Many people would love to know how to play the piano. I hear it all the time from people I meet: "Oh I wish I had learned to play the piano...." Most people realize it's a lifetime pursuit, that is, if you want to play well and be able to play more than a few songs or pieces. Some people do not realize that, so it's easy to see why it would be so tempting when they see videos, blogs, and books that promise "Learn to play the piano in a week!" or other similar claims. You know the saying, " if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
Some videos claim to teach you how to play starting from absolute beginner. Others try to teach specific techniques or specific pieces. If you've read my previous posts on trying to teach yourself and also on shortcuts, you'll know that I do not recommend learning online. You can watch what the teacher is doing with her hands, but she cannot watch what you are doing with yours, which is one of the most critical aspects of what the teacher does. They often resort to saying, in essence, "just do this one thing and you'll be able to play." They have to make it sound simple. If they told you honestly how challenging the piano is, and how many hours and years you will need to spend at it, they wouldn't have many viewers left.
I recently watched a video of a pianist with instruction on one specific piece, Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp minor (a famous and, for most students, challenging, piece). She said she was going to show you how to "learn and memorize it quickly and easily." She went on to show you some ways you could practice the big chords, octaves and so on. Some of it was just about identifying the chord(s) you are on, which is always a good idea, but it doesn't actually help you play it, physically, and at the speed the piece requires. Another suggestion was playing it slower, which is a pretty obvious one. She even gave one piece of incorrect information, saying the the upward facing stem in the middle ("agitato") section meant that you are supposed to bring that note out. In fact, the stem up indicates it's a quarter note, while the downward facing stems are a triplet (they are considered two separate "voices.") Since you are holding the upper note through the whole beat, it will be heard as the main melody. But her description of its meaning was simply wrong. At one point she said it's best to memorize the ending section because it's "hard to look at the music and your hands at the same time." But what if memorizing is difficult for you? She didn't say how you were supposed to do that, despite promising she was going to show you how to learn and memorize it. Some of her suggestions were reasonable, but in the end, you weren't going to learn to play the piece this way. If you already had the basic skill level and technical ability to play it, you wouldn't need her video. It was simply unethical, in my opinion, to promise "quickly and easily."
Another example I read recently in someone's blog, was that you should play your melody note slightly late, in other words, a fraction of a second later that the bass or other parts. He said it was an "expressive feature" that would make your playing sound more beautiful. He did have to qualify that this only applied to the Romantic period, and that, of course, you couldn't do it all the time or it would become expected and lose it's expressive quality. (It begs the question, then how do I make Baroque, Classical and Impressionist music sound expressive??) So it's basically a gimmick. If your playing was emotionally unengaged and without expression before, you can't just do "this one thing" and have it sound expressive. There are hundreds of elements that go into "expression." And if you were to try to decide which notes to play slightly late, it would sound forced and un-musical. If some of your melody notes came ever so slightly late, it would be because it happened spontaneously, not because you "decided" to do it. Nuances of rhythm are an important part of expression and having your own interpretation. But it's not a gimmick.
In my early teens, my parents decided to look for a new teacher for me. One teacher we met with described his approach to technique, and it was all based on rotation of the arm, that is, where the ulna rotates over the humerus bone. He gave a long sales pitch saying this was the key to good technique. Neither of my parents were pianists, so we didn't really know how to evaluate this claim, but he was so convincing we decided to go with him. He gave me lots of exercises to learn this technique. Now, with six and a half decades of experience playing the piano since then, I can tell you that rotation is not a very useful technique. It is highly inefficient. You may need the slightest bit of rotation in such things as octave tremelos, but very little, and combined with the use of the upper arm. After a year with this teacher, my parents and I agreed I hadn't made much progress, and we decided to look again. Maybe this teacher was looking for something that would make him stand out from the crowd of other teachers, but it was just a gimmick.
I could give you dozens, if not hundreds, more examples. I really feel that the availability of online videos and classes have done people a huge disservice. If you never really learn to play, or to accomplish what they are showing you, there is no accountability for them. They don't have to answer your questions or address your concerns. Some may genuinely want to help people, but in the end, it is the number of views and clicks they get that matters. Sadly, not everyone can afford private lessons. And even then, there is a great difference in teachers. But whether you are looking for help online or with one-on-one private lessons, just don't fall for gimmicks and sales pitches.
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