Hello all. I am returning to piano after years of inactivity and never really learning to begin with. I'm looking for advice from you more experienced players.

My course of study is using the e-media Piano Method to learn sight read technique AND to use Shawn Cheak's Easy Piano Lessons (which I think are GREAT so far). I have a fairly solid background in theory. My goal is to be able to play pop music, Billy Joel type stuff, along with classical pieces. I can spend 1 hour a day max practicing due to my MBA studies and full time job, kids etc.. :-)

Any advice or other method recommendations would be much appreciated.

Hi drfonta, welcome to the forum! It sounds to me like you've made a great start. The best advice I can give is (a) keep at it, and (b) play what you love.

"Keep at it" is easy... you'll make the most progress in piano with steady, consistent practice. 10-20 minutes a day every day is better than trying to cram in a couple of hours once a week. And "play what you love" is also important, as the easiest way to ensure lots of consistent practice is to spend it playing music you enjoy.

Because of that, if you decide to take lessons, be careful when interviewing teachers and make sure to sign on with someone who is willing to work with you on material that you enjoy.

What are you able to play so far with ease? How would you rate your current playing ability? Sight-reading ability? Theory level?

Thanks for the replies! II I would rate myself as a beginner, especially in the sight reading department. For example, when going through the emedia course, I'm at the single note version of "Alouette" which I can play slowly by sight reading, but I can play very quickly by memory. Using Shawn Cheak, I've got the intro to "New York State of Mind" down pretty good. I would also say that I don't have left hand separation. For theory, I can "read" music, understand keys and modes, inverted chords, and circle of fifths. All comes from my background in guitar.

Remember all those scales and the patterns you spent hours on. Yep, you will need to spend the same amount of time with them now on the piano.

Left hand / right hand (at the same time) scale work will help with your left hand right hand coordination.

Welcome and have fun. Piano and guitar flow well into each other.

Malcolm

Pop music + Classical:

I agree with majones--scales and their related parts (arpeggios, candences, etc) are incredibly important to get fingering and patterns down. No matter what music you want to play, in some way, scales will be important.

If you are looking for a method series (which it says you are), any of the big ones will do based on your preference. Regardless of what any teacher here says, if you don't like the series, you won't get far. That's why there are so many different reviews from the teachers here. If there were any 'one to choose,' they'd all choose it.

I personally used Alfred's All-in-One. It is classically-based, but leads to other books that will teach you pop and jazz, etc. Faber and Faber's series actually has a Improv book to be used after a certain point, but it really requires a teacher. If you go with Faber and Faber, I like the children's series much more than the adult series. It goes at a slower pace and covers everything more completely. Adult series seem to have a huge difficulty gap at certain points.

1 hour a day is plenty and most teachers would be happy to hear that, methinks Good luck with that and your MBA!

Thanks for the info! I will continue with emedia and Shawn's website for now. I already see real progress.