I’ve learned by now that there are a few different ways to learn to play piano.

One way is private piano lessons – you pay quite a bit of money on a regular basis, go to a weekly 30-60 minute piano lesson, and learn that way. You start by learning the basics, scales, theory, and a few simple tunes, and maybe in a year or so you’re ready for your first exam.

The problem I always had with that was that it seems to move very slowly, and life always seemed to get in the way – I had to work late, or I had to study, or something else would come up. Also, I wanted to learn modern music, with not so much emphasis on classical. I like Elton John, Coldplay, Billy Joel, U2, that kind of music. OK maybe you prefer classical music, but that’s just me.

Another way I found to learn to play piano is to use a Home Study course of Beginner

Piano Lessons. I liked the idea of learning at my own pace, and I found myself really getting into it as I was really enjoying learning piano this way.

Here's 5 tips I've learned so far -

1. It’s a myth that people with long fingers make great piano players – what you need is strength, agility and dexterity, and anyone can learn that

2. The musical alphabet is 7 letters – A, B, C, D, E, F and G. The very middle note on the piano is called Middle C, and when you find that you can figure out every other note on the piano (it’s really easy)

3. Time signatures are what determines the beat of the music. The most common one is 4/4, especially in modern pop/rock music

4. Sheet music has a treble clef (for the right hand) and a bass clef (for the left hand). When you’re reading sheet music there are really easy ways to remember what note you’re looking at (this was a revelation to me and made it SO easy!). For example, on the bass clef you can figure out all the notes using the sentences

o Good Bikes Don’t Fall Apart, and

o All Cows Eat Grass

5. The black keys on the piano are the sharps and flats, shown by the symbols # (sharp) and b (flat). Sharp means the note goes up by one note (e.g. C# is the black note just above C), and flat means it goes down one note (e.g. E flat is the black note just below E)

I could go on and on – I’m really enjoying this!