Childhood piano lessons (1 Viewer)

[Los Davos]

There was no heed on music in my house so I never got a lesson in anything. I wish I had, it's very frustrating that all that time was lost. I don't know if you can learn properly later on. Can you?

or don't even try to learn formally, just play what sounds good to you. mess about. have fun.

 

[egg_]

The real proper classical way? You'd have to work your balls off

You have to work your balls off anyway, if it's something hard. When I was back up to (or close to) my teenage standard a few years ago it could still take me months to learn a piece properly

 

[Froog]

hmm, why does everyone stop at grade 8? do you have to play with your langer in grade 9 or something?

 

[coast to coast]

The real proper classical way? You'd have to work your balls off

I can play guitar, bass, some drums. I definitely find piano the hardest. You have to almost split you brain in half to learn the real two handed piano stuff. It's can be quiet slow learning something new.

You don't have to split your brain in half any more than you do with drumming I think. I mean left and right sides do differnt things in drumming also and with four limbs rather than just two.

I think you just need to be very methodical and split things up into tiny little pieces and practice step by step. Can be real satisfying when you play something so ridiculously fast that you couldn't comprehend a few months before. (And it can take months learn to play something properly).

 

[mazunte]

I stopped around grade 3 or 4 when I was 12.

My teacher used to hit my fingers with her little conductor wand thingy.

My mother told me a while ago that the auld bat once complained to her about my swaying back and forth while playing.

I like to think I was rocking-out .|..|

 

[egg_]

hmm, why does everyone stop at grade 8? do you have to play with your langer in grade 9 or something?

Grade 8 is the highest normal grade, after that there's a series of diplomas

 

[coast to coast]

hmm, why does everyone stop at grade 8? do you have to play with your langer in grade 9 or something?

Grade 8 is the highest certificate for musicianship in Ireland - after that there is diploma and other different options - this is when the mickey playing comes in.

 

[BonsaiSuperstar]

Hey Froog - after grade 8 you have to do diplomas and stuff you want to go further and can lead to you teaching piano. to be honest you can only really do this diplomas if you choose music as a career option as they take much more effort than regular grades.thats what i founf anyway.

coast to coast - i disagree about independance of the right and left and on the piano being comparable to the drums.
with the drums you are hitting a big large area. with piano you are using different fingers and hitting smaller targets.

 

[pulk]

every tuesday for an hour from the ages of 5 to 18 with mrs. gogarty and her black labrador nipper....

the ivory was practically worn of her piano and she had the most mangled arthritic looking digits imaginable....

i loved it but in retrospect my only regret would be that having a teacher who is entrenched in the whole grades and exams thing means that you (or at least i did anyway) end up with no ability to just jam and be spontaneous with the instrument...as soon as i get a place of my own i'm going to get a piano and get a jazz pianist to come and show me all they've got

having said that though it's probably the thing i'm most grateful to my parents for funding, i remember when they finally saved up to buy a piano it was given a room of it's own in the house and we were only allowed in at xmas or to practice

 

[coast to coast]

I stopped around grade 3 or 4 when I was 12.

My teacher used to hit my fingers with her little conductor wand thingy.

My mother told me a while ago that the auld bat once complained to her about my swaying back and forth while playing.

I like to think I was rocking-out .|..|

when I was doing grade 7, which was the first time I did exams for grades in about 2 or three years, my teacher taught me how to press the keys again... it was actually incredibly useful, despite how strange it sounds.

 

[coast to coast]

Hey Froog - after grade 8 you have to do diplomas and stuff you want to go further and can lead to you teaching piano. to be honest you can only really do this diplomas if you choose music as a career option as they take much more effort than regular grades.thats what i founf anyway.

coast to coast - i disagree about independance of the right and left and on the piano being comparable to the drums.
with the drums you are hitting a big large area. with piano you are using different fingers and hitting smaller targets.

There's certainly a difference, but to play the piano well and the drums well the same discipline of separating your limbs into doing different things at the same time. But yeh in some ways I agree - the piano keys are different challenge alright and I think its much easier to sound decent on the drums with far less technique and practice than it is the piano.

 

[egg_]

i loved it but in retrospect my only regret would be that having a teacher who is entrenched in the whole grades and exams thing means that you (or at least i did anyway) end up with no ability to just jam and be spontaneous with the instrument

That's the way it went for me too, though to be honest I didn't really start to enjoy it until I got to grade 6 or so.

My sister-in-law did a keyboard skills thing during the first year of her music degree which covered accompaniment and kind of playing-along with a melody. Seems like it's regarded as a different discipline to just playing the piano (which it is, I suppose)

 

[hugh]

i loved it but in retrospect my only regret would be that having a teacher who is entrenched in the whole grades and exams thing means that you (or at least i did anyway) end up with no ability to just jam and be spontaneous with the instrument...

This is very true. I did up until Grade 6 before I decided playing piano was strictly for benders and insisted on doing guitar lessons instead. Totally different experience as this was about how to effectively play with someone else and improvise/jam a little bit too.

Though, the sheer discipline of learning pieces on the piano is really good. You can't just play the easy thing, or the thing you know how to play already, you have to stick at it until you can play it the way it's supposed to be played, and that means that at the end of it you can play something you couldn't play before

 

[BonsaiSuperstar]

That's the way it went for me too, though to be honest I didn't really start to enjoy it until I got to grade 6 or so.

My sister-in-law did a keyboard skills thing during the first year of her music degree which covered accompaniment and kind of playing-along with a melody. Seems like it's regarded as a different discipline to just playing the piano (which it is, I suppose)

it is definitely true that you get too caught up in grades and exams. jamming and classical piano seem to be very different disciplines
i did piano up to grade 8 but couldnt play you a piece.
however if you have learned your theory about chords and scales it is quite easy to jam along with a band.
you can underestimate how much you know sometimes!

 

[Cara]

Grade 8 is the highest normal grade, after that there's a series of diplomas

With the RIAM there's a senior certificate before the diplomas, but that's because the RIAM exams are piss in comparison to any of the other examining boards (ABRSM or Trinity Guildhall or whatever), then there's a diploma, licentiate and fellowship. it's not necessarily for teaching purposes, most places have a specific diploma for teaching and one for performance.

I don't think it's necessary to have chosen music as a career path to do a diploma, it takes a lot of work, but not so much you'd have to give up anything all that much to do it

when I was doing grade 7, which was the first time I did exams for grades in about 2 or three years, my teacher taught me how to press the keys again... it was actually incredibly useful, despite how strange it sounds.

I had the most incredible piano tutor in Hungary, he basically retaught me everything starting with 'catching the keys.' That was pretty much all we did for the first few hours, was amazing the difference it made though

 

[Lili Marlene]

I got as far as grade 6 on the recorder but then you have to learn to play another kind of recorder to continue and I really wasn't bothered

I'll never forget on my last lesson I learnt about 3 notes I'd never played before, couldn't believe it!

 

[classic seanc]

All I ever got was childhood pain-o lessons.

 

[pulk]

Though, the sheer discipline of learning pieces on the piano is really good. You can't just play the easy thing, or the thing you know how to play already, you have to stick at it until you can play it the way it's supposed to be played, and that means that at the end of it you can play something you couldn't play before

spot on! playing the tough stuff conditions your fingers to be more dexterous and allows trills and the like to become ingrained in your muscle memory which is great.

the other thing is that to this day when faced with a 'how on earth am i going to manage this' kind of challenge in life, i genuinely remind myself that every year for thirteen years i'd move up a grade and think 'there's no way i'm ever going to master this, i've hit the wall of my abilities' and then somehow come the next exam it would just have happened, i'd be playing it and wondering how i got from stilted plinky plonky to full blown recital of the piece....sounds a tad oprahesque but it's great for the old personal development as well as the obvious musical benefits!

 

[BonsaiSuperstar]

I'll never forget on my last lesson I learnt about 3 notes I'd never played before, couldn't believe it!

Cb, B# and E#?

 

[Lili Marlene]

Cb, B# and E#?

just really high notes with mental fingering

you can't see the notes on the recorder like you can on a piano