How to Play the Piano: If you are interested to learn how to play the piano, the best way start is to gain a solid foundation in the basics of playing, and the proper way of practicing your skills.

While you may be tempted to forge ahead and start playing by ear, some early attention to the finer points of the instrument will save you from developing bad habits early. Developing good skills early on will pay great dividends as you increase your skill and encounter more challenging pieces later on.

How to Play the Piano: The #1 Tip!

One of the best early habits you can develop at the keys is to make practice a part if your daily routine. Come to your practice space rested and able to focus on the task at hand. Playing an instrument is just like exercise: you need to warm up, and you need to pace yourself.

Failing at this very simple first step will cause you undue frustration. Playing an instrument is meant to be a pleasure, and a relaxing experience. Being mindful of this before sitting down at keys will ensure your practice goes smoothly, and that you get a lot of enjoyment out of your practice sessions.

• If you have never taken instruction in music before, you may feel that everything looks alike.

However, there is an order to the keyboard that, if understood from the beginning, will make your play far more enjoyable, and aid you in reading sheet music later on. Your home base on any keyboard is known as Middle C. This is the tonic center of the keyboard, although you will notice, it is not the actual center, middle C is the fourth C key from the left (the low end) in a standard 88-key keyboard.

You can find middle C by finding the set of two black keys (called sharps or flats depending on the musical arrangement) and locating the first white key to the left of these two. This is your home base for reading music and beginning to practice scales. On a page of sheet music, middle C is located on the first whole step below the staff.

From there, the whole piece develops into the shapes and patterns of the sheet music. Take the time to learn to read sheet music well, to notice the recurring patterns of the music, and your experience playing from sheet music will be much improved and this should be considered when it comes to learning how to play the piano to avoid any undesired results.

• One of the best ways to gain proficiency with playing is to practice scales.

While scales are the stereotypical bane of all music students because they seem tedious or boring, playing scales will lay the groundwork for a student to move easily up and down the keyboard. If you are playing any scale, your finger movements for both hands should be very specific in order to help you achieve a full octave range of motion, that is, to let you travel over the full eight notes of the octave in one movement.

In the left hand, that movement starts in the pinky, travels up to the thumb, and then continues with the last three notes played using the middle, index and thumb. In the right hand, this motion is slightly different and this should be considered when it comes to learning how to play the piano.

How to Play the Piano:Facts to Consider!

• Your scale begins with the thumb, index and middle.

To continue in one fluid motion, your thumb travels to the fourth note, and then the rest of the fingers (index to pinky) play the rest of the notes naturally. This motion will at first seem very awkward, but with regular practice, your movement over the keys will become more fluid and regulated.

• Fluid motion at the keys begins with fluid motion throughout your body.

Before you begin to play, take a moment to take a deep breath and reset your posture. With a deep breath and a moment to set up your hands to play, your practice sessions will get off to a more relaxed start. Look at the piece of music you are going to play, and set your hands so that you have easy access to the first notes and this should be noted when it comes to learn how to play the piano.

• With your fingers curled, play the notes slowly and carefully.

You may want to learn a piece by chunking, which is the act of taking a small piece of the music (maybe a few bars or half a page) and continuing to practice it until you have the musical phrases down perfectly. Continue this over as many sessions as you need to complete the entire piece of music and this is really one of the most powerful tips when it comes to learning how to play the piano.

How to Play the Piano: Closing Tips!

• Try to think of this first step as the sketch of your finished masterpiece.

By taking the time to master the phrases individually, you will have a much easier time completing the entire piece from start to finish in a few sessions. Once you have gotten to the point where you can successfully play the piece from start to finish with few errors in the notes or harmonies, you can begin to refine your understanding of the piece, and add more expression to your playing.

When you begin to work on the final polish of a piece, start by taking the time to review not only the notes and the chords, how they all fit together into the finished product, take special care to look at the notations provided along with the sheet music.

• Make yourself aware of points of increased volume (crescendo) and decreased (decrescendo).

Look for any indicators over specific notes (such as a staccato dot, indicating that the note should start and stop crisply). These notes are the composers way to teach you exactly how the music should be played, and where the emphasis should be as you play. Paying careful attention to these markings will render your finished performance both accurate and moving to your audience.

As you practice your skills of scales and sheet music reading, you may find that you can eventually sight-read work with ease. An experienced sight-reader can sit down to a piece of music for the first time, and play the piece (with all of its intended nuance) with very few errors or off-sounding notes.

The skills you build early in your experience will take you from learning how to play piano, through to learning the ways in which to master this dynamic and emotionally moving instrument and, to avoid any undesired consequences, you should consider the above facts about how to play the piano.