How to Learn to Play the Piano: A Beginner's Guide

Have you ever looked at the piano and wished you could easily learn to play it? Have you wished that you could take that alternating keyboard of black and white and play melodies that produced soul-warming music?

The piano is the easiest instrument to learn to understand how music works. This is due primarily to the visually pleasing and well-organized construction of the piano keyboard, how easy it is to produce sound and play a note (no plucking, blowing, or bowing needed), and the ability to play more than one note at once (be jealous, wind and brass instruments). It also lends itself to easily understanding the relationships between notes, how different keys sound the same even though they start from different notes, and how to play melody and harmony at the same time.

This beginner’s piano guide will help you start an incredible journey as you learn to play the piano! We’ve included everything to get you started with your piano training, from the piano equipment you’ll need, to understanding keyboard layout, basic music theory, and your first musical steps on the piano. Everything can be learned, and it’s never too late to start!

And if you discover a growing passion for the piano and are local to the area, we’d love to see you at our Boston music school! Sign up for piano lessons near Cambridge and take your musical prowess to new heights under the guide of a professional piano instructor.

Our comprehensive piano beginner’s guide includes the following steps:

Step 1: Gather Your Music GEAR

The first thing you must get is the right gear. Fortunately, you only need three things: a keyboard (or acoustic piano), a stand for the keyboard (not necessary if you have an acoustic piano or an electric piano), and a bench.

What piano Keyboard is best for beginners?

Keyboards come in many shapes and sizes, and it can get confusing when deciding which keyboard is best for beginner piano players.

Some keyboards are almost exclusively small and designed to be used in conjunction with production software, so they do not produce any sound of their own. These are called MIDI keyboards, and if you already have music production software these can be great tools. All the knowledge gained from playing piano translates directly to MIDI keyboards. However, MIDI keyboards often consist of fewer keys and smaller sized keys than a regular piano. Especially at the beginning, when you are trying to learn proper technique, hand placement, and the foundations that will ensure you can easily master harder pieces without injuring yourself, practicing on controllers with smaller keys won’t let you build the right habits, which will slow your progress considerably. Personally, I have one digital piano that I play like a real piano, and a small controller that I use when I make music on the computer.

Keyboards that do make sounds and are ready to play right out of the box will be labeled as keyboards, and often come with a stand as well. In my opinion, the best keyboard for beginners is a full 88-key keyboard that mimics the full size of a piano. This 88-key keyboard is reasonably priced and a very good beginners’ model. It even includes the stand and bench for you.

How to Choose a Keyboard Stand

A stand for the keyboard is simple: just a foldable stand should do. This keyboard stand is a good, reasonably priced option.

If you choose to get an electric piano you can forego getting a stand, as it comes with one. It is much less portable than a keyboard, and I have not noticed a large difference in the sound production. However, the aesthetic is a little nicer.

Benefits of getting a Real Piano

Yet another alternative is the most basic one: A real piano. There are plenty of free pianos out there, as people who don’t play are looking to get rid of theirs but don’t want to pay the movers. All you must do is transport it, and it’s easy to get a real piano! They do take care and maintenance – so you should have a piano tuner come and service your piano when you buy it, and, depending on how new it is, about every two years as well. Nothing beats the sound and feel of a real piano. They do take up a lot of space, but it’s worth it if it’s possible for you!

how to Choose a Piano Bench

Regardless of if you have an acoustic piano or an electric one, you will need an adjustable bench. The bench is a very important part of having a good keyboard setup for learning. Playing the piano takes a lot of very fine motor skills, and if you are not sitting absolutely correctly, you can easily develop some bad habits that stress out your hands, leading to bad technique, frustration, and injury.

If your child is taking kids piano lessons and continuing to practice at home, they’ll also need a place to put their feet (as their legs will not reach the ground at the right angle for proper support) when they are small. This will change as they grow, so old boxes or big books will do, though more professional setups also exist.

The links I have included are for new gear, though there are lots of used alternatives available out there when you look locally. This equipment is made to be durable and long-lasting, so buying used piano gear is a good option. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out! Part of my job as a piano teacher is to help people find the right gear for learning. Think of all the guitar players still playing electrics from the 70s just because they love the sound and feel so much – instruments will last long and bring you happiness for a lifetime.

Step 2: Learn the KEYBOARD LAYOUT

Why Piano is the Best Instrument for Composing

Before I get into the nitty-gritty, I want to establish why the piano is the No. 1 best compositional instrument, and the best instrument to learn music theory. Visually, the piano is easier to understand than any other instrument. Have you ever looked at a saxophone, with all its multitudes of different buttons, switches, and keys? How about a guitar, which just looks like a flat board with a bunch of different strings? The piano is so much simpler, with just a repeating pattern of white and black keys.

We humans are very visually inclined, so having an easy way to understand the relationships between notes, and also such an easy way to play each note (just press it and it works! No string plucking, no blowing, just one motion and you make sound), and the ability to play more than one note at a time, makes the piano king among instruments for composing. The piano also has the greatest range among all instruments, which easily facilitates being able to make a very complete sound, meaning low and high notes simultaneously, on the piano alone, as opposed to spreading it out among several instruments.

As a composer myself, the piano is where I go to create a good melody, find the perfect harmony, and only then map out the notes to other instruments. It’s where I go to play over a chord progression I’m working on to really get into it and explore all the variations of melodies until I hit the perfect one. I write my music on piano, even though I may choose different instruments to play the music on at the end. Onto the nitty-gritty.

Breaking Down the Piano Keyboard

The piano keyboard is a set of alternating black and white keys, with the black keys arranged in groups of two and three. The pattern of notes repeats itself, with the key corresponding to the note C always the key immediately to the left of the group of two black notes. If you have a full 88-key keyboard or piano, you will notice that there is only one black note at the very bottom of the piano, and it starts on A. From there, you can count up to G, and repeat the pattern from A-G over and over again until it ends in C all the way at the top of the keyboard. Other keyboards will start and end on C.

The reason that the keys repeat themselves in this pattern is related to physics. Here is a more comprehensive guide on musical frequencies, though I will summarize as well. Every note on the piano (and any other instrument) has a fundamental frequency.

For example, A4 (The fourth A on the piano starting from the bottom) has a frequency of 440Hz. To get to the next A (A5), you just double the frequency. That follows that A5 is at 880Hz, A6 is at 1760Hz, and A3 is at 220Hz. This relationship works for any note on the piano, meaning that the ratio of the frequencies of B5 to B4, or C3 to C2, or G7 to G6, is 2 to 1. Indeed, the interval between two notes of the same name (such as A4 and A5) is the most consonant (pleasant) interval. Different cultures disagree on the number of notes in between this interval, but this interval is common to all cultures across the globe, as it is a mathematical relationship.

Another thing you may notice by looking at this image is that the white notes are labeled as plain letters, while the black notes have symbols next to the letter to name them. There are two symbols here – sharps (#) and flats (b). Sharp means to go up, and flat means to go down. So, the note to the left of E (going down) is E-flat. The note to the right of F (going up) is F-sharp.

Step 3: How to CREATE GOOD PIANO PLAYING HABITS RIGHT OUT OF THE GATE

It is best to start sitting and holding your hands correctly immediately, so that you build good habits, and don’t have to break bad ones. You can see how to sit at the piano properly here.

First, your body. You want to be sitting in a way that your legs are somewhat free. Do not sit fully on the bench, sit much more towards the edge, so that your weight is not resting on your buttocks and thighs, but being held up by your legs. Sit with your back straight, with the keyboard extending just a little bit over the knees towards your thighs, but not too far over your thighs. Relax your shoulders, have about a one-hundred- degree angle bend in your elbows, and have your wrists straight.

This is very important and is the most common mistake people make with their technique. Don’t bend your wrists when playing! Neither your elbows nor your wrists should be below the level of the keys! Your fingers should be naturally curled, so that you play with the tips of your fingers (not the pads!). Make sure to keep good nail hygiene, as nails that are too long will prevent you from being able to hold your hands correctly and will lead to terrible and painful technique. The goal is to have a perfectly straight line with a little bit of a downward slope from your middle knuckle to your funny bone.

When playing the piano, your hands should be held up by your wrists, and your wrists by your elbows. Do not rest the weight of your hands on the keyboard, but also ensure that you are not holding this weight by tensing your shoulders. The downward motion of your fingers is more than enough to depress the piano keys.

Using this form when beginning to play the piano is important for two reasons.

The first one is that it is a lot harder to break bad habits and then replace them with better ones, than just building good habits right away.

The second is that playing like this (the correct and least physically stressful way) is important to be able to achieve all your goals on the piano.

Can you imagine a football player using a less than ideal technique for running? They would hurt themselves from strain before they even caught a ball, let alone make it to the professional level. The same goes for piano. I personally did not have very good technique when I started to play the piano and developed some bad habits in how I would play. This served me okay for some time, though I know that my progress would have been much faster if I just played correctly from the beginning. What is even worse is that at some point, when I got to a higher level of playing, I was still using bad habits, which led to me developing a repetitive strain injury, which still, over ten years later, sets me back in how much I can do with my hands even outside of playing piano. So, I strongly, earnestly, suggest that you build good technique right away.

Step 4: PLAY YOUR FIRST NOTES

When you first sit down at the piano, it will be difficult to play the keys in an agile fashion. Remember, you are training muscles to do a motion in a pattern that they have never done before! It will take time before your fingers respond as easily as you would like them to, though it will happen faster than you might think.

Put the thumb of your right hand on middle C (the C in the middle of the piano) and try to play C, D, E F, and G with all five of your fingers, keeping your fingers as close to the keys as you can while inactive. Start to depress the next key with your finger before removing the previous one, so that the notes flow in a connected fashion.

Think about how your feet move when you walk. You start lifting your heel off the ground as you put your other foot down, and then take the rest of your foot off to take the next step and repeat the process ad infinitum to walk. This is a similar motion to what I’m referring to.

For the left hand, place your thumb on middle C, and then do the mirror image of the motion you were doing with your right hand, playing C, B, A, G, and F with your five fingers. Do this with the same connected motion as before. You do this because this masters the ability to play notes in a musical manner. Think about when you talk – you don’t say each syllable separately to say a word, the syllables are connected. This is the same reason you are practicing playing in a connected fashion – so that you sound like you are singing, not tripping over each note as you play.

Do this back and forth with both hands, using as little force as possible while still depressing the keys to get your muscles used to playing such minute motions.

Step 5: Learn Your KEYS & SCALES

The piano is hands down (pun intended) the best instrument to learn music theory, as the notes are arranged in the most visually pleasing way, and there is only one way to play each note. In other instruments, such as the guitar, you can play the same note on different strings, which makes for a more flexible arrangement of notes, but is not as visually clear. This makes the piano ideal for learning the basics of harmony, rhythm, and pitch relationships while learning music, and, indeed, it is difficult to learn the piano without picking up at least a little bit of theory.

There are two kinds of steps in music. A half step, and a whole step, which consists of two half steps. A half step is the distance between C and C-sharp, or C-sharp and D, or E and F (refer to the image in the section above). A whole step is two of these half steps, and is the distance between C and D, or F and G.

Though there are many kinds of keys in music, the most common ones, and the ones that 99% of music is written in, are major keys and minor keys.

What is a Key?

A key is a set of notes with a very specific order of spacing between them. Regardless of which note you start from, a major key will always have a similar sound to other major keys because the spacing between the notes is the same. For example, C major is all the white keys starting from C, meaning C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and back to C. This follows that all major keys consist of the spacing of a whole (C->D), whole (D->E), half (E->F), whole (F->G), whole (G->A), whole (A->B), and half (B->C) steps.  The shorthand is WWHWWWH.

The C minor scale consists of a whole (C->D), half (C->E-flat), whole (E-flat->F), whole (F->G), half (G->A-flat), whole (A-flat->B-flat), and whole (B-flat->C) steps. The shorthand is WHWWHWW, and it is always the relationship between notes in all minor scales.

Confused yet? That’s ok! It is a lot of information at once. But no musician is sitting there while playing and thinking about how many whole steps, or in which order they come in in a major key. Their fingers know the notes because they have used them so many times, which is always the best way to learn music. The theory behind it may let you understand the similarities between different songs but knowing how to play and apply this knowledge is why we learn.

What Is a Piano Scale?

Scales are an exercise- they are just playing the notes of a scale in order in a connected and timely fashion to teach your fingers to do the motions of changing positions on a keyboard. They are also the most effective way to learn different keys, because forcing yourself to play the notes in order over and over again is the only way to get that muscle memory, so when it is time to solo, you don’t have to try and remember which notes are in the key you are soloing in, your fingers just know them from playing the scale and your mind just makes a melody that your fingers then play. Check out this video on how to effectively play the C-major scale, and the proper way to switch hand position so that you can play all seven notes (after all, we only have the five fingers on each hand!)

Step 6: Learn Your CHORDS

The next step to music theory, and to upping your game on the piano enough to play songs, is chords. Depending on how quickly you have mastered scales, and how much experience you have had with music in general, I would say that chords can start to be learned at about one to two months into lessons. Now that scales have become more routine, and your fingers no longer feel like clumsy, disobedient toddlers, and more like slightly more functional, but still rebellious teens, it is time to learn how to play more than one note at once.

Melody & Harmony

Most of today’s music, and most music written before as well, is based on two things working together – melody and harmony.

Melody is that singable, catchy part of a song, the notes that the singer sings, or that the guitar player plays during a solo.

Harmony is all the sound behind the melody that makes the melody sound so full and good. Most of those harmonies are built on chords, and most of those chords are called triads (because they consist of three notes). There are dyads (for two notes), tetrads (for four notes), pentads (for five notes), etc., but these terms are largely unused, and the only important one is triads. There are a massive number of chords that exist out there, but they are built on the same fundamental principles, so we start out with triads because they are the most basic form and go on from there.

Triads

A triad is made up of three alternating notes, for example C-E-G, or F-A-C, or G-B-D, etc. The most common triads are major triads and minor triads. Major triads lend a more happy, celebratory feel to the melody that is played over them, while minor triads lend a more wistful, melancholy feel to the melody played over them.

When you learn your first few songs and start to understand common practices for how musicians choose triads (or chords as they are more commonly referred to), you start to feel which chords will fit underneath a melody. Sometimes you will feel that the solid, stable sound of a triad is not the right fit for the melody you are playing, so you add a note or two to the foundation of the triad to wash it out. Sometimes you will feel that the transition between two chords is a little clunky, so you add another chord to make the transition smoother. All the chords you will play are based on the foundation of triads, and the foundation of feeling which chord is right that training with triads will teach you.

Step 7: Conclusion

Learning to play piano comes with much more than just making sounds from a keyboard. The knowledge you gain will help you understand music, from how harmony and melody work together, to making a complete song, to how rhythm drives a song forward, to how using the human need for patterns helps to create order out of chaos, and music out of noise. There are many styles of piano, including classical, jazz (which in itself has many styles as it is an amalgamation of many cultures and rich musical histories), and modern, which are not mutually exclusive of course, but require different starting approaches to most effectively learn.

Here at Boston Piano Lessons, we will teach you all these skills, in whatever style you wish to study, and provide guidance every step of the way. We will help you acquire the best gear for your budget, space, and skill level. We will tailor these private piano lessons for your skill level, available weekly time, and goals. We will help you build a foundation to understanding and learning music so that you know how to practice, and learn, any music you want to, even without our help. Sign up today to begin your journey!