Uh, yes!!! We want a video on your insights into reading music!! 💯

One myth is that digital pianos are zero maintenance.  They are zero tuning, but, at some point, can can play one enough that parts wear out (like hammers and felt) and need to be replaced.  Or you get a little dust in there and some of the contacts aren't quite right.

The one myth I'd really like to see busted is the idea that someone will be happy to take the crappy spinet piano that you don't want any more off your hands...like the one that you bought in the 70s or 80s and can't even remember the last time you tuned it (likely decades ago). Such pianos most of the time are absolute garbage and belong in the landfill. I have seen a number of people offering such pianos and they are surprised and offended by the fact that no one wants to take it for free. In one instance, a retirement home did take such a piano and it sounded horrendous. The music school that my daughter took lessons at put on a student recital for the retirees. One teenager tried to play Maple Leaf Rag and got so mixed up by the awful sound that he struggled to continue and apologized to the audience. Whoever, decided that was a piano worth having should have been the one apologizing.

Great honest video which puts all these myths into perspective!

Just a small comment about learning to read sheet music. As you pointed out, it’s like learning a new language. And it must be said that it is much easier to learn a new language when you are young, as a kid, than when you are an adult. So the earlier you start the easier it gets.

And last not least, I’m convinced that a “traditional” teaching methodology, which includes daily practice of scales, learning Bach pieces, produces the best results. Piano playing is an extremely complex thing as you basically have to be able to focus on both hands, all your fingers and possibly your feet at the same time. Having said that it is also extremely awarding when you manage to play a piece, even the easiest one, completely by yourself, when you’re getting goose bumps by your own playing and reach a sort of flow.

In any case, it’s always the result of hard and continuous work.

I was accompanying my daughter to a Youth Conference and there was a kid who was trying to play the winner takes it all using a tile video. Seeing him trying his best I gave him a few tips (and I'm not a great pianist yet). I told him to recognize pattern to help him positions his right  hand. I let him play the tutorial when I realized to what extend music sheet is THE thing

I like your honesty. I have been learning for just over a year and have often asked myself if I am progressing enough. I see myself as a keen hobbyist enjoying the learning process on my modest digital piano.

So true. From my first engine repair at age 11 to being a hot rodder at 16...5 years. From my first radio voice job at 19 to my own radio show in a top five market...7 years. From private pilot to my first jet job...four years. Everything takes time. You can't rush the competency. It happens at your own individual speed of causation. This Monday, I will have one year with my new P225 keyboard. I have at least four more years to be worth anything at piano. I just have to accept that fact.

Great post ,thank you for sharing. I started learning on Piano /keyboard two weeks ago at the age of 61 and am documenting my progress on my channel . I have various problems, I'm totally deaf in my left ear I have two damaged fingers on my left hand ,I have a damaged back from accidents.  And more importantly I have the memory of a goldfish.  So I won't even try to learn to read music as my interests are rock and blues music so Im hoping to just get good at playing chords and riffs . Being on a medical pension I can't afford a piano teacher so I will be teaching myself from YouTube videos . Of course I have subscribed to your channel today ...Harry

You always give solid and sensible guidance.  I'm glad you teach your students how to practice because I think it is one of the most valuable contributions you can make as a skilled teacher.  When I was young, I used to practice as much as 4 hours a day, just because I loved doing it.  Now, at 71, some days I practice 3 or more hours in a day, but other days my focus is way off or I'm not up to long practice, so I practice less.    Thirty minutes of focused practice is far better than three hours of practicing how to make mistakes.   I notice there are lot's of piano competition participants who display enormous ability that don't make a full-time career of performance; and there are concert pianists who did well as performers, but found more satisfaction in  teaching than a life of being on tour all the time.  I appreciate that you work hard to teach the most important music lesson -- that of being patient with yourself while working toward your goals.  Keep up the great work you are doing!

12:42 It's like the difference between who can learn to speak Spanish fluently (we all can, with enough effort) and who can become a great writer, speaker, or actor in Spanish (requires special talent).  I only want to play the piano well enough to be fluent -- to play ordinary pieces decently and appreciate what they are, and to know in some detail what the higher-echelon pianists are doing that I can't do.

That " Hammerklavier " looked like a 9.0 on the Richter Scale.

Very timely, thank you! I find one of  the biggest challenges is to not compare ones own progress with others. Its so hard sometimes.

OH!  YES!  YES!  YES!  --  PLEEEZE MEGHAN!

I would VERY MUCH LOVE  to see your video on your approach to teaching music reading.

I have been attempting -- struggling -- to put together an optimal/ideal sequence/progression to go from zero to reading.

I start initially with learning to play by rote imitation, ear and simplified pre-reading resources.  I teach basic triads -- all three inversions, broken and blocked, hands separate and together -- in several keys (C, G, D, F and sometimes get to a-, e-, and d-natural minors), and basic 1-octave and 2-octave scales in the same keys. They also learn the complete (I - IV - I - V - I) cadence in those keys starting in root position ( and sometimes starting in 1st inversion and 2nd inversion ...)

So I insist that my students are already playing with good posture and technic before I even attempt to introduce reading.

For reading I've been taking two parallel tracks:

- rhythmic notation -- teaching rhythm notation and counting completely apart from any regard to pitch  - i.e. having to find the "right notes"  (I'm also a percussionist -- snare drum reading exercises are great for this ..)

- pitch notation -- I start with an explanation of the mapping of notes/keys to the grand staff, and then proceed with a combination of pre-reading notation (notes on lines and spaces with the note name written in) using landmark notes -- C's  then C's and G's, then C's, G's, and F's -- WITHOUT any particular concern for rhythmic values other than to keep the eyes moving at an even pace (using metronome) -- all the initial reading notes are in quarter notes which simplifies rhythm and counting. After that I start filling in the in-between pitches - D's, E's, A's, and B's.

Then we start to combine by adding rhythmic complexity  to simple pitch variations -  essentially what most "methods" do -- disguising the process as "pieces" ... then increase the pitch complexity. Since they already know the triads and cadences, we work first with the melody in the RH and the chords (triads) in the LH -- essentially they're playing lead sheets ....

- and then -- whaddaya have but .. READING!  

I would LOVE to see how you approach this --  any help will be GREATLY APPRECIATED!

For myth 3 ("learning to read sheet music is really hard"), it depends on what you mean.

If you mean only reading the music itself, but without any other constraints, then no, it's not hard -- you've got as much time as you need to figure out what you're looking at.

If you mean sight reading, which is what I think most people think of when they think of reading music, then it's extremely hard.

You compare it with learning to read a language.  It's not like that at all, and I wish people would stop trying to make that comparison.  With a language, the letters are unmistakable.  Each letter has a distinct shape that makes it easy to recognize instantly and makes it nearly impossible to confuse it with a different letter.   We're able to eventually see words as a consequence, but being able to instantly distinguish the letters is a necessary prerequisite, without which we wouldn't be able to learn to read words.  Notes in sheet music isn't like that at all.  Each note looks the same, just a dot on the page, and the only thing that differentiates them is their position, and the only thing that makes their position differentiable with any amount of precision at all is the lines of the staff.  Now add in surrounding notes and the lines start to disappear or become harder to notice, which makes instant identification of the notes much more difficult.   And no, intervalic reading doesn't save you here because if you screw up an interval then you screw up the entire sequence until you perform an absolute note identification.  As a result, the only reliable way to sight read is through instant absolute note identification, which I find exceedingly difficult.  I can instantly identify notes in isolation on flash card apps and such, but not on a page, because my pattern recognition demands a high degree of similarity between what I'm looking at and what I've learned.  Chord recognition is easy enough, at least when all the notes are in the same clef, since the geometric pattern is usually distinct and maps directly to a hand shape, but the same is not true of arpeggios.  The same two arpeggios can have notes spaced differently and will thus look different.  And if they look different, then for pattern recognition they are different.  This makes geometric pattern recognition of note sequences of only limited value, while for a real language the geometric shape is everything.

So if by reading music you mean sight reading, then it's exceedingly difficult.  I know this to be the case for myself, at least, because I'd been trying to learn it for the first 6 months of my piano journey and got almost nowhere with it (maximum SASR of about 150), dropped it for another 9 months or so to focus on working on other things, and recently picked it up again because I found through experience that learning pieces did nothing for it, and in fact my sight reading got worse during that time, an amazing feat considering how bad I was at it.  So I'm slogging through it now because I have no choice.  I have no choice because my memory in general is about the worst you'll find and so I need to be able to sight read if I'm going to be able to play pieces of any real length.

I don't practice sight reading to a metronome.  I can't, because if I try then what little ability I have to sight read falls completely apart.  The pressure of having to decode the note in time is just too much, and slowing down enough to guarantee that I can do that means slowing down to the point where the length of time between notes is the largest length of time it takes me to decode a note, which is perhaps a couple of seconds or so -- an unacceptably glacial speed for getting anywhere with it.

I started playing aged 8 and carried on until 13 or so.  Then I took a looong break and started again aged 40. I’m kind of back to where I was as a kid now and feel like I’m enjoying it more now.

I always look forward to your videos, Meghan.  You’re a voice of sanity and reason in the vast cacophony of the internet.  Thanks, again!

i love your videos! ive been playing Piano for around 9 years now and i really appreciate what you do and you still teach me new things.

Thank you for this wonderful and authentic video about learning to play the piano. As a former middle school band director and current music theory instructor at the university level, I wholeheartedly agree with each and every one of your points. (Except for perhaps music as a language, but that's for the theorists and philosophers to continue debating. Very effective analogy the way you deployed it.)

It is wonderful to finally hear the objective truth. I could not fault one thing you have said. It is so long since I have heard an accurate description of learning piano I had forgotten what it really sounded like. Very, very well done!   Thank you.

Another great video! Yes we would love a dedicated video on your sheet music teaching method! Thank You!