How to play the piano

Ralf discovered Chuan C. Chang’s Fundamentals of Piano Practice. The book is also available at pianofundamentals.com. To quote the author:

“This web site provides free piano lessons, piano teaching material, and piano tuning instructions. You can learn piano up to 1000 times faster (!) compared to other methods (see Chapter One, IV.5). This is the first book ever written on how to practice at the piano. For hundreds of years, many teachers and other books taught you what techniques to acquire, but that is of little use unless you know how to acquire them quickly, as Mozart, Liszt, etc., did. You can download the entire book free using the links below.”

My last piano lesson was about 13 years ago… I’d really like to start playing again, but for now it’s not feasible to move my piano from my parents’ house to our current home. However, having a piano (or a similar instrument) at home is necessary in order to practise enough. I should really look into buying a used electric piano or something like that.

5 thoughts on “How to play the piano

  1. Heinrich

    Ein interessanter Buchtipp. Wenngleich: Ziemlich ermüdend zu lesen.
    Dazu noch ohne Notenbeispiele … (Gibt es Bestimmungsbücher von Pilzen ohne Abbildungen?)
    Das Kapitel 1.4 “Mathematical Theory of Piano Playing” verspricht im Titel mehr, als es im Text einlöst. Aber einige unorthodoxe Überlegungen.

    Zu den Inventionen und Sinfonien von Bach noch der Hinweis auf die bei Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht erschienenen beiden Werke von Johann Nepomuk David. Das Beste, was über diese Musik und ihre Wiedergabe je geschrieben wurde.

    Jetzt aber die Revanche für diesen Tipp: Ein Buch über Lineare Algebra, zu lesen bei ftp://joshua.smcvt.edu/pub/hefferon/book/book.pdf und mit dem üblichen Voodoo-Zauber drumhereim bei http://joshua.smcvt.edu/linearalgebra/

    Enjoy

  2. John the Piano Beginners Beginner

    I think I’m in the same category as Henrik – except I never had any leesons before. I started playing around with some of the software and ebooks available to piano beginner’s – there’s an awful lot of stuff out there if you know where to find it.

  3. Phil Bell

    I have read Mr.Chang’s book all the way through (400+ pages.) He has some very interesting comments and suggestions. As a beginning piano student myself, I have tried to adopt many of his recommendations. The one that seems to be most effective for me has to do with learning to play each hand separately at 120+% of tempo before combining into “hands together.” This is not what most instructors would recommend.

    After starting piano lessons, I became interested enough to create a website devoted to helping new piano owners and students. I explain this Chang technique in more detail in this article. Learning to play the piano – a new technique explained

    Quality instruction and keyboards are available. Chase your dream – it won’t happen otherwise. Hope this helps. Phil

    ps – Blogging for 10 years – wow.

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