One Course (They’re both the same, minus a few songs, and the All-In-One has theory worksheets). There is 4 books, and it teaches it really easily.</p>
<p>@minimusicalgirl- Thank you! In fact, for Christmas, I got Alfred’s Piano Course Book (Level 1) and it’s wonderful.</p>
<p>My son is a comp major at Boyer. He took guitar/theory lessons, but was self-taught in piano (and I do mean SELF-taught; he did not use any course. Just put in a lot of time on his own.). His proficiency on the piano was not a factor in his admission - it was simply a factor in placement. Piano will be a requirement, most likely. They’re not looking for performance quality playing from a non-performance major, IME. (As in, piano not being your primary instrument.)</p>