How to learn to play the piano? Whether it is possible independently?

How to learn to play the piano? This question is often asked by children aged about 7 years and older, as well as adults of all ages. Of course, those who did not study music ask. Those who have an idea of the learning process do not ask this question, understanding: without the teacher, the task of mastering the piano does not have a solution.

The author of this article teaches the piano game for 36 years. The material presented here is based on this experience.

The main answer to the question - how to learn how to play the piano independently, according to our full and deep conviction, looks disappointing. You can not learn without a mentor, and you should not even try.

On the Internet, you can find a huge amount of training materials that contradict this statement. Beginners self-taught, unfamiliar with the essence of the matter, reason approximately like this: "There is enough material, advertising promises success. How to quickly learn to play the piano? If you follow the instructions exactly, it's fast enough. "

Who is right: professional teachers who deny the possibility of independent instruction or popularizers who insist on its accessibility?

A small analysis of the problem will help to form the correct answer.

At the initial stage of training the following objectives should be pursued:

• Learn the grammar of musical notation, as well as record a meter and rhythm. The level of possession should be sufficient for independent analysis by notes and the performance of single-sound melodies (each hand separately and with two hands);
• To master the initial skills of setting hands, without which it is simply impossible to control the movements;
• Learn how to pick tunes from different notes by ear;
• Independently read by notes, analyze and learn some of the most common chord progressions (mainly for the left hand);
• Learn how to pick them up from different notes by ear;
• Learn how to choose the right chord progression for any melody.

Among these goals, the main ones are those that help to master the game by ear. The next most important goal - independent reading and analysis of music on notes.

Consider the requirements for training programs aimed at achieving these goals.

When teaching a musical notation, the most difficult question is the student's understanding of the material. The presence of such an understanding would be evidenced by the ability to properly play a melody on notes, and then sing it. The training program should be able to monitor these two processes. Today such products do not exist. But in abundance you can find programs that show a keyboard with "magic" keys - they seem to be "pressed themselves."

Allegedly answering the question of how to learn to play the piano, such programs bring tremendous harm to the student. Firstly, they do not show participation of hands in the performing process. Secondly, in the absence of guidelines that separate the melody and accompaniment (and such a guide would undoubtedly be a musical notation), the pupil must reproduce poorly ordered pressure instead of the organized musical tissue. Thirdly, such programs are not connected to the real piano keyboard, and the motor skills of transferring the "magic picture" to the real instrument are simply not developed.

There are a lot of videos on which the pianist's technique is demonstrated: planting a tool, setting hands. However, most of these videos made a critical error. A video view from the top or from the front is selected, from which it is impossible to understand how to set the brush and fingers correctly. Shooting should be conducted sideways, alternately to the left, then to the right of the teacher's hands, in a plane parallel to the keyboard.

In addition, when setting hands, there are literally hundreds of nuances and recommendations that no program can track. There is nothing to talk about the book descriptions of the piano technique: learning from them is unrealistic.

Selection of melodies by ear is the most important stage in the development of musical ability to distinguish the sound altitude. Without this ability the student has nothing to do in music. Existing programs can only monitor whether the key is pressed correctly, but can not "understand" if the sound is heard correctly.

Chord sequences can really be learned from the pattern shown in the computer program. But as soon as the task is set to reproduce the sequence from different notes, the student is lost: the program can not show it to him.

Only a teacher can help in such a difficult task as selecting chords from different notes.

The same goes for an even more difficult task - selecting chords for a melody.

A student must try many options that the teacher is able to instantly assess.

The analysis shows how important the teacher is in mastering the piano.

However, there is a purely "amateur" version of training, where the goal is not to master the instrument, but the ability to play a small number of simple plays. At achievement of result pupils consider, that for them the answer to a question - how to learn to play the piano has taken place. From our point of view, this decision is equally far from both the musical culture and the culture of the pedagogical process.