Why I don't have videos

 

While reading some of my posts about aspects of technique, you may have wondered why I don't just include videos to show you instead of just tell you. It's not that I didn't think of it or don't know how to do it.

I don't have videos because I don't want any readers to think that you can learn to play the piano by watching someone else do it, whether in person or by video. If that were true, there would be a lot more good, or even very good, pianists out there. But sorry, it just doesn't happen.

Playing the piano is intensely physical. It may not look that way to the casual observer because great pianists can make it look easy. As with sports, mastery at the piano takes years of training your body to do thousands of different motions that make the whole thing work. You'd probably agree that you can't learn to play golf or tennis by just watching someone else do it, even if they explain what they are doing. You may be able to watch them, but they need to be watching you in order to see and hear what you are doing in order to correct your technique.

The other day I happened to notice some You-tube vidoes pop up on my phone about various subjects related to piano. Most had outlandish claims such as "learn to master all your chords in a few easy steps" or "learn everything you need to know about music theory in 20 minutes" or "the one exercise that will catapult your playing to the next level." You get the idea. They sound too good to be true because they are. I suppose some of these people think they are doing a service to the public, but I suspect that getting you to subscribe, and eventually to sell you some of the materials, has something to do with it.

In this blog I do not purport to teach you how to play. I only wish to give you food for thought if you are either currently trying to learn and experiencing some frustrations, or thinking of starting to learn the piano but don't know what direction to take. Many of the ideas and methods I talk about are VERY different from traditional methods and beliefs about how to play, and I firmly believe that my approach is an enormous improvement over older methods. But I never promise you will "learn all your chords in a few easy steps." (BTW, the woman who had that video just referred to the 12 major and 12 minors. She didn't mention 7th chords. She had all the chords in root position, which is necessary to start with, but unless you also learn inversions of chords, you don't have the knowledge for real-life playing. "All your chords" was 24 chords. In reality there would be hundreds of permutations.)

It is important to learn what really works and what doesn't. That way you won't spend endless hours in drudgery and pointless exercises that don't work. So yes, you can speed up the process of learning, to some extent. But there is no "secret" method that some person on You-tube has discovered that will allow you to bypass the many years people spend to achieve a high level of playing on the piano, or any instrument for that matter.

I'd like to share a funny -- yet also sad! -- story about someone who tried to find a shortcut to learning the piano. His name is Noah Adams and he is a well-known journalist and broadcaster. Some years ago he became interested in the piano and wanted to learn to play a specific piece, Traumerei by Schumann, for his wife. Traumerei is a beautiful little gem. It is only one page, but devilishly tricky to play well. It is NOT a beginner piece. He went to the Steinway store in New York City and bought himself a beautiful baby grand. He soon realized he didn't really know where to start, but didn't feel he had the time for private lessons, or perhaps just didn't want that much commitment. So he found a program online which guided the student through lessons from the very beginning with videos etc. Problem was, that for the program to work, you had to have an electronic keyboard attached so the computer program could hear what you were playing. There he was, playing on a dinky little keyboard while the online program buzzed him for every wrong note, while his beautiful Steinway sat, unplayed, in the other room. Eventually he gave up on this approach, no closer to playing Traumerei. Later on, he went to music "camps" where he got some personal instruction, and tried some other approaches. In the end, after several years (if I remember correctly) he did play Traumerei for his wife, though I doubt he played it very well. I don't know whether he learned many other pieces or only that one. The moral of the story is that he looked for a "shortcut" but ended up with a long and tortuous path instead. If he had gone to a REALLY GOOD teacher right from the start, he would have achieved much more, both quantity and quality, in that amount of time. You can read his story in his book titled "Piano Lessons."

You'll see that in my blog, I urge my readers to try to find a committed and highly perceptive teacher. No videos, no outlandish promises, nothing I'm trying to sell, just meaningful advice from a lifetime of playing and teaching.