Hi everyone,

I am brand new to piano and was wondering, if any of you guys would be able in recmnding any teach yourself methods out there that yield results rather than just hype. Andy advise would be appreciate it.

thank you
monaco

Hi Monaco

There's a thread here: Adult pupil advice on piano teaching books that may give you some ideas. I don't do piano myself, but it's interesting reading.

It is all too easy to establish wrong ways of doing things without a teacher to spot faulty technique. Pictures in a book can only show you so much, and it's still possible to be using your shoulders, arms and hands in the wrong way.

At least get a competent friend to show you and check your arm/hand/finger action.

I tend to agree with maggiemay - I would recommend getting a teacher if at all possible. Unfortunately I've never really seen any 'teach yourself piano' books so I wouldn't know what to recommend.

Maggie, chocolatedog, snuglivixen.....guys I have no words to thank you all in replying to my post. I totally agree that without a teacher one eventually will develop one way or another faulty techniques, unfortunately I can not afford one at the moment that's why resorted into inquiring about self-teaching methods. In any case as I mentioned above thank you all, I highly appreciate it all the info you all gave.

monaco

Have you tried looking on the net - try google? It may come up with some names.

In fact it's come up with this book but as I haven't seen it I honestly couldn't say what it's like.

thanks chocolatedog.....I am looking into it right now and seems the lady who authored it has a vast experience. tx again for suggestion.

I have been teaching myself for a year, I will be taking up regular lessons starting next week as I feel that I have got as far as I can go without making mistakes and learning bad habits. I have tried books but I find them difficult to follow and motivation to stick to them is hard. The most successful way I have found is by using a midi based computer program and a midi keyboard.

I use a program called Teach Me Piano by a company called Voyetra. It runs in Windows XP fine, but it is about 8 or so years old I think. So it has to run in 640x480 compatibility mode (think BIG BLOCKY FONTS!) Because it's midi based it tells you when you hit the wrong notes on a piece, and you can run a metronome while you play and it will tell you how accurate you are at timing too.
It's not a substitute for a good teacher - but it will give you all the basics and probably set you up to teach yourself if you are intent on doing it that way.

I thoroughly recommend it.

Good luck!

Tomosiano,

thanks a lot for the suggestion. BiG Blocky fonts - will do just fine for me. I wear glasses so that's always a positive thing, eventhough I hate admitting it. I will look it up.. thanks again.

monaco