Hello. I am new to the board as well as the world of piano. I have played many band instruments so am familiar with reading music.
I have a 7 year old son who is beginning lessons tonight. I am going to be with him and listening to what the instructor is telling him so I can help at home.
I am wondering If I can learn at the same time or if anyone else has done this? We don't have enough money right now for both of us to take lessons.
We have his little instruction book and then I bought the Alfred's All in One Adult book to supplement.
Thank you,
Julie

You will listen and you will learn. It will be so easy. But you will learn so much more quickly, you will only need to listen with one ear.

Sure! Why not.
That's how I ended up doing Tae Kwon Do. My son started and I watched. Eventually I ended up signing up myself...

Julie,

My son is learning the Cello right now. I'm picking up a lot of good stuff from the lessons. Like ivory says, you learn much more quickly.

If you have experience with other instruments,
then playing the piano should be no problem.
Take a look at your piano keyboard. The
seeming maze of 88 black and white keys
might appear intimidating at first, compared
to other instruments, but there is
a relatively simply pattern among
all those keys.

Note that the black keys occur in
a repetitive pattern of twos and threes
all along the keyboard. There are 7
complete sets of those 2 and 3 black key
groups on an 88-key piano. These
2 and 3 black key groups marke the
C octaves: the seven white keys surrounding
each 2 and 3 black key group are the
notes C D E F G A B, the familiar
"do re mi fa so la ti" scale that we
are so familiar with. Each seven white
key group surrounding each 2 and 3 black
key group are these same seven notes
C D E F G A B, but at higher pitches
as you go up the keyboard. Thus
all those 88 keys are really just
the same handful of notes, C D E F G A B.

On sht. music only seven different notes
can ever be written, C D E F G A B, all
white keys on the piano, those same
seven white keys surrounding each 2 and
3 black key group. The black keys are
never directly notated on score, but
are indirectly indicated by sharp and
flat signs.

The C on the piano that is nearest the
center of the keyboard--usually marked
by the manufacturer's symbol near the
center of the piano--is notated by a
note with a short line through it,
immediately below the treble staff or
immeditately above the bass staff.
The notes D E F G A B, etc., are written
on successive spaces and lines on the
treble and bass staffs.

The single most important thing in playing
the piano is to not look at your hands
as much as possible when playing with
sht. music (most teachers will not
tell you this). This allows you to
concentrate fully on reading the score.
This also allows your hands to find the
best fingering and technique on their own
with no special effort on your part--
this greatly simplifies playing because
you then don't have to worry about
reading fingering numbers on the score
or if your technique is correct. From
this one most important thing all other
skills and requirements needed for
playing develop naturally with no
special effort on your part: sight-reading,
fingering and technqiue, ear training,
memorization, improvisation, playing
by ear, etc.

The black keys are a pianist's best friend
because they provide reference points
for finding notes when playing without
looking at the hands. The most difficult
thing to play on the piano is a passage
on all white keys, as there are then no
black keys for reference to find the notes.
Note that a piano with all white keys
would be all but unplayable.

When starting to play, you keep your
eyes on the score as much as possible
and just plop your hands on the keyboard
in the vicinity of where most of the notes
are and let your hands find the notes on
their own. Don't worry about fingering
and technique. Your hands will find the
best fingering and technique on their
own this way.

To get some idea of the possibilites on
the piano before you even read a note,
play the 4-note chords C E G B, D F A C,
and E G B D, with the lt. hand. These
are on every other white key starting
with C, D, and E as the first note.
Using just these three chords, in any
order, you can then improvise all kinds of
jazz-style songs, by ear, by playing
just white keys with your rt. hand.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and such advice could not be more misguided even if it were deliberately intended to mislead and misinform.

Steven

Sounds eerily familiar.

Of course, not everything that begins well ends well. I busted my ACL. :p

This is NOT a problem one is likely to encounter on the piano!

My son (10) and I are learning together as well. We are moving at the first of the year (due to finances so I can relate to your issue) so we've been home learning ourselves through Alfred's.

We've been at it about a month and it's been so much fun! I've been able to work with him on knowing the notes, time signatures and the like. Both of us are really excited and hope to begin "formal" lessons in the spring.

Given your band experience you have a good shot at making this work.

My daughter and I took back to back lessons from the same teacher. We used to argue in the car over whose turn it was to go first.

Interesting thing, though she practiced less than me and used less efficient methods, she learned faster. Age is a factor.

I've had several friends who enrolled their kids in piano lessons then tried to keep up themselves. All failed. But none had your background, I think you might pull this off.

Gyro, you are pathetic... Horowitz for example, watch his hand almost all the time.

Some pieces are imposible to play without looking on keyboard, thats one of the main reasons why more serious pianists memorize majority of pieces they play...

Why do you copy paste your posts? You post are excatly the same posts all the time... And when people reply, you rather go into another thread to copy and paste again... Reading your post is like a... I rather won't go on that level of communication...