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The Complete Guide to Playing Piano
The honest beginner's guide to the piano: what it really costs, how long it takes to feel rewarding, and how to start playing songs you love this month
by Alumigogo Books
Chapter 1: What Is Playing Piano and Why People Love It
Let's start with the obvious: sitting down at a piano looks pretty simple. You press a key, a sound comes out. Even a toddler can make the instrument do something pleasant by accident. And that's exactly why playing piano is such a strange hobby to start as an adult - it's simultaneously the most accessible instrument and one that can make you feel completely inept in the same minute.
Here's what it actually involves. A piano - or a digital keyboard, which is what most beginners start with - is a box of 88 keys (or 61, or 76, depending on what you buy). Each key produces a pitch, with the white keys naturally giving you the seven notes of the scale and the black keys filling in between. When you first walk up to one, you don't need to know anything. Press a key, hear a sound. Press two keys together, hear a small chord. It's immediate in a way almost no other instrument is.
But here's the honest truth: the first week of playing piano is not magical. It's your hands doing absolutely uncoordinated things while your brain screams about it. Your right hand wants to play the melody while your left hand wants to do bass notes, and the two of them have never met before, let alone worked together. This is the moment where most people quit. You'll experience it in the first hour of