Chenhu Liu(Tiger)’s PLN

My hometown is a small city in an underdeveloped area in central China, and I had never seen a piano outside of books until I saw the first one in my life in kindergarten. From then on, I always felt that the piano was something far away from me until I was in 6th grade, a young female teacher, Li, a college student from the Central Conservatory of Music who had come from Beijing for an internship, came to school to teach our music class.

I loved to express myself in her class and sang very loudly every time. Slowly, I realized that I was sensitive to notes and had a stronger sense of tone than the students around me, and soon Li noticed this trait in me. She told me that she could teach me piano lessons every weekend until she returned to Beijing after her teaching internship and that I would have a foundation in John Thompson’s Easiest Piano Course so that I could explore the world of piano on my own in the future.

But when I went home and told my grandparents the good news, they warned me that I should not spend my time on “meaningless” things during the critical period of elementary school to junior high school. They also thought that the piano was a western thing and that the next generation should learn about our own culture. There is indeed only one junior high school in our small town, and the percentage of students from my elementary school who can enter this junior high school is very small every year. Although my grades were good at that time, I still didn’t dare to take it lightly.

So I finally gave up on the idea and buried it in my heart. However, I never understood the saying “piano is a western culture, but we have to learn our own culture.” A good culture should be diverse and a good education should be liberal. But I didn’t argue with my grandparents at that time.

Soon my life became monotonous and simple. Math, Geography, English, Politics, etc. became daily staples and I rarely thought about the piano anymore. It wasn’t until I entered college that I slowly realized that the piano, or music, was a language, a universal language that could quickly establish a connection with my surroundings. Moreover, the piano is a great bridge to talk to ourselves. But at this point in my life, it was hard to reserve enough time for piano lessons, and learning piano became more difficult for an adult in every sense of the word.

When I was writing my profile for the networked and learning course, I wrote something like “My favorite movie is Nolan’s Interstellar, I rewatch it in its entirety probably every two years, the last time I saw it was three weeks ago, and the next time might be 2024”. Hui Soo left a message asking me what I thought of the movie’s episodes, and I wrote a lot about how I felt about it. Then I suddenly realized that this might be a great time to learn piano. When Professor Natriello told me that I could choose piano as my elective, I was very happy. I also wanted to take this opportunity to finish my PLN on the topic of the piano.

I think that for many adults who want to learn piano, they have more or less an unforgettable past with the piano. It’s not always easy to learn. Uneven educational resources, poor economic development, and the need to improve cultural awareness are all possible obstacles. I am lucky enough to have time to study now, but in many adults’ worlds, there may be no place for piano anymore. So on the one hand, I made this PLN for myself, but I also hope that it can help other people who still have piano dreams like me.

Before doing this PLN, I met with my piano teacher for the next semester ahead of time to discuss the direction and content for the next semester and how to better learn piano as an adult, thanks to Mr. Zhang’s valuable advice.

I know that many adults who speak of unfulfilled wishes in their lives include, “I wish I’d learned how to play the piano,” as one of them. If learning to play piano is on your bucket list, I have good news – It’s never too late to start. But how far you can go depends on the goal. My goal is to be able to play pop music and improvise, so my PLN is based on that. If the goal is classical music, I think it’s still difficult because after all, the best learning period is missed. But where there’s a will, there’s a way. I think if we keep doing something and never give up, we’ll definitely gain something from it. And in the process, we are more capable of independent thinking, distinguish right from wrong, and can have more confidence and courage to adhere to what we want to adhere to and should adhere to, that’s one of the meanings of life, isn’t it?

Following these steps, let’s start our journey:

• Find a piano or keyboard
• Learn basic piano knowledge
• Learn the major keys
• Learn the most common chords
• Learn patterns
• Learn proper fingering
• Learn how to read music
• Use instructional media
• Practice

Find a Piano or Keyboard on Which to Learn

The first step is to find a piano or keyboard on which we will learn.

Contrary to popular belief, we don’t actually have to own a piano in order to learn how to play it. Friends, family, our school and our church are all great options if we can’t afford to purchase a piano or keyboard. We can also rent a piano from some places.

I’ve put up a collection of resources at the bottom, mainly to help find pianos near us. One is in the US and the other is in Japan. I put up the Japanese resource because my first undergraduate major was Japanese and I studied in Japan for six months, then I am familiar with the local situation, so I may consider to find a job in Japan after graduation, in which case the distribution of piano rooms in Japan is a useful resource for me.

Learn Basic Piano Knowledge

Any good piano teacher would begin our introduction to the piano by teaching us basic piano knowledge. So, that’s the place to start. 

• Familiarize ourselves with the piano. Look at and listen to the middle keys, flat keys (left black keys), sharp keys (right black keys), bass and high tones.
• Learn where middle C is. Middle C is the home base of learning the piano. It is near the middle of the keyboard and is the white key to the left of the grouping of two black keys.
• Learn the basic keys. The naturals are the white keys and are C- D -E- F- G -A- B. Black keys are called accidentals as they make a flat or sharp note when pressed. Each octave (set of eight notes) has five accidentals, which can be sharp or flat.
• Learn the language of music. I want to study some basic musical terms. This Glossary of Musical Terms from Khan Academy is free and covers the basic concepts in music. 

Learn the Major Keys

When we are learning piano for the first time, whether by teaching ourselves or learning from an instructor, we must start by learning the major keys. we can teach ourselves these through a numbering system if it’s easier for us. (1= middle C, 2=D, 3=E, 4=F, 5=G, 6=A, 7=B, 8= higher C).

Some people find this an easier way to learn simple songs they can play right off the bat, like “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” which would start as 3-2-1-2-3-3-3.

Learning scales is one way to learn the major keys, and we will discuss that more later. Some music teachers recommend that we play around with the major keys until we become comfortable in each.

Focus on one major key each week, and memorize which notes are in that major key. Before long we’ll feel comfortable enough to recognize in which key a given piece of music is written. 

Learn the Most Common Chords

Even if we can’t read music yet, we can learn some of the most common chords used in music.

There are major and minor chords in music. Major chords use the root key, third and fifth keys. Minor chords use the root key, flat third key and fifth key. A list of basic major and minor piano chords in each key can be found here. Once we learn the 12 major and 12 minor chords, we can move on to learn more advanced chords such as diminished, augmented, seventh, sixth chords, etc… But as we are just beginning to learn, we should start by concentrating on the basic major and minor chords.  

The Internet can help a lot when we are teaching yourself piano. A great resource for learning to play chords can be found at OnlinePianist.com. We can also look for downloadable chord sheets online that will allow us to play along with our favorite musical recordings. 

Learn the Patterns in Music

As we are teaching ourselves piano, we will start noticing that there are patterns in music. Some songs have chords that repeat themselves, for example. If we can identify patterns in songs, it becomes easier to learn how to play them. We can easily learn melodies and baselines of songs if we take note of their patterns.

Every song that we attempt to learn will have its own unique patterns. Some music teachers refer to patterns as music’s vocabulary. They are fundamental to its understanding. There are patterns in rhythm, patterns in tone, and even left- hand accompaniment patterns.

Become an active listener when we’re listening to music. Try to find a recording of whatever piece of music we’re trying to learn and see if we can notice its patterns. Then try playing those patterns along on the piano as we’re listening to the piece. Remember these patterns, as they will undoubtedly come up again in other pieces of music. These will also be important as we are learning to read sheet music.

Learn Proper Fingering

More than anything, when we are first learning to play the piano, fingering is key. We must know where our fingers are supposed to go when we are starting to play the piano. The best way to start learning proper finger placement on the piano is to learn scales. Start with the major scales, then learn the minor scales. Again, using numbers on our fingers can help us to learn the proper finger placement. Our left hand can be numbered one through five from thumb to pinky, and the same for our right hand, one through five from thumb to pinky.

A scale on the right hand will use the fingering 1-2-3-1-2-3-4-5 and back down 5-4-3-2-1-3-2-1. Make sure to cross our thumb under our third finger to play the second 1 on the way up the scale, and coming back down the scale, cross over our thumb with our third finger at the second 3.

Teach ourselves fingering on the right hand, then the left hand, before putting them both together and playing scales with both hands. This will make learning proper finger placement for songs much easier when we start to use songbooks and sheet music.

We can even do finger exercises to limber up our fingers and make sure they’re in the proper condition for playing piano. Hanon-Online.com posts 240 finger exercises that we can download for free. Each exercise concentrates on a different technique needed to successfully play piano.

Learn How to Read Music

Reading music is key to teaching ourselves how to play the piano. It’s really not that hard once we have the basics of piano, listed above, down pat. First, we’ll want to learn the names of the left-hand staff (bass clef) and right-hand staff (treble clef). We might also use mnemonics such as Every Good Boy Deserves Food to remember the note placement on the treble clef (E-G-B-D-F).

Of course, there are more things to learn when we are learning how to read music besides the notes on the page. We must also learn how to read the rhythm. The best idea when we are first learning hot to play the piano, however, is to concentrate on the notes. Rhythm is more advanced and will come more naturally later.

The above fundamental steps that we’ve been working on in teaching ourselves to play the piano- recognizing patterns in music, learning the major keys and chords, and fingering – all come into play as we are learning to read music. We should be able to build upon the cumulative knowledge that We are learning, and the sheet music should make more sense to us now than it would have if we would have tried to learn to read music before familiarizing ourselves with the piano.

Once we feel confident enough to read music and play the piano at the same time, MusicNotes.com offers sheet music at various levels of difficulty that we can download. We can also find some easy piano songs that are simple for beginners to learn.

Use Instructional Media

Next, we will want to purchase some instructional media, such as books, CDs, DVDs or a combination of these. They will help us to learn how to read music and to play piano more efficiently. Try to find a self-contained adult piano course for beginners. One good set that many adult beginners have used is John Thompson’s Easiest Piano Course – Part 1 – Book, which I mentioned above and is also my textbook for the next semester.

There are also piano courses and resources through video and online that can help us to learn how to play the piano. Some are free, while some carry a cost. One of the best free resources I’ve found is DataDragon. It goes over all sorts of things necessary for reading music, including clefs, time signatures, notes, rests, counting and more.

Practice

Just like anything we learn, learning to play the piano requires practice, practice, and practice again. Plan to practice every day for about half an hour a day. If our schedule does not accommodate every day, practice at least 3 times a week. We should start by practicing scales. These will help us identify the keys, learn fingering, and feel more fluid when playing the piano.

We should also start by learning some simple, easy songs that we like. In addition, we can even practice the piano when we are not at the piano. Study the sheet music and notes we learn in our spare time.

When we start learning to play the piano, we should not expect too much from ourselves. If we have unrealistic expectations, we may be more likely to give up too quickly. Don’t let ourselves get frustrated with our slow progress. As long as we are making progress, we are learning. This process is by no means easy. You can’t assume that once we start learning, we’ll immediately improve a lot or be able to play a piece right away. All kinds of difficulties are inevitable.

Don’t fall victim to lack of motivation, either. If we play songs that we like, this will help to motivate us. We can also ask a friend or family member to listen to us play once a week. In this way, we will be practicing with a goal in mind. We can show off what we have learned within that week be performing for them. I have a good friend who is currently a clinical psychology major, and he plays the piano so well that I think he’ll probably major in piano if he doesn’t study clinical psychology, and I’ve made a deal with him to play in front of him once every two weeks next semester. I’ve placed the target pieces for the next stage below. These pieces can be seen as goals, and I will focus on building a good foundation in the early stages of learning piano, and once I have some ability to move down, I will play simplified versions of them, and then play the full version step by step.

The last thing to say is that it is necessary to find a teacher in the early stages of learning piano. A teacher can help us regulate things and correct our basic mistakes, so that we can have a correct and solid foundation, otherwise once we have the wrong habits, it will be more difficult to correct them in the future.

If you want to create a fetter, you have to bear the risk of tears. What makes the desert beautiful is that you don’t know where there is a spring. Go and find your spring!