Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Adult beginners - what is your number one question/problem?

I think maybe that's not such a good analogy because in writing we are not really limited so much by our pen-holding technique as by our thoughts and emotions. Whereas in piano we are often limited more by the physical than the mental.

When I took up with a teacher the very first thing she zeroed in on was eliminating tension in my hand, my wrist, my arm, my shoulder, my body. It was the number one step to sort out. It was not my idea at all but I've come to see how important this issue is because this tension will block you.

Not directly related to the issues you are addressing but may I just beg to differ.

Piano technique is actually "mental". It's the "neural connections" that go from the mind thinking "play this note" to the execution (without interference of other muscles unrelated to the task) that goes on. That's why it can't be rushed with just sheer hours of practice.

Every movement on the piano is a learned skill. There are so many to learn and each one involves things like memorization of distances and angles, developing quickness, positioning of the whole body, balancing the weight, and controlling velocity, responding to what you hear, etc. Even playing a C scale in different registers cause a change.

Certainly I agree with what you just wrote.

Even tension itself can have mental as well as physical root causes, and we can use both mental and physical approaches to lessen it.

Interesting points. I'd just like to respond to the following:




Like Jazzwee, I beg to differ. Was it Chopin who said that to every technical difficulty there is a musical solution?

The real difficulty for adult beginners is taking the measure of just how little they know about music, and so they are unable to find the musical solution.

And who was the pianist who said in response to the admirer who asked how he moves his hands so fast, "but Madame, what makes you think that I play with my hands!"

Dunno. But he was the one who said every difficulty you duck -I believe "slur over" was his phrase - will come back to haunt you.

It was Josef Hofmann and the question actually was how did he play with such small hands.

Landorrano, I didn't get too excited with your earlier support of sight-reading being the primary issue (especially for a jazz pianist like me that doesn't rely on scores).

But I agree with this comment of yours 100%. Part of our problem is that we cannot yet "hear" the musicality issues (this varies depending on level). And if you hear the issue, you will just naturally attempt to correct it and a solution will come.

A very common example among the people here on ABF is often I will find someone attempting a piece that's beyond their level and there's rhythmic/timing issue on the fast lines. To a beginner, it may just sound like a stream of fast notes, and he may not hear the unevenness yet. That hearing skill has to be developed.

Now where I am, as a jazz player, I already am beginning to hear problems in my solos that I didn't hear before. And I'm mad at myself for not hearing it, but I guess this is a never ending process. 10 Years from now I will probably hear new things again and will be solving different issues that I can't hear now.

So developing the musicality (or hearing it), to me is the single most important issue as a beginner. But beginners don't know it yet. Every solution emanates from this.

I would bet that intelligent listening to music (with an analytical mindset) may yield as much results as practice (like a 50:50 relationship). Or as I said earlier, a relationship between ProblemIdentification:ProblemResolution.

BTW this was a more recent realization of mine as I progressed. I wish I knew this at the beginning and I could have developed even faster.

How to use the pedal properly

Currently for me it to keep a steady pace without hesitations. My teacher said to slow down the easy parts so the difficult parts don't appear slow.

I think I get it. You people are talking about, like when my mother used to sing along with Andy Williams... Moon River. Poor guy couldn't say moon river without her bellowing out the most horrid excruciating rendition of the words: Moon River! She sounded like a water buffalo in heat!
Now what you guys are getting at is that she couldn't hear it!?

I couldn't disagree with you people more. That is not a difficulty in learning paino. It is a difficulty in learning to play piano well.

Now back to the water buffalo in heat. She could hear it. She just didn't care. Why? Andy did his job in music. He made a person want to join in and copy him. To sing along. That is when music is the best. The best music comes from you.

That is precisely what many of these beginners are wanting to do. Copy Chopin, Beethoven, etc. Because the music makes them want to play. That is all. It can sound like a water buffalo in heat. Don't matter a diddily. They are loving it. They are enjoying it. That is the end all of the greatest music on earth!

"""...
Landorrano, I didn't get too excited with your earlier support of sight-reading being the primary issue (especially for a jazz pianist like me that doesn't rely on scores).

But I agree with this comment of yours 100%. Part of our problem is that we cannot yet "hear" the musicality issues (this varies depending on level). And if you hear the issue, you will just naturally attempt to correct it and a solution will come.

A very common example among the people here on ABF is often I will find someone attempting a piece that's beyond their level and there's rhythmic/timing issue on the fast lines. To a beginner, it may just sound like a stream of fast notes, and he may not hear the unevenness yet. That hearing skill has to be developed.

Now where I am, as a jazz player, I already am beginning to hear problems in my solos that I didn't hear before. And I'm mad at myself for not hearing it, but I guess this is a never ending process. 10 Years from now I will probably hear new things again and will be solving different issues that I can't hear now.

So developing the musicality (or hearing it), to me is the single most important issue as a beginner. But beginners don't know it yet. Every solution emanates from this.

I would bet that intelligent listening to music (with an analytical mindset) may yield as much results as practice (like a 50:50 relationship). Or as I said earlier, a relationship between ProblemIdentification:ProblemResolution.

BTW this was a more recent realization of mine as I progressed. I wish I knew this at the beginning and I could have developed even faster.
..."""

jazzwee,

A very good post. I am a beginner piano player at 63. When I was 40 I got to learn to play a saxaphone as a beginner and played as a beginner for about 5 years with an excellent teacher
who assisted me while I played in two community bands, plus a blues band and a jazz band all as a beginner. When you play in a band you can hear yourself play but you also hear everyone else so you can hear you or others being out of tune or you being out of tune or playing too fast or too slow. As a beginner I didn't hear a lot of the suff going on around me even though my teacher tried to point out some of the stuff.

Now in my sixties I play and review all the time the music I have learned and even though I play the best that I can, I can instantly hear all my mistakes. So it comes with experience.
Band experience is awesome because you are with other musicians of different levels. When I played the sax, I remember trying to play duets with a couple of piano players and they had no expierence playing with other musicians and had trouble even thought they could play the piano well, they weren't used to listen to another musician - because as you know it is always about listening.

rnaple, LOL. Of course one can't automatically get from A to Z. Like I said, it's about Problem Identification vs. Problem Resolution, in small steps. It's harder than it seems. After all, that's why we have teachers (to point out the problems).

Now if the lady accepts there's no problem because she thinks she's singing like Andy Williams, then that's the end of that. Obviously one must want to improve in order to care.

And not everyone needs to care. For some, achieving a certain level is good enough and is not worth any more time investment. Though, in theory, the point of this thread is to discuss this with the people that do care.

And maybe I'm a little different too. I actually like the journey and it has become more important than some fixed goal.

That's not the point.



UUuuuuummmm.... I didn't say she was stupid. She knew she wasn't singing like Andy. She wasn't born and raised in South Dakota.



Quite seriously....The OP just wanted to know about problems for beginners. That's all. Not problem's becoming good.
Now we've gone and taken over another thread. Trying to answer the questions that the OP asked us to give him.

Seriously...I still am confident that physically doing it is the biggest problem. Doing it wrong leads to injury, pain. Also leads to playing like a water buffalo in heat. Doing anything physiologically wrong leads to a myriad of problems. Including not doing it.


Just to let you know. Those are some of the fondest memories of my mother. To see her enjoying herself. Didn't happen enough.

The biggest problem is that we're beginners, which isn't really a problem, just the state of being.

You make a good point. I apologize for introducing "answers" to the questions since it's not apparent that answers were desired. I only responded to this thread because my blog posts were quoted and discussed up in the first page.

I do still state that "musicality" (as it affects learning) is certainly a top problem IMHO (to keep this back on topic) and perhaps a root of many other problems stated here.

Jazzwee, I enjoy your blog.

I think there's an aspect of "Which comes first, the chicken or the egg" to musicality and beginners. Perhaps you need time playing at a certain level of technique to have "musicality."


Here are a couple more questions/problems frequently heard. (The answer to which is most likely, “It depends.” Still worth discussing, though.)

1. What is the proper mix of easy/at-level/harder pieces?
2. Should all pieces be brought to the polished stage? How do you or your teacher make that decision?

I am also a teacher of adult beginner students, and as Rocket88 said, the biggest problem is practicing the wrong way. But this is mostly easily corrected if you dedicate one of your lessons to learning your students how to practice.

Well, at this moment my biggest problem is actually my teacher!
None of the things you talk about fall into her consideration. Yes, sometimes askes me to get relaxed, or to go slower, but when I say 'hey, what about and specific exercise to get relaxed...or to keep hands closer to the keybed or whatever...' Then I find she has nothing in store.Guess she must be waiting for some miracle to happen.
I could progress a lot more,of that I'm convinced.
At least I can do my searches here in the net.

Good morning. You are mistaken, in my opinion, and I would suppose that this is a common error among adults who decide that they want to learn to play an instrument. Imagining that they just need some technique, that the music is there inside because they like so much listening to music and they have the feeling of understanding it. I think that in fact, the first period of learning an instrument, a first instrument that is, is really learning how to hear and to read ... which are two sides of the same coin.

As I say, this is my opinion of course, I don't mean to try to refute you, I am just trying to explain how I see things.

Just do not accept this situation. Imagine where you will be in 5 years, and how dissapointed you will be if finding out that you could have reached that same level in only 2 years.

You will have paid 5 years a teacher for reaching that level, but you could have reached the same level by paying only 2 years. OK, maybe the better teacher will be more expensive, and the 2 years with a good teacher will cost the same as 5 years with a not so good teacher. But wasting 3 years?

I know, it is all about the "journey". But who can seriously deny, that learning more efficiently and thus quicker would be something bad to do? Doors to new repertoire will open sooner, and the journey can only be more interesting...

Although your teacher might be a really good person, this does not imply that the teaching is automatically good. You have to think about yourself as well, not only about the poor teacher who will become fired.

My experience is that good teachers are not advertising, but you have to make well thought efforts to find them: Find out who are the local pianists and who have been their teachers. Find out who were the teachers of the local conservatory students, before the students entered the conservatory. Find out who is the teacher of the child who recently won the local piano playing competition for the young.

Landorrano, not all the adult begginers come from the same starting point. This I can tell as I jam a theory study group weekly. We are all adults (some, retired) but we don't have same skills or interests, nor the same previous experience. Some of they already played piano or guitar when they were younger, or even went to the conservatory and now they want to restart with lessons or switch to another instrument (my school is specialized in winds, as usual in my region);some played by ear and now want to learn how to read music.
From this, I've realized that the most important thing is, sadly, early ear education and an emotional connection with it, and musical memory. It's very difficult (following my theory teacher's words, and she is musical pedagogue)to train adult ears. We are all learning to read music but just a few of us are able to hear it inside our brain, it seems. This become evident when the time of melodic dictates come. No way. Some people can't even hear if notes ascend or descend.
I can't figure how could I manage that situation.
So, before (or while) learning to read, you have a lot to deal with.
With regards to those who think (I'm one of them) that music is inside our heads and we just need to learn how to play it...it's actually true! Wish I could play all the music I already can dream,think,sing or whistle. That would be a good goal in itself!