Piano Lessons

Piano Lessons

Are you thinking about piano lessons? There are a lot of different ways to approach learning to play the piano. The traditional approach is to follow a fairly strict regimen of exercises and then start to learn to play traditional pieces; and don't forget scales! Some practitioners advocate a different approach.

In an article titled " The Case Against "Traditional" Piano Lessons" by Edward Weiss (Copyright 2004) the author says, "how would you like to spend 4 years in a University learning how to play other peoples music? If you think this is ridiculous, you're right! Because that's what thousands of piano music students do each day. They sit in front of their piano or keyboard with sheet music of a dead composer in front of them. Then they are told to "play it right." Have you ever heard of such nonsense? Imagine a budding writer forced to copy another novelists work? In essence, this is what classical piano students do. They copy."

Have you ever seen a child who has just started piano lessons sitting at a piano? What do they do? The ones who actually enjoy the instrument almost always sit and try things out. They try to make melodies. They are not concerned with the "correctness" of what they're doing; they're enjoying the act of creating musical sounds. Maybe Edward has the right idea?

To read the rest of Edward Weiss' article take a look at Piano Lesson Reviews and see the wealth of different approaches there are to learning to play.