The feeling is even more satisfactory and thrilling if you are playing with a band or you are simply backing a singer whether professionally or just for the fun of it and one of the best instruments you can master is learning how to play the piano well.
Why choose to play the piano when there are so many other instruments to choose from? Well, for starters, once you mastered the keyboard on the piano, you can then play on other electronic keyboards and can create the sound of all the other instruments and even more! Isn't that a good enough reason why you should choose to learn to play the piano?
Here are more reasons why you should learn to play the piano. Playing the piano well makes you feel and look sophisticated and elegant Somehow, a pianist just exudes some kind of elegant charm more than other musicians.
Just close your eye and imagine a pianist in his tuxedo tickling the ivories. Now change your mental image and imagine another musician of your choice playing another instrument. Now open your eyes and tell me which of the two musicians exude more elegance?
Besides the aesthetic image of a pianist, playing the piano helps to keep your brain active because your brain is doing mental exercises to coordinate the movements of all your fingers. There are numerous scientific studies which show that pianists are more mathematically inclined.
This may sound like common sense, learning how to play the piano not only helps you to kill boredom it can give you a sense of well being. If you do not have anything to do, you can go and play the piano and sing to yourself and take notice of how you feel. It is a simply awesome way to overcome boredom.
Imagine that in entertaining your family or your friends when they drop by for a visit. All of you will have fun and at the same time, developing stronger bonds. Wouldn't that be fun?
Furthermore, many people will actually respect you and with some even thinking that you are a genius. No joke. Many people actually admire someone who can play the piano well. From my personal experience, I have often get compliments from people saying that I play the piano like a maestro and this could be you.
You should know that a good pianist never stop learning. This is because there is absolutely no way to memorize every song and if you can play by ear, you are learning new tunes every time from the TV, radio or from whatever medium without you even being aware of it until someone ask you whether you can play a certain song and although you have never learnt that particular song before, the tune just pops into your head with your fingers running beautifully over the piano keys. This is where your subconscious mind takes over. Isn't that interesting?
Learning to play the piano proficiently is also a fantastic ego booster. There is no better feeling and satisfaction when playing a difficult song effortlessly and flawlessly to an appreciative audience.
Therefore if you are thinking of learning a musical instrument, why not choose to learn how to play the piano?
But before any accurate observations can be made of what the hand is doing, it is necessary that the eye should know what to look for, as it can see only that which it brings the power of seeing. "No man can learn what he has not the preparation for learning." The why and wherefore of every pianist's tone is, to a great extent, explained by his management of the hands. And in order to know how and what to observe, and how to learn from the observation, it is necessary to remember that the work done by the hands while playing on the piano, is an application of one mechanism to another.
Therefore the hand itself and what is known as the "Action" of the piano, must both be separately studied before any conclusions can be arrived at, as to what may be expected of them when acting together.
It will perhaps be asked, Can the uniform employment of one method be kept from developing mannerism? Will it not hamper or check the outcome of the player's own conception of a composer's work? May each player adopt it, and at the same time freely express what he himself feels about the music? As an answering counter-question, let it be asked; ought one to expect to play as well on an incorrect system of using the hands and piano as on a correct one? Is there not a law of freedom in art? Is the painter fettered in the use of his sense of colour by being obliged to learn to draw? Ought an author to feel himself cramped from having to preserve grammatical sequence in his sentences? Does correctly expressed language hinder the flow of original ideas, or prevent them from being understood? Can a speaker who has little freedom in the language in which he is speaking, make himself as forcibly descriptive as if he had a perfect command of it? Can one work well with tools of the use of which he is partially ignorant?
It will from this be seen that the power to express anything lies in having under complete control the vehicle of expression, or in other words, the tools to be used. This control, however perfect it may become, will at the same time never furnish a pianist with the musical feeling to be expressed. Musical feeling, and its correct expression, will remain two distinctly separate and important possessions of the piano player, constant improvement of both must always be continued to avoid becoming one-sided. An intellectual understanding of mechanical principles will avail him little if he is not a musician in soul and alive to perceive sympathetically the innumerable shades of tone and varieties of tempo which go to make up a fine performance of any work. The power of being able to play in a beautiful expressive way that is immediately artistic must lie within the player, and can to only a small extent be taught; and if his own feelings do not to some degree suggest what ought to be done, no teaching will be able to supply the deficiency.
But while this inner musical feeling must be the resource to be drawn upon by the piano player, the means of drawing on this resource must be provided if it is to be of any positive value to him. Of what good is a store of provisions if the access to them is cut off?
The student may perhaps be highly gifted with both musical feeling, and also with a perfectly accurate way of expressing the same. But on the other hand, and much more probably, he may be one whose mechanical intuition is weak, who hears beautiful tone gladly, but is unable to discover for himself how to make his fingers produce a like tone, who has little faculty for noticing small though decisive outward signs in the playing of great artists, who is troubled with a nervous temperament which seems to do little else than cramp his playing-powers, and who is perhaps trying to persuade himself that the method on which he was taught must surely be the best one.
As this work discusses the question of How to express, and not what to express, it must be kept in mind that the mechanical side of piano-playing will claim most of our attention. But as it will throughout be argued that a true style can arise only out of a true use of knowing the conditions of the mechanism employed, it will therefore be considered not outside of the question if constant reference be made to the end of all piano-playing, namely, beauty of tone, to which end it must be carried before it can express emotion and become worthy of any place as art.
Both Chris Chew & Mike Shaw are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Chris Chew has sinced written about articles on various topics from Education, Online College and Cosmetic Surgery. Chris Chew owns a music education website at and. Chris Chew's top article generates over 823000 views. to your Favourites.
Mike Shaw has sinced written about articles on various topics from Arts, Keyboard Synthesizer and Guide Guitar. Michael Shaw teaches students of all ages to play the organ and keyboard. You can now download his popular Lesson 1 eBook for beginners at