Learning Piano

A few weeks ago I was looking through the basement when I found my dusty old MIDI piano from Yamaha. It then occured to me that it had been well over a decade since I last played. I picked that bad boy up and brought it to my bedroom.

Here's my Piano in all of it's old, yellowed and dusty glory.

But after twenty minutes of pushing a few buttons here and a few keys there, I realized I had no idea what I was doing. Thankfully, the internet was on my side. I found two really helpful websites I want to share these to you guys.

The first website was Piano Nanny which has starter, intermediate, and advanced "studies". Each study includes various lessons and a quiz at the end to make sure you understand the material before moving on to the next one.

That's when I stumbled across Yousician. How I see Yousician is kind of like a realistic version of Guitar Hero. It offers a version for Piano, Guitar, Bass, and Ukelele (Ukelele!) and I'm sure they're going to add other instruments in the future. How it works is easy: You download their app onto either a computer, tablet, or phone, and you play your piano. The app will pick up what you're playing and show you how your timing and accuracy to notes are. It made playing piano really easy and fun! I almost hate the memory of going to the piano ladies at the music store when I was little now, because of how inefficient it was.

The only downside this website has is it's free version has limited time every day (You have to wait every 12 hours or so) and there are a few almost "commercial breaks", where they tell you you should totally upgrade to the paid version for unlimited playtime.

I'm still looking around for other really great piano learning websites, and if you know of one, feel free to post it in the comments, guys! There are a few I haven't played as long as I want, but if I feel it's worth mentioning I'll update you in a future post!