How Did You Learn to Play?

[magicmonkey]

The topic pretty much says it all, how did all of you guys learn to play keyboard/synth/piano? I am interested because I am just starting now, and I would like some advice on how to start, what books to buy, what equipment I need, etc.

 

Thanks,

 

Nate

[Krakit]

I am self taught.

 

When I was 14, I asked (more like begged) my parents for piano lessons.

 

My father told me to save up and buy a piano first. After lots of lawn mowing, I bought a Univox Compac for $140.

 

I used a pair of old GI issue headphones to play it.

 

"Now, can I have lessons?"

 

"I need to see that you have some aptitude, I'll pick out a piece of music, when you can play that, I'll pay for lessons"

 

The piece? Flight of the Bumblebee.

 

I still haven't mastered that one, but in the meantime I had taught myself Billy Joel's whole repertoire and discovered ELP. I never did get any lessons.

 

My father was about as supportive as Salieri's dad in Amadeus. He changed his tune when I was making more in a year playing in a touring band than he was for IBM.

[coyote]

I haven't learned to play yet http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif Picked it up a few years ago after playing drums & guitar & other instruments for years. I can comp chords & riffs and occasionally surprise myself w/ a moderately interesting solo. But I cannot yet play complex bass/rhythm on one hand while soloing in the right.... gonna be years before I get to that point. Nor can I sightread melodies; in fact I probably do not have proper technique either!

[Steve LeBlanc]

When I was 5 my oldest brother showed me how to play a few simple chords so I could play the changes for "Freebird" while he soloed on the guitar. I was playing a Univox Compac too...

 

Later that year my mom bought an upright piano...I was hooked and played it for hours just banging out chords making little silly songs.

 

Once my mom saw that I was serious she pretty much forced me to take lessons and practice at least an hour a day. She said "If you want to play music you have to learn to play right."

 

So I studied classical piano for 10 years but the whole time I was studying classical I'd also spend more time playing with records. I learned Billy Joel's first two albums by ear, several Elton John songs and just kept playing.

 

When I was about 13 I started getting heavy into Jazz, I was listening to a lot of ELP, Return to Forever, Al Dimeola, etc. So I took private Jazz lessons and studied Jazz at New Englad Conservatory of Music. Even later when I was 17 I went to Dick Grove School of Music for 2 years, I feel I learned more at this school than any other.

 

I've always benefited more from learning by ear than from formal training but I'm thankful for both and wouldn't feel complete without the lessons and classes I took.

 

 

 

This message has been edited by Steve LeBlanc on 06-29-2001 at 01:59 PM

[b3wiz]

I took piano lessons from 6 thru 10 yrs. I always had a natural ear and because of it, my reading has never been what I would like it to be. But, I have always been able to hear something once or not even once and be able to play it pretty accurately. This has enabled me to get a lot of studio work and various freelance gigs.

 

Back in the analog days, if I wanted to really get a solo down exact, I would record it on my reel to reel on fast then play it back slow which would make it an octave lower and half as fast.

 

From the time I was 13 thru about 16 I jammed nearly every night with a phenomenal blues and jazz harp player who took me under his wing. He was a fine guitarist as well, but I've never heard anything like him on harp. He could play just about anything Coletrane ever did on sax on harp! I was so lucky to have such a guy as a mentor and owe my entire musical career to him.

 

Unfortunately, he and his wife were on a fishing trip in Canada a few years back and he dove in the water to rescue his wife who had fallen out of the boat and they both drowned. I never really appreciated what I had learned from him until the last few years. Guess how much I would give to be able to play with him now? bummer, indeed. John

[SFOracle]

My mother is a fine violinist, who always wanted to play the piano, so she insisted that my brother, my sister and I all take piano lessons - we were permitted to choose any instrument we wanted after we got to grade 7 (of 10) in the Royal Conservatory or Music system (a very common music education system in commonwealth countries). My brother dropped piano and learned bass, guitar and sax (tenor), I kept up the piano and learned sax (alto) and drums. My sister dropped music all together.

 

I say I kept up piano, but I didn't continue in the classical stream. I found a teacher for a couple of years who taught Jazz - but really I took lessons from her because she was only a couple years older than I was and she was HOT!!!! After that, I taught myself through copying others and playing in bands. Like B3Wiz, I also learned to cheat (and my sight reading suffered) because I have a pretty good ear.

 

Don.

[mwisniewski]

My mother forced me to take lessons when I was 9 and I hated it! She always said you'll always be thankful you learned to play the piano when you grow up. Unfortunately http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif she was completely right ... thanks mom.

 

Out of the 6 or 7 teachers I had, only one made piano fun and worth it at the same time. I was a rotten student, but he let me pick the music I wanted to play even if it was too hard, he'd just figure a way to let me play it. I remember wanting to learn Rhapsody in Blue at age 12, so we learned one short passage at a time, and pretty soon I had could play it. And then he did something wonderful, he said, now that you know how to play you have to learn how to play it well. And that's what made it worth it, he took my measly talent and then enhanced it beyond anthing I could have imagined. I'm still amazed by the latent power in my fingers that come from this teachers push for excellence. I am always thankful to this teacher, because even today, there's things he made me learn that just come out of nowhere and all of a sudden a simple song becomes fantastic to play. If I have kids I will definitely make them learn, if possible I would get a Juliard trained teacher, like the one I had.

 

I did stop playing between 17 and 25 years of age, mainly because it wasn't my initial passion ... and girls were much more interesting.

 

Funny thing, I had this romance with learning guitar for a while, then my friend, a guitar player (self taught) told me why are you trying to learn the guitar when you play the piano so well? Why don't you get a keyboard, there's already too many guitar players as it is.

 

So after seeing a band show up one day with 5 guitar players and no other instruments in sight, I went down to the store and bought a Roland XV-88 and I've been wondering why the hell I gave it up ever since!

 

By the way, I never did get really good ear training, like I said I was a rotten music student, so I got some ear training software and it's done wonders, filled in the gaps as a musician. Highly recommended for self taught people. I use Practica Musica, another one that was well recommended was Auralia.

[marino]

It's not very original, I guess... When I was a child, my parents noticed I could pick up melodies and rhythms with accuracy, so they sent me to an educational choir of sort (singing polyphony, etc.) then bought me a little organ. That was their biggest mistake... At the same time, my older sister taught me the chords on the house's guitar, and by comparing the two instruments, I started realizing how chords worked.

 

At 10, I cried and yelled for piano lessons. It was funny: I already knew all the chords, keys and scale construction. By the time I was 13, I had decided to become a musician! But mom said, "Oh yeah? Then you gonna go to the Conservatory, or else." So I passed the exam, and spent the next 6 or 7 years at the Rome Conservatory.

 

It wasn't what I was seeking, but it gave me a solid classical knowledge. My teacher was a great concert player but didn't really know much about teaching. I was tough, however, so I just tried to take what I could from her, and she didn't seem to mind the fact that I was also into jazz...

BTW before I was 20 I got enough of that and went to London to play some jazz.

I had also started writing music for small theatre show, etc. I searched for years for the right composition teacher, but that's another thread...

Of course, I'm still trying to learn how to play. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

marino

[Jg42]

Oh - it's very simple - Classical piano from 8 till 16 y.o. - Bach, Mozart, etc. Then - sound engineering college (5 years) - and here I am... Oh... I forgot about 1.5 years of Bass playing and 0.5 years of Drums...

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

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Cheers,

Arseny

http://www.mp3.com/arseny

[DOS]

Okay, I'm going to get really into this because the piano changed my life...

 

I used to be the most boring person in the world. I was into cars and computers and I knew how to clean pools. I considered those my hobbies, but I never liked it and the fact that I was talentless depressed me. I liked Theater, but it felt out of place for me and I was in the martial arts for 5 years, but I had always hated that (I was kind of forced into it) and I quit. Realizing that I had practically given up on everything I took up (there are many more examples), my mom said the meanest thing she had ever said to me. She flat out told me that I had nothing to be proud of myself for.

 

One day when I was 17, for no reason, I bought a Yamaha keyboard for $200 just to play around with. Of course, everybody thought I was wasting my money because they thought I'd put that aside too. I got a theory book from the library and taught myself to read and then took a theory class at my college. By this time, I could bust out a lot of Mozart and people thought it was pretty good, considering that I had only been playing for only a few months. I'd practice 1 to 2 hours a day, not because I was forced to, but because I liked it. My parents still weren't convinced, but I talked them into helping me pay for piano lessons and rent a piano. I don't think it was until my "world premier" performance after a few months of lessons that my parents realized that I had finally found something I loved.

 

I think everybody is self taught in a way. Teachers are there only to give you the tools and help you with your technical difficulties. In the end, however, it is you that decides how well you learn your intrument.

 

Mike

[magicmonkey]

Thanks for all of your replies guys, I have found some of them quite inspiring! Sorry it took me so long to reply, I was white water rafting this past weekend.

 

Thanks agian,

 

Nate

[sudeep]

great question...and some really interesting answers...i started playing guitar when i was 11 beggign my parents for a red guitar, i bought an old rolan keyboard for a couple of hundred dollars about 6 years ago, and never looked back!! i had a good 10 yrs of guitar experience when i took up the keyboard, so i knew my chord/scale theory pretty well, had a few lessons here and there, mainly played by ear though.

 

in answer to your question about books and stuff, i dont think you mentioned any style of playing...ive bought some of the Musicians Institute books for funk and R&B and have found them REALLY useful for playing in band situations.

[Gus Lozada]

I owe everything to my father.

 

He was interested on learning how to play organ (no, I am not talking about a B3, but a "home organ"...) because of a friend of him.

 

I was 6 years old by then. Of course, I was attracted immediately.

Then I copied him... and everything started.

 

... and continues...

 

------------------

Gustavo G Lozada

 

Moderador de:

MusicPlayer.com/NuestroForo

"La voz en Español en Música y Tecnología"

 

GusTraX @yahoo.com

[Mark Zeger]

I started on trumpet in 4th grade and added piano lessons around age 13 (guitar at 14). I had very understanding parents, who passed on having the "piano as a nice piece of furniture" and let me bring a Rhodes into the living room. I had a great "working musician" piano teacher who would mix in a lot of theory and jazz/rock material with the Hanon studies, the obligatory "Fur Elise", etc. I always played the hippest material at recitals. One year I did "Spain", another year my teacher and I played a duet of Zappa's "Peaches En Regalia" with him on piano and me on Rhodes and ARP Odyssey. Blew the doors off "Moonlight Sonata".

 

One great benefit of attending college at the Univ. of Rochester was studying at the Eastman School of Music for college credit. I took a few semesters of piano lessons, and their electronic music class (on a Moog modular) and recording class. I remember how thrilled the instructor was to show off a state-of-the-art Sony 2 track digital recording they were renting to record the Eastman Jazz Ensemble and the RPO.

[Llarion]

I'm almost entirely self-taught:

 

I took a year of snare lessons in 4th grade (1973, ack!) to pick up some rudiments, and got started learning the kit on my own. It was really cool, the 2 other percussionists got really sick right before the big concert, so I just brought my kit in and played all 3 parts. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif I learned the rest on my own.

 

In 8th grade, I picked up a Mel Bay tablature and chord chart and taught myself guitar. Once I had the relative relationships of the notes in the chords figured out, I grabbed a piano and learned them there too. I also picked up bass that year by necessity to play in a band. Funny that the last axe I learned seems to be the one I'm the best at.

 

When I was 16, I took 3 piano lessons, that didn't work out, and I also took 2 guitar lessons at 14. I was a horrible, undisciplined student. Perfect Pitch as a child learning an instrument or 4 can be a liability.

 

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Cheers!

 

Phil "Llarion: The Jazzinator" Traynor

www.mp3.com/llarion

Smooth Jazz

[d-kay]

I started playing the flute when I was 9 (until I was 17). I never ever got to read notes very well, so I had to remember how the song goes. My teacher always had to play the piece once, before I actually tried to play it (so everything goes by ear).

 

My sister played the piano. I always HATED it when she was practicing. Chord A, Chord B, Chord C, wrong. Chord A, wrong. Chord A, Chord B, wrong again... sigh. Torture for my ears. I picked up by just trying to play chords to the music I learned playing the flute, and that's how it goes.. I still envy peopled who can PLAY the piano.

 

/d-kay

[mte]

I started to play piano when i was 8 (private lessons). Then, 3 years after, I went to the music school (private was far too expensive) and got a good teacher (not an old woman like a grandma http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif). Then after 5 years here I started to explore music by my own and by ear. I learned to play some rock songs (the first thing was some parts of live version of Unchain My Heart by Joe Cocker (great piano parts!)) So, right now I've ended the 9th grade of piano at music school.

Well in march this year me and some of my friends started a band and - here I am, I don't know what the future will bring, hope to succeed with the band :>> (uhh... everyone hopes, rare bands really succeed http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/frown.gif)

That's it...

Cheers,

Matej

[Senator]

Learnt guitar, then applied to piano.

[mojosaur]

I played some rock drums in college in the 60's nothing serious, then I stopped and became fan, hung around in New Orleans and with my cousin who is a percussionist.

 

At 45 I decided I wanted to play again, so I took up conga drums, studied with a Cuban guy, etc.....got a board to learn chords.....then two years or so ago I switched over to keyboard entirely.....took a few lessons but I am pretty much self taught, reading theory and all.

 

Quite honestly, it took more practice than I really should have put in just be be able to say I can play, and more importantly understand how music works.

 

My advice, listen to great players, go to shows, and TAPE yourself constantly, correct and improve. But be realistic, you are not going to be McCoy Tyner overnight.....and set reasonable goals.

 

This message has been edited by mojosaur on 07-13-2001 at 10:10 AM