First post in a while... have been waiting for my piano to arrive. It arrived last week and I just have to share a picture of it!

I also had my first lesson, which was a bit of a surprise. I was expecting my first lesson to be geared toward learning to read notes. It was not . I started with learning C major chord and several scales utilizing that chord. The teacher was highly recommended and he seems very passionate about the piano.

Am I safe in assuming that there is more than one way to "skin a cat", and that this approach is no better or worse than another? Being as I am a newbie I am really not sure what to expect.
Any thoughts?

Fran

:3hearts:

Sorry for the double posting...am not sure what happened

Fran

nice looking piano, congrats! couldn't tell the model name from the picture though. what piano is it?

if you are a total beginner, learning scales might be a good thing as you know little about music notations or playing techniques. playing scales is also part of learning basic skills. i'd see how it would go later on when you start learning some music pieces.

I teach the C, F, G triad in the first lesson!

And Blocked chords, Arpeggios on each.

5 finger position technique and names of all notes up and down the keyboard and music notation.

Sounds like you are off to a great start!

LL

Signa,

It is a 5'8" Knabe. This size and the 6'1" are exact replicas of the original 1920 Baltimore scale. The sound is very impressive. I like the warm "American" sound and this has it.

Fran

The problem with piano lessons today is
that they teach all students as though
they are going on to be concert pianists--
the handful of pianists who are able
to play a large repertoire of lengthy works
from memory onstage in front of thousands
of people. This is analogous to the situation
in our schools where all students are
taught as though they are going on to
get Ph.D.'s, but the results of this
method are dismal: 1/3 of all high school
students drop out. Similarly, most piano
students drop out or get stalled at
the advanced intermediate level.

The reason for this is that when you
are taught to play from memory, this
gradually comes to dominate everything at the
keyboard, pushing aside all else,
in particular, the ability to read and
play from a score. Students are typically
required to memorize all the pieces they
prepare, from the start--this is not
too much of a problem when the pieces
are easy and short, since there are
few notes to memorize, but as the pieces
get harder and longer, the student with
average memory ability soon finds that
he has difficulty playing at all, since
he can no longer securely memorize the longer
pieces, and he has no skills in playing
from a score.

The situation you describe with your
teacher seems ominous, in my view.
Right from the start he deemphasizes
the need to read the score, concentrating
instead on "physical and auditory skills,"
that is scales and chords, which seems
right in line with the typical "concert
pianist" approach. If you have a
phenomenal ability to memorize, you'll
take to this approach readily, but
99+% of people don't have such abilities,
and thus, as the pieces get more difficult,
their playing will eventually hit a
stone wall, since their memory will not
be up to the task.