Piano Guidance
Photo by Marta Wave Pexels Logo Photo: Marta Wave

What is the first thing to learn in piano?

The Musical Alphabet Each of the white notes has a letter name. These letter names make up the musical alphabet, which is one of the first things a piano player should learn. The letter names of these notes link the piano to all other instruments and also to written music.

What are two drugs that cause hallucinations?
What are two drugs that cause hallucinations?

People can experience hallucinations when they're high on illegal drugs such as amphetamines, cocaine, LSD or ecstasy. They can also occur during...

Read More »
Does insurance cover broken keys?
Does insurance cover broken keys?

Typically, no. Car insurance with roadside assistance coverage can make things easier if your keys are lost or stolen, but the cost of replacing...

Read More »

Interested in how to play piano? Learning to play piano is easier with our help! Learn piano tips below, including information on the piano keyboard, musical alphabet, and songs There’s so much to learning the piano, it can seem a little overwhelming at the start. Let’s hit a few basics on how to play piano to get you going!

Learn Piano with the Piano Keyboard

The first part of learning piano is that it has a truly fantastic feature: the keyboard! The piano keyboard makes it super easy to learn to play the piano as well as to visualize and understand the relationships between musical notes. The clear, pattern-driven layout of the piano keyboard is one of the things that makes the piano a wonderful first instrument for anyone to learn. So how does learning to play the piano keyboard work? Music is made of various notes, sometimes called pitches, which can be higher or lower. The piano arranges all the pitches in order from the lowest on the left of the piano to the highest on the right. Every time you move one key to the right (black or white), you’ve gone one “half step” higher in pitch. If you have a piano at home, try starting at the far left and playing every key one at a time. You’ll hear the pitch getting higher and higher as you move to the right.

Learn Piano with the Musical Alphabet

It may look like there are a million different notes on the keyboard while learning the piano, but there are really only twelve! The seven white and five black keys make a repeating pattern of twelve notes. Each of the white notes has a letter name. These letter names make up the musical alphabet, which is one of the first things a piano player should learn. The letter names of these notes link the piano to all other instruments and also to written music. To help you learn the letter names of the keys, watch Mr. Hoffman’s “Piano Street” videos, C D E, F G, and A B, for a simple story that will make the names of the keys easy to remember while learning the piano. So what about the black keys? Those keys are named for their relationship to the white notes around them. For example, the white note G has a black key just to the right of it. That black note is called G sharp. There’s also a black note to the left of G. That note is called G flat. You might have already figured out that all black keys have two names. For example, G flat can also be called F sharp. You sometimes hear the whole collection of black notes on a piano called “the sharps and flats.”

What keyboard does Japan use?
What keyboard does Japan use?

Japanese people use a Japanese keyboard to type. Japanese keyboard has an alphabet letter and a Hiragana letter on the key top. There are two...

Read More »
Who is the No 1 beautiful boy in the world?
Who is the No 1 beautiful boy in the world?

List of Most Handsome Man In The World:- 1. BTS ARMY V, aka Kim Taehyung, has been named the Most Handsome Men 2022 once again! Sep 28, 2022

Read More »

Now that you’ve been learning the piano keyboard, have met the keys and know their names, it’s time to make some music!

It’s Easy to Learn Piano Songs

The next thing you should know is that you can learn to play a simple song on the piano in only a few minutes. Give our piano lessons for beginners a try! With this video lesson, you can learn to play “Hot Cross Buns.” Hoffman Academy’s ear-based method makes it easy for beginners to learn songs and start making music right away. If you’d like to try learning some more fun and easy songs on piano for beginners, here’s a list of super easy popular songs to get you started learning piano.

Express Yourself with Improvisation

Another really fun thing you can do right now on the piano, whether you’re a beginner on the piano or you have more experience, is to improvise! When you improvise, you play something new that you’ve never heard or played before. Don’t worry if it’s going to sound good or not. You just do it, like you’re having a casual conversation with a friend. Try this improvisation activity while learning to play piano. Put the damper pedal down and play only on the black keys. To get you started, you might want to think of an emotion you want to convey, like happiness, or maybe anger, or something in nature you want to imitate, like waves on a beach, or a thunderstorm. The Hoffman Method encourages improvisation from the very beginning as a natural way to explore music and express yourself on the piano. Interested in improvising while learning to play the piano? Check out this video lesson where you’ll get a chance to improvise a melody with Mr. Hoffman.

What is a natural chord?
What is a natural chord?

Before learning how to name chords, it is important to know that some chords are given the same name as the notes (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti)....

Read More »
Is Yamaha Smart Pianist app free?
Is Yamaha Smart Pianist app free?

The app is FREE and available on all iOs devices and Android.

Read More »

Learning to Play Piano is for Anyone!

Finally, the last thing for you to learn right now is that ANYONE can learn to play the piano. Don’t let the negative voices in your head talk you out of trying to learn piano. Voices like:

I’m not very musical

I have no sense of rhythm

I don’t know if I have a talent for music

I’m too old to learn piano

I’m not coordinated enough for learning piano

I feel clumsy with my fingers

Instead, tell yourself:

I enjoy music

Anyone can make music

It’s fun to make my own music

It’s never too late to learn something new

Doing something always makes it easier

Learning piano for beginners is possible

If I learn to play the piano, I’ll be better at it tomorrow! You’re learning to play the piano so that you can have the deep satisfaction of making music for YOURSELF. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Set all those negative voices aside and commit to the JOURNEY of learning to make music at the piano. At Hoffman Academy, we want everyone, everywhere to be able to learn how to play piano. We will teach you good posture, technique, how to sight read, play by ear, compose, improvise, appreciate music, play beautifully, be awesome, you get the whole deal! Give lesson one a try to start learning piano today. All the best to you as you begin your journey of how to play piano!

What is the best age to be a singer?
What is the best age to be a singer?

Children are generally ready for this type of instruction between ages 7 and 9. The human voice continues to mature throughout life; hence students...

Read More »
At what age do humans have the best memory?
At what age do humans have the best memory?

Our ability to remember new information peaks in our 20s, and then starts to decline noticeably from our 50s or 60s. Because the hippocampus is one...

Read More »
Why are pianos so expensive?
Why are pianos so expensive?

Pianos are more expensive than other instruments mostly because the quality of the wood and the amount that's used to build the instrument. Pianos...

Read More »
What American accent is closest to British?
What American accent is closest to British?

While the accent of the American South might be difficult to comprehend for many students of the English language, its original form was actually...

Read More »