How Long To Learn Piano?

Ok so ive never played anything musical in my life and as of lately i been really wanting to play something and ive been playing ps1 final fantasys again and it hit me! PIANO! So i youtubed a few videos and final fantasy isn't the only music from gaming that sounds great on piano so im very determined to learn.So on avg do yall think it would take to learn a few songs on it? Weeks?Months? Years?

Also anyone got a good starting place to buy a piano to start this journey on?

I'd recommend buying a cheap electronic keyboard before going all out and buying a full-sized piano.

I took piano lessons from a young age and did up to gr. 5 piano exams with the Royal Conservatory of Music.

With no musical backround it can be extremely difficult to learn how to play specific pieces of music etc.

First you need to learn how to read and understand music - its like its own language.

I definitely think you could do it, but it might require lessons. If you just wanted to play a few simple tunes etc. I'm sure you could fool around with it and figure it out with some simple guides online but if you really wanted to play the music you would need to start from basics.

Its a really rewarding hobby/skill if you invest the time/energy. I hated it when I started at a young age. I hated practicing etc. but as I got older I really enjoyed it. Looking back I wish I didn't stop taking lessons when I did but I had to since I went to university etc.

I can't really tell you how difficult or long it would take you as that would all depend on how much effort you put into it but I would definitely reccomend trying and investigating it!

I would definitely look for a cheap electronic keyboard.. I know a ton of people who started taking lessons or trying to learn and quickly gave up or lost interest. I'm not saying this would be the case with you but rather real piano's can be very expensive! so I wouldn't risk wasting the money.

Check out these books (especially the Easy ones for a beginner like you):

http://www.alfred.co...=zelda&type=All
http://www.alfred.co...=mario&type=All

They are newly published. I have been debating ordering them recently!

Who knows? Maybe one day you'll end up like the guy in this video:



Absolutely beautiful music!

Edited by geoGolem, 22 February 2012 - 04:17 PM.

Reason for edit: Try to avoid double posts. ~Dep

agreed with geoGolem completely. My parents forced me to learn piano when I was a kid, didnt' like it much at first but boy how thankful I am now. I only learned for 3-4 years then gave up because I got fed up, but I just felt like getting back into it and bought an expensive electronic keyboard (a yamaha dgx640) and I'm really happy that I have what it takes to play simple songs and enjoy it. I have regained motivation and want to learn more!
but if you start from scratch it will probably be quite frustrating, you need visual guides to tell you exactly which keys to hit. An electronic keyboard could help but I dont recommend getting an actual piano so early...

I'm in the same boat, I really want to learn the piano.
I started learning in primary school but I didn't like it so I quit, I sooo regret it (I even got a Yamaha for free! (which I had to give back once I quit)).

Though I'm constantly looking out for piano lessons in my area, I wouldn't have the patience or attention span to do it on my own.

Edited by prowler_, 23 February 2012 - 03:15 AM.

The program "Play Synthesia" really helped me learn how to play the piano. You don't need to know how to read musical notes, just memorize where and when to hit certain keys.
It's like Guitar Hero, but for the Piano.

Here's an example of how it looks like:

celeron53, on 23 February 2012 - 03:13 AM, said:

This might teach you to play piano, but it won't teach you how to read actual sheet music, It will make you dependent on a version of music for that program. I agree with geoGolem, I've actually learned to play so far through an Alfred series of books (with piano lessons), I'm very pleased with them.

Yeah, I agree with you, but I think learning how to read musical notes is going to take more time, than watching piano notes fall down and learning when to hit the keys. I was assuming that the topic creator wanted to learn how to play specific songs quick.

Learn how to code in C. I bet it's a lot easier and much more rewarding.

Learning piano is just like learning any musical instrument though, you have to spend quite a bit of effort and time to get it right. You couldn't possibly play like Beethoven in just 1 year or 2 years, so it really depends on what you want to play on it.

Plus, other than your playing skills, it's best to learn music theory it's helpful for everything. There's sheet music reading like everyone said, which is really important if you want to be a good pianist. Plus, you need to know rhythm and time signatures if you want to sound like the original music. Then there's a bunch of other stupid theory stuff as well.

When I started learning guitar I thought music theory was useless but when I wanted to improvise and write my own songs, just knowing a few stupid scales didn't help much.

Buying a keyboard is actually a very good decision, because of the versatility of a keyboard, you can tweak the effects and whatnot, and you can get grand piano tones on it as well, so it's good if you just want to test the waters. Plus you don't actually need to play classical, you can play rock, jazz, whatever you want and you can find various tones for the occasions on a keyboard.

I'm not a keyboard pro, but just my two cents (but factoring in the conversion rate to USD, it's probably worth a few hundred billion).

Also:

You can get a free/very cheap piano on craigslist... no joke people move and don't know wehat to do with them, some people prefer keyboards tho cause you can get diff sounds and stuff tho....

It's definitely a great skill to say you have. I had taken it when I was about 4 or 5 and quit soon after. I took it again about 2 years ago and was able to get up to grade 5 before having to stop for school. I also learned the trumpet at school in during my piano "hiatus".

I'd highly recommend it because piano is pretty much the root to learning any musical instrument. After my last few lessons of piano, I bought a bass guitar and an electric guitar and taught myself from there.

With no musical background it will be difficult, but don't give up! Start small and DEFINITELY take lessons. Looking forward to hear what you can do!

Edited by roastable, 23 February 2012 - 04:16 AM.

I bought a pretty nice keyboard for myself a while ago, but I haven't done much with it yet.
It was a little disheartening to realize I completely forgot how to read sheetmusic since I graduated from highschool and stopped playing my saxophone, haha.

My biggest gripe is memorization of both the keys and sheet music. My memory is total shit so it's a real pain in the ass.

Also if you want a nice, cheap keyboard to start on, i'd really recommend a Casio WK-200
Price to quality wise, it's the best I could find. It's pretty cheap for what it offers, and it has solid reviews everywhere I went. The only time I saw negative reviews was when people were like "So yeah this keyboard isn't as good at my $50,000 professional keyboard..."

Before actually learning how to play piano, I recommend you learn how to read the music sheets, my family wanted me to follow piano classes when I was a kid, but I refused and opted with the guitar, but since I opted guitar, I wanted to learn the proper way and for that reading music sheets and understanding them is a must.
A lot of people play instruments by ear, that is, they can't read music, only follow the sounds, while it might be easier at times, with that alone you'll never be able to really play 'music'.

you don't learn piano... the piano learns you