Pianos are common instruments around the world. If you, or your child, are thinking about mastering the art of playing the piano, you may have considered simply doing it on your own, as many people do with guitars and other popular instruments. However, piano lessons are an absolute must for anyone who wants to stick with this instrument for more than a few weeks, and here are a few reasons why.
Steep Initial Learning Curve
Many instruments have between three to six buttons, strings, or positions, while a standard piano has eighty-eight keys. While you don’t use every key for every song, and you can go for a long time without using certain keys, this abundance of options and the precise placement required is a step up from most other instruments. While detecting pitch is easier on a piano than on instruments that require breath control or embouchure, getting it just right so it sounds as it should is still an art form, and the pace of learning is on another level.
Weed Out Bad Habits Early
Because there are so many keys and options on a piano, it is easy to develop bad habits if you don’t know what to look out for. From poor hand positioning to a tempo that is just too fast (or slow) to something as simple as sitting with bad posture, learning the piano requires good fundamentals that you only get from someone who is an expert themselves. Piano lessons might not be needed forever, but at the very least, they are required if you want to develop a decent standard that will last.
Finding the Correct Path
Picking and choosing songs to learn is certainly a fun way to learn an instrument, and helps keep enthusiasm high, but to truly learn the piano well, you should give yourself over to the piano tutor a little more. They will have simple pieces that teach you a wide variety of important patterns that will be applied later on, and they can shape your development in major ways. If you want to learn quickly and store the knowledge deep into your muscle memory so it becomes almost second nature, then piano lessons are a must.