I am a musician, i have registered with piano teaching schools to able to learn how to play piano but it had not worked out for me because, they just would not start teaching me from the scratch. It’s really been tough so, i gave up on it.
Now, age is not really on my side as we were told that above 25, you just cant learn piano again because your brain will be crowded with a lot of things and in such situation, learning piano is not just possible. I beleived its true because i really could not cope with the piano schools i've tried, yet they produce good pianists every other session but me. So, i was so frustrated and discouraged untill i got to know about this very mind blowing technology...
If not for this technology, I surely might never learn to play piano ever again. So, am so excited to let you know how this easy piano learning technology helped me.
I’m truely lucky to be alive in a time where wealths of resources are available and accessible to all at the click of just a button.
This is intended to help someone else who probably have tried to learn piano or wants to teach others puano, start out too.
Playing a piano has a lot of health benefits which includes:
Souce (bestdigitalpiano.net)
Intelligence improvement – students of piano lessons are perceived to be highly intelligent in the classroom as compared to their fellow classmates. McGill research in Montreal University, Canada found students that studied piano for 3 years scored higher than their peers in every test expecially in mathematics.
Improvement of neural connections – Neurons sends and process information as signals in the brain. Northwestern University study, proved that playing piano adds to neural connections because, neural firings happen when music is being played which suggests higher brain function.
Music students or students with music in their academic curriculum, usually and significantly have better vocabulary, verbal sequencing and communication skills than those who did not.
Relievs stress – Playing piano allows makes you feel stress free. Its been revealed that, playing keyboard to relax, have significant higher reversal of stress genes than other relaxing techniques by our health and fitness professionals.
Hands and eye coordination – playing the piano often while reading the music sheet, trains the eyes and hands closely work together. You develop independent coordination for your hands and eyes, which can improve your reaction time frame/productivity. It also strengthens neural pathways of the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
Language development – According to research, teaching musice to children that are under the age of 7, make them have larger vocabularies which helps in language development and learning foreign languages. It has also been extablished that adults with musical background (eg: piano training in their youth), learn foreign language quicker and efficiently than those that did not
Increases growth hormone in humans– particularly for older adults, playing piano increases the human growth hormones, which are linked to reduction of the aches and pains feelings that come with aging. A study done at the University of Miami showed that the test group of people who took keyboard lessons had significantly higher levels of the human growth homone than the control group that did not take keyboard classes. High human growtg homone production, leads to slowed progression of osteoporosis in humans, and increases the energy levels, sexual function and muscle mass generally.
Ability to Split concentration – To split concentration or Learning how to get your hands to work together may be difficult at first but as you practice it will become second nature. Playing piano allows you develop the ability to focus on multiple things simultaneously which may seem imposible. To play the piano you must coordinate your hand movements as well as read the music in front of you which requires a lot of intentional focus and high concentration and this split skill, can be applied to multi-tasking life situations.
Aural awareness/sensitivity–People that are involved in any type of musical hobby, recognizes different pitches and chords. Thus, they can easily explore the different variations of sound, rhythm and the complementary of melodies and harmonies. Aural awareness is not just ear beneficial but is great exercise for your brain too.
Increases creativity: Playing the piano is a very creative activity. Research by Vanderbilt University psychologist showed that musicians use a creative technique known as divergent thinking which requires you to use both sides of your brain at the same time. Every time you play you are using both sides to correlate your hands and read music as well. Exercising this technique constantly is why musicians tend to be more creative thinkers allowing them to be better able think outside the box when it comes to problem solving in real life circumstances.
Now...back to the piano learning technology...
I've been a musician for a long time now, even though I couldn’t read music better than any body, let alone playing it. Everything I knew about the technical side of music until now came from experiences and life happenstances.
To be honest, when I was about 9. My parents bought me a yamaha piano, so i can learn how to play. But at the end of the day, i could only play our national anthem with single notes only and never chords. I was very proud of it.
It was much for me. But then I suddenly stopped playing because my keyboard got spoilt. We couldn’t afford a piano teacher, a smartphone so i can even get YouTube tutorials or ebooks or such access to information, trying to learn all by myself, felt like forcing a block peg into a round hole. After i tried all i could and to no avail, I resorted to simply be a beter listener so that i may actually understand the music genre I like so much. Perhaps even make my own songs someday.
So, I researched.
After the research I settled for Faber’s Adult Piano Adventures and it was really a maximum help for me.
Source (pianoadventures.com)
That’s partly because the Piano came with a discount on it, but mostly because Faber was an established name that also have a nifty iOS app (an Android version) and many lesson videos. It was the right combination of traditional and new-fangled that i've been looking for.
The app was a very useful resource for me at the moment so, I got stucked and the whole) the entire process more fun.
I connected the app to an iPad Mini using Bluetooth, although a wired connection also worked. These are a few notable features:
You can control the tempo(metronome), loop sections, resize sheet music.
It has an optional keyboard view that allows you see exactly the notes to hit, which helped me learn to read music more quickly than i thought and that was all i needed and today, i play the piano proffessionally.
You can also isolate each hand and you can also listen to the accompaniment only. You can also change the volume for each part as you so wish.
You can equally make the music wait for you to play the right note before it starts. A dynamic tempo mode changes the speed of the music to match your own playing pace which helps begginers a lot. This was how i could learn to play with accompanyments until I get the music up to the default tempo as i grow.
There are many practice songs of different genres and at different levels.
When I had trouble with a particular piece or passage in the book, I was able to turn to the app to help me figure out a tune and reinforce it section by section to reslove the problem for me.
It was convenience and so, i was practicing olmost every day. And i was very able to switch things up which made the whole process very interesting. I listened to audiobooks on my way to the office, gym or even church. So i was learning even when I can’t practically pratice. I’ve been learning with an obsessive focus if it weren’t for the added convenience of this friendly technology.
There’s another app called Synthesia, which is popular because its helping one play piano in a Guitar Hero style. A lot of people use it for learning individual songs.
If you’re interested in starting out all by yourself, I’d recommend you try Faber Adult piano adventures
Here are other few useful resources I found during my practice other than the ones I mention above:
Reddit’s piano pack FAQ.
Ear Training and Rhythm Practice pack: Perfect Ear training app (Android) or Tenuto (iOS).
Living Pianos Video pack: Hundreds of useful videos covering all sorts of topics related to pianos and its application.
There’s nothing quite impressive like whatching and hearing an accomplished pianist play something live.
REFERENCES:
Napier Lopez which was originally published on The Next Web.
