Piano Guidance
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What should a piano beginner learn first?

In general, it's a good idea to start with the major scales first, then move on to the natural minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor scales. Once you master those you can move onto things like chromatic scales, ​blues scales, pentatonic scales and whole tone scales.

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Is 61 keys enough for classical piano?

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Join almost HALF A MILLION Happy Students Worldwide
Join almost HALF A MILLION Happy Students Worldwide

Pianoforall is one of the most popular online piano courses online and has helped over 450,000 students around the world achieve their dream of playing beautiful piano for over a decade.

Learn More »

As a novice to the piano, you might be wondering, “What piano scales should I learn first?” There’s so much to remember when you are first learning how to play the piano. You want to make sure you learn the basics correctly the first time, so that you don’t have to unlearn bad habits later. When it comes to learning how to play the piano, learning things right the first time is much easier than trying to unlearn poor practices and relearn best practices in the future. Scales are often a piano student’s first step in learning how to play to the piano. While practicing scales can seem to be a tedious, routine exercise, scales provide the fundamentals for understanding music and mastering piano techniques.

But how do you know where to begin?

In general, it's a good idea to start with the major scales first, then move on to the natural minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor scales. Once you master those you can move onto things like chromatic scales, ​blues scales, pentatonic scales and whole tone scales.

What Is A Scale?

You might be asking, “What exactly is a scale and why is it important to learn?” A scale is a set of musical notes ordered by pitch or frequency. Scales make up the backbone of most musical pieces, with a single scale providing the melody and harmony. Scales typically span an octave, which is eight keys, say, for example, from C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. That’s an octave. (There are other types of scales, which we won’t get into now for simplicity’s sake). There are 12 major scales and at least 36 minor scales, including harmonic minors, melodic minors and natural minors. Major scales are basic to your understanding of musical keys and are the scales that most piano students learn first. Most everyone agrees that the scale that should be learned and mastered first is the C Major Scale.

First, Learn The C Major Scale With The Right Hand

The C Major Scale is the scale that most who have studied the piano traditionally learn first. It might be called the easiest scale, as it contains no sharps or flats (it consists of all white, otherwise known as natural, keys). Starting with Middle C on the piano’s keyboard, a scale is eight notes, otherwise known as an octave. It ends on the next C note.

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Why are online music lessons better?

Incorporation Of Technology: During online lessons your teacher can easily share high quality audio, virtual music games, YouTube videos for you to reference, and much more. This can allow you to access digital materials more readily as well without having to print out music or potentially lose it.

2020 has been a complete whirlwind and has presented so many unprecedented challenges for everyone, from healthcare workers to business owners, their employees, and of course PARENTS! With kids at home 24/7 it became a challenge to try to balance their lives and not let the quarantine become a time of all day video games and tablet time. It was time to find new hobbies and activities, and learning music is a great skill that keeps kids engaged and benefits them for many years to come.

Many parents reach out to us here at Opus Music School with questions about how music lessons work online. Is it effective? Will my child be able to get the attention they need? Will it be the same as in person lessons? Can my child still learn music online and have the same level of quality as in person lessons?

While students and teachers at Opus Music School have been doing a fantastic job with the switch to virtual lessons, there are some differences in learning online vs. in person. In the end it will be up to both the parent and the student as to how they will learn best. Here at Opus we have compiled a list of pros and cons to both methods that can help you make the best, informed decision for your child’s music education.

Virtual Lessons

Virtual lessons means distance learning lessons that occur remotely with a teacher and student in separate locations. A video conferencing platform such as Zoom and Skype is used to connect online.

Virtual Lessons - PROS:

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