# Learning the piano.



## Chris Hobson (Nov 19, 2020)

Back in the 1990s, Liz bought me a video of a live performance of Pictures at an Exhibition by ELP. While watching it I reflected that I had always wished that I could play the piano and regretted not having learned. At home we did have an old upright piano but my parents could never have been able to afford for me to have lessons. At this time though, pushing forty, the question that immediately presented itself was 'what's stopping you then?' So, I checked the small ads, bought an old Ambridge piano for £100 and found myself a piano teacher. I worked at it for around ten years and acheived a basic level of competence. I stuck with classical pieces as I find piano arrangements of pop songs to be dreadful. Once I started to be a bit more serious I bought a digital piano and sold the Ambridge on. Eventually I got to the stage where practicing was really becoming a chore, just at the point when my teacher was telling me that I really should be doing an hour a day if I wanted to keep progressing. So, sometime in the mid noughties, I called it a day. From time to time I have gone back to it and relearned some of my repertoire. Having now been retired for eight months I have now started to find time to practice again. I have gone back to some of the simpler stuff from the Anna Magdalene Notebook, a collection of learner pieces that J S Bach put together for his second wife. There are two pieces that I used to play that I have started to practice again. I also have a book of really simple arrangements of Xmas carols so I've been playing In Dulcie Jubilo, as made famous by Mike Oldfield, Just because it will soon be Xmas. I only have a small amount of talent, so I don't think that anyone will ever want to pay to hear me play. Still, for my own amusement, I'm enjoying myself.


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## Drummer (Nov 19, 2020)

I have been playing for morris dancing and similar activities, which I have always done by ear - but in lockdown I put my mind to learning to read music as I could never quite grasp it.
This evening in a Zoom chat I remarked 'oh the figure starts on a low note, it is a B' just like that, but it would have been impossible a year ago. I have acquired several melodeons since diagnosis and do enjoy playing them. If the worst comes to the worst, at least I will have something to go busking with.


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## trophywench (Nov 20, 2020)

I utterly love In Dulce Jubilo because it's catchy and jolly and livened up.  Jose Feliciano was inspired!  I also like the Steeleye Span version of Gaudete - needs to be delivered to the ear in perfectly pitched harmony (one finger in ear, anyone? - never seen monks doing that though) and if so, again gorgeous.  That might be a simple tune in basic form - but dunno?

What about 'Unto us a boy is born' ?  At the age of 5, I remember being sad at Sunday School because of that nasty man Herod killing all the little boys in Bethl'em in his fu-u-u-u-ury.


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## Chris Hobson (Nov 20, 2020)

As a kid I could always pick out a tune by ear but could never have taught myself to play properly, with both hands, without having lessons. Learning to play two different melodies with each hand was quite a hurdle for me. Like patting your head and rubbing your tummy times a hundred. It felt really satisfying when I had cracked it though.


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## eggyg (Nov 20, 2020)

When we retired 3.5 years ago Mr Eggy had “learn to play the piano” on his retirement list. Sadly it’s still on there and no nearer to even purchasing a piano/ keyboard et al. Photography takes up all his spare time, not that he has much he says! Hmmm...whatevs! Good on you, I admire musical folks, I haven’t a musical home in my body.


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## Vonny (Nov 20, 2020)

ELP! Now there's a trip down memory lane. I saw them several times in the 70s and read music at uni, choosing the University of East Anglia because it had the best electro-acoustic department in the country. I can assure you that operating the large synthesizer was nowhere near as easy as Keith Emerson makes out! My main instrument was piano although I've had a stab at trumpet, flute and violin as well. Sadly I haven't played for years and the arthritis in my fingers makes in difficult, even painful, to play now. Fantastic that you are playing and make sure you keep it up


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## trophywench (Nov 20, 2020)

Nobody was more gobsmacked than my best mate from school, after getting he college qualifications as an Infant School teacher, to discover that most schools wanted her to a) play the piano and b) be able to referee football matches.  Being her though, she learned to do both properly.  Still couldn't get a job doing that though so on discovering the Head of Economics and associated courses at her local Uni was her old Economics teacher at senior school - she contacted him and discussed the possibility of changing horses/courses, which paid off and the original placement she gained at a nearby senior school Economics/Business Studies, then expanded itself into IT skills too, so she adapted again and carried on expanding with the Education Millennium Project and Lord knows what else before she retired.

She sold the piano she bought and still never used the whistle either so I expect that went in the dustbin.


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## Chris Hobson (Nov 22, 2020)

Digital pianos have come down massively in price since I bought mine. It is a Roland, the second most basic one in the range and it cost about £900 back in the mid nineties. One like that would cost about £300 now and just over £1,000 will get you a Yamaha Clavinova.


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## nonethewiser (Nov 22, 2020)

We had old piano in hall as kids, mainly unused & ended up with woodworm so ended up on tip.



Chris Hobson said:


> Digital pianos have come down massively in price since I bought mine. It is a Roland, the second most basic one in the range and it cost about £900 back in the mid nineties. One like that would cost about £300 now and just over £1,000 will get you a Yamaha Clavinova.



That's cheap, can you plug earphones into them so you can practice without disturbing anyone.  Learnt guitar years back but no longer play, always fancied learning piano, that & saxophone.


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## Chris Hobson (Nov 23, 2020)

Thinking about my earlier post about digital pianos being much cheaper nowadays and also about being newly retired and having had a recent injection of disposable income I started to wonder about maybe getting a nicer piano. Sensible me says that there is nothing wrong with the Roland. It does the job but it looks like an electronic keyboard. Searching the internet has lead to a new discovery, hybrid pianos. These are a lot less interesting than they sound, basically a digital piano in a case that makes it look like an acoustic, either an upright or a baby grand. Anyway, after looking at new Clavinovas I decided to look on Ebay and found a really nice one, won the auction and got it for half the price of a new one. It is only a short distance away and I'm off to collect it tomorrow. Putting out feelers to find a good home for the Roland, price being a bottle of posh whisky.


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## Chris Hobson (Nov 26, 2020)

I now have my 'new' piano installed. It has a much nicer action than the Roland and looks like a real piano rather than an electronic keyboard. I should add here that my Roland is a really basic one and that Roland do make more up market pianos too.

I have now got to the point where Bach's minuet in G is at the polishing stage. This means that I can play it, but it needs lots of practice so that I can play  it without any hesitations or missed notes. Relearning pieces that I used to play is easier than learning something new so I have decided to tackle Bach's fugue in C major BWV 953. This is a fairly simple Fugue in an easy key, but it is a fugue and it is possible that I have bitten off more than I can chew. Still, I now have all the time that I need to practice so we'll see.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Nov 27, 2020)

Sounds great @Chris Hobson - enjoy your new toy, and all round to yours for carols eh?


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## Chris Hobson (Nov 28, 2020)

nonethewiser said:


> We had old piano in hall as kids, mainly unused & ended up with woodworm so ended up on tip.
> 
> 
> 
> That's cheap, can you plug earphones into them so you can practice without disturbing anyone.  Learnt guitar years back but no longer play, always fancied learning piano, that & saxophone.


Late reply I know but  I misread the part about headphones as a statement when it is actually a question. Yes, digital pianos have headphone sockets so you can practice badly without disturbing the peace. They also have a volume control so that you can practice quietly.


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## Chris Hobson (Nov 29, 2020)

Vonny said "Sadly I haven't played for years and the arthritis in my fingers makes in difficult, even painful, to play now."

What you need is a Theremin.


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## Chris Hobson (Nov 29, 2020)

Theremin - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org


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## mikeyB (Dec 2, 2020)

I’m just crossing off an item on my bucket list. I’ve always wanted to be able to play bagpipes, so I’ve invested £25 for a chanter (that’s the business end of the pipes) which I am assiduously learning to play. That’s how every piper starts out.

The difficulty is that the chanter is a reed instrument, and though it is internal you have to blow with just the right pressure. When fitted to the full pipe set, of course, the blowing just fills the bag and your left elbow does the work. It takes several months to master the chanter, and learn a few tunes, and about year before embarking on a full set of pipes, which range from £400 to three grand(!).

That’s when the neighbours start to object.


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## Sally71 (Dec 2, 2020)

Glad I don't live near you then @mikeyB!   Bagpipes played well are not unpleasant to listen to, but played badly they sound like a cat being strangled
Presumably though everyone has to go through that phase before they learn to play them well!  Will be an achievement if you learn to do it though, have fun!
(Violins and oboes sound pretty awful too when you’re a beginner I think!)


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## Ditto (Dec 2, 2020)

Can somebody tell me about a piano teacher I had at 18. I was given an old upright, rubbish with plonky keys at the end, but found a teacher who had a fabulous baby grand in her parlour. She was a bit of an ol' dragon and I only did a few lessons before giving up though I'd always hankered to play the piano, so did my Mum back in the day that I didn't know then. It must run in families! 

Anyway I thought I'd be doing 'chopsticks' like the kiddies do I  believe. Instead she had me doing all this crossing your hands over stuff and then when I played that bit she wouldn't believe I'd never played before and started shouting at me. Good grief. That was only about my third lesson. I gave up even though I'd paid well in advance. It wasn't worth the trauma. Should I have been doing that crossing hands over stuff at such an early stage? I've always wondered. 

I envy you Chris Hobson.


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## Chris Hobson (Dec 2, 2020)

Seems like a good wheeze, get the kids to pay in advance and then scare them away so you don't have to actually teach them.


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## C&E Guy (Dec 3, 2020)

My dad used to tell a story of when he ran a Bible Class in the 50s. He asked if anyone could play the piano. A boy volunteered but he could only play with one finger!
He persevered and soon could play properly. He eventually became the stand-in church organist, and now he is retired, he earns pocket money playing at weddings and at the local crematorium.


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## MikeTurin (Dec 5, 2020)

I try to learn pano. Now I am a bit stuck begause I got a tendinitis on theright hand, so I have bought a trackball for the pc and started an online course to learn to play by ear.


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## Chris Hobson (Dec 7, 2020)

I'm re learning two pieces from the Anna Magdalena Notebook but I originally learned them from a book called It's Easy To Play Bach. This had slightly simplified versions of the tunes, which are relatively simple anyway. Usually it is just the occasional little trill that is missing and I've enjoyed the challenge of putting them back in. I've been really struggling with the left hand accompaniment on number 11 and couldn't work out why. It turns out that the simplified version has half a ton of notes left out so the proper version is considerably more difficult.

I'm now moving on to a piece that I don't know. Since my ability to read music is a bit basic and I don't have a teacher to keep me on the straight and narrow, I downloaded the Anna Magdalene Notebook onto my phone so that I can hear it played by a professional pianist. The next challenge is to get the effing Spotify app to play something specific rather than rock and pop songs at random. It seems determined to play random classical music rather than the downloaded album that I'm asking for. The exact procedure has to be followed to get it to play it. Go to library, click on the album, scroll up and select the first track, select play. Next click on the toolbar at the bottom of the screen and then ensure that the shuffle symbol is not highlighted and the repeat symbol is selected but not with a little 1 beside it because the 1 means it just plays the same track on repeat. After much swearing and getting random clips of Mozart and Handel played at me, I finally get it right and then snag the cable on my phones and pull out the jack plug which pauses the music. Arrrrgggghhhh!


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## Ditto (Dec 7, 2020)

I just want to be able to play Fur Elise. I'm gonna get a piano eventually. Mind you I'm on borrowed time, I should get a move on.


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## Chris Hobson (Dec 7, 2020)

I used to be able to play Fur Elise and I'll probably return to it sometime. I thought that I would do slightly simpler stuff first for now and also something new for a change.


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## Chris Hobson (Dec 18, 2020)

The Roland piano has now been adopted by my niece Zoe. Yesterday I received a bottle of 12 year old Aberlour whisky. My practicing is going really well as I can now do it several times a day and take a break when my brain gets tired. At the moment trying to sight read a new piece requires quite intense concentration so this is really useful. I  feel as though I might eventually be an actually competent pianist.


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## Ditto (Dec 18, 2020)

Put yourself on YouTube so we can hear you when you reach virtuoso level.  I am very envious.


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## Chris Hobson (Dec 18, 2020)

I don't quite get why anyone would envy my keyboard ability. I sort of envy people who had nauseating amounts of talent. The French composer Saint-Saëns could play all of Beethoven's piano sonatas from memory when he was nine years old, it took me ten years to learn to play just the easy one. The teacher who taught piano to Franz Liszt reputedly said, I didn't actually teach him, I just used to put impossibly difficult pieces in front of him and watch him in silent amazement.


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## NotWorriedAtAll (Dec 18, 2020)

I always wanted to learn to play when I was a kid and made a bee line for any piano whenever we visited people who had one and then played made up 'music' which was no doubt a dreadful racket.

By the time my parents got round to paying for lessons I wasn't able to learn in a way that suited my learning style and I managed to work my way up to grade four and then dropped it.

So when my son was born I didn't want him to be musically illiterate like me. I felt music was something we should all be able to do the same way we learned to read and speak.

So I got him onto a keyboard before he could even sit up on his own and let him move his hands along the keys and just let him discover the sounds and keys the same way he did language and reading.

He didn't have a formal lesson until he was eight and by then he was playing to concert standard. When he was nine he won a fairly prestigious piano concert in the same class as 18 year olds and then he decided he wanted to learn pipe organ and he held a concert at the Brangwyn Hall when he was 12 to raise money for the local Children's Hospice and the Air Ambulance.

He's nearly thirty now and he plays the guitar mainly and used to do some gigging at pubs and busking sometimes. When we lived in Greece he used to busk during the tourist season and at some festivals.  I'm glad to say music is part of his life and always there for him.  I still can't play anything properly but I sing a lot and have folders and folders of songs - I wrote songs before I realised it was a waste of time without being able to play music and so I moved on to poetry.


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## Gwynn (Dec 19, 2020)

Wow these life stories are fascinating. 

Some years ago I watched someone, in a local charismatic church, playing his keyboard and afterwards approached him saying 'that looks so easy. Will you teach me to play' and, the important bit, I will feed you. Cheeky? Yes. But he agreed. 

We struck up an instant friendship that has lasted for over 30 years. I taught him how to teach me and within a few months I was also playing my keyboard at the church using my own method based of guitar chords. 

However, some years on I visited a huge Baptist church just down the road and saw their magnificent pipe organ. I cheekily asked the Pastor if I could play it (knowing that I hadn't a clue about pipe organs). He said yes and within a few months I was playing it at some of their services. 

I have always loved pipe organs. 

Unfortunately, due to pandemic restrictions, the church has been closed. But worse I am told the pipe organ is now broken and is in need of some serious repair. 

I have learned so much and enjoyed every bit. A few of my compositions have been sung in the chuches too. A wonderful journey.


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## trophywench (Dec 19, 2020)

That just reminded me of Jo Brand learning to play a pipe organ - anyone remember that TV series where people had a go at doing different things they'd always fancied?  Others included Frank Skinner learning the banjo and 'Birds of a Feather' singing Rule Britannia with Leslie Garratt at Proms in the Park I think it was.  There was another such series with ordinary people, one chap who conducted a famous orchestra wasn't famous, just a bloke who happened to catch the same train as me every weekday (no idea of his actual job or his name - though may have been Pete?) so we passed the time of day with each other like you do in such circumstances.  The other regulars in that little group, were just as gobsmacked as me seeing him on telly, cos he hadn't told any of the chaps either!


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## Gwynn (Dec 19, 2020)

When I was about 7 (sixty years ago - ish) I took up the violin. I hated its screechy noise. Everyone has to go through it I guess. 

Well I tried. Then my wonderful, patient teacher died and was replaced by someone what had zero patience and zero tolerance. I gave up in an instant. 

Ok I wasn't the ideal student. I never practiced. I couldn't stand the sound. Now, with the keyboard and pipe organ, you couldn't keep me off. 8 Hrs a day practice on the keyboard. 3 Hrs each time on the pipe organ. Less on the organ because it is so much harder work. I never realised, until I started to play, that you have to balance yourself constantly so that you can play the pedals as well as the keys. So, for me, there was no rest. Good exercise. I was probably doing it all wrong, but it worked. 

I think the world had a lucky escape from my awful violin noise. Imagine if I had continued! 

I have a cut down picture of the 'peace organ' l, if I can work out how to get it into this message....


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## mikeyB (Dec 19, 2020)

It's all very well for you standard instrument learners. The Scottish chanter and full bagpipes use a pentatonic scale, so reading music is rather different. It's a like a different dialect in language. That's why it's difficult to blend bagpipes with, say, a standard orchestra. They don't C eye to eye.


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## Chris Hobson (Dec 20, 2020)

I like pipe organs too. I had a go at playing one at a National Trust property in Devon. I hadn't practiced for a while but it still sounded great. Nowadays when old organs break down they can have a digital organ inserted where the keyboard is and the speakers placed behind the pipes. Sir Christopher Wren, the architect who designed St Paul's Cathedral, was less keen. He described the organ there as 'a kist of whistles'.


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## trophywench (Dec 20, 2020)

Well - depends greatly on the organist I'd say, having spent my childhood Sunday afternoons at the Methodist Church Sunday school and all sorts of events in the church itself even if only once a year participating in two services per Sunday for a fortnight in May celebrating the S school Anniversary.  An event my sister and I both looked forward to actually, cos we each got a new 'best' summer dress to wear first for this event.  Had to be kept utterly pristine for that fortnight, so taken off each time we returned home and No Way could it be worn anywhere else until after the final Sunday afternoon performance - or the new white socks either.


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## Chris Hobson (Jan 16, 2021)

This is funny. I am now taking a stab at the Promenade from Pictures at an Exhibition. My piano has a choice of four voices, Grand Piano, Electric Piano, Pipe Organ and Strings. The left hand part has a lot of eighths played on the black keys which I of course play with my thumb and little finger. The problem is that my middle finger keeps catching the buttons and changing the sound as I'm playing. I'm not sure how to stop it from happening, I might have to make a little cover for the controls. Slight black mark for Yamaha for putting the buttons in such a daft place.


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## Chris Hobson (Jan 23, 2021)

Yes but when playing an eighth with your thumb and little finger the middle three fingers have to be somewhere. I have started to play the black notes closer to the end and that seems to solve the problem mostly.


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## Chris Hobson (Feb 13, 2021)

Well, I've finally got the first piece in the Anna Magdalene Notebook to the polishing stage. If anyone wants to look it up it is Minuet in F Major catalogue number BWV Anh 113. There are quite a few versions on YouTube, I would post a link but I always end up screwing it up and posting the wrong video. I also ended up watching a several videos of random people doing virtuoso performances on a piano in what looks like a railway station or shopping mall. They left me feeling sick as a chocolate frog in a desert.


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## Chris Hobson (Feb 14, 2021)

Yesterday I was feeling like a chocolate frog, today I'm feeling quite inspired and doing lots of practice.


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## Gwynn (Feb 24, 2021)

I taught myself to play the digital piano (at 30) and the pipe organ (at 60) and have played in many church services. It was all very challenging and rewarding, especially as I cannot read music. I invented my own notation and method that works a treat.

Maybe I will get around to learning to read music some time.

When I practice, which used to be every day until my wife became seriously ill, I practiced 4 to 8 hours a day!!! Only stopping when exhausted. I enjoyed it so much.

Now that my wife is more stable I have gone back to playing and composing again. It is so so enjoyable.


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## Gwynn (Feb 24, 2021)

Sally71, violins?

Aghhhhh

When I was about 7 years old I had violin lessons. It sounded horrible. Worse, I was closest to the noise. And it hurt my fingers too. And and I had a horrible teacher. I gave up fairly early on.

I think the world is a better place that I gave it up. Never wanted to play the bagpipes. But, oboe, ohhh yes, beautiful instrument.


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## Chris Hobson (Feb 25, 2021)

At present I couldn't imagine doing between four and eight hours of practise. After an hour or two my brain reaches saturation point and I feel that practicing any more would be pointless. This might be down to the fact that I have three pieces that I more or less know and can just play through to get them sounding professional. Practising these isn't  too mentally draining. However, the pieces that I am still learning require quite intense concentration for a person of limited ability. Being retired means that I can take a break and then go back to it. When I was first learning I had to do all of my practicing after work when I was already tired.


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