Hi,

I'm thinking of starting piano lessons, and would like to know how long it takes to get the hang of it. I can already read music, so I won't need to learn that, but do you have to read two lines of music at the same time, cos I think I'd find that hard!?

Thanks,

Jade.

You do indeed have to read two staves at once, usually in different clefs too. It does get worse though as you're not limited to just one note or one voice on each stave at once either... Fear not though much of it can be done by recognising the shapes of chords, you don't necessarily have to read each note indivdually: also for grade 1 sightreading it's mostly one hand first and then the other so you don't have to think about sightreading them both together until you're comfortable individually. You'd probably pick it up more quickly than usual since you've played an instrument before.

Is it needed for a career in music? No, not required but it is very useful: if you want to be a music teacher (of another instrument) it's useful to be able to play the piano accompaniment; many of the great composers composed their symphonies and so on on piano (it's sometimes more useful than other instruments which can't play many notes at once) and then orchestrated them later; having said that some composers don't/didn't play the piano (probably)...

Playing the piano is good fun and is also useful so I'd recommend it to you, maybe I'm biased though .

hey, playing the piano is really fun, but it can be hard. you do have to read from two staves and the notes are in defferent places. but once u get the hang of it, it can be really fun and addictive!

As i put in another thing, what's the best way to learn to play with both hands?

You really need a teacher, purple dolphin. You are very young, and are going to find it much harder to teach yourself than an adult who has a lot of musical experience.

Hi Jade,
It would probably be useful to play the piano if you want a career in music. For a start, having some knowledge of the piano helps massively for academic qualifications in music, for example, the composition at GCSE and the composition, harmony and stylistic imitation at A-level. Then, if you want to do music at university, you'll need to play the piano (at least grade five) to even apply for a lot of courses, and your piano skills would obviously be a great help for the work you do there. However, there a lot of people here who can tell you far more about this than I can. I've got a vague idea of your age from some of your other posts and I'd say you have plenty of time to get to that standard by the time you're old enough to apply to university.

I wouldn't recommend being self taught either - I haven't had formal piano lessons since I was little, and I doubt it's possible to be more inconsistent than I am. One day I'll be playing Rachmaninov, the next I'll be messing up things out of the grade two book. This is something I'm looking to address (I'll be looking for a piano teacher starting in June and telling them to start me from scratch), so if you want to play the piano get yourself a teacher. Don't end up like me, with increasing regrets of what I could have done with my music if I'd played the piano properly in time for my UCAS form!

Helena

depends on how well u adjust to things - everybody has their own ways of getting the hang of what they're doing.

when i first started, i loved just practicing so i think i adjusted better than my sister w/ violin, but it's up to you w/ what you want to do.

also, just b/c you already know how to read music doesn't mean you have to keep learning it. you DO - if you want to keep playing

don't think it's necessarily required for a music career - but nowadays, what w/ things being harder and harder, it's best to be well-rounded.