Cindy’s Other Blog

Those looking for a new pastime or hobby would do well to remember the benefits of learning the keyboard. But getting started out on this tough instrument will deter many new keyboard players away from becoming experts in their own fields of music. To help speed along the process and enjoyment, following a few guidelines would be in the musician’s best interests.

Having fun at the keyboard is something to remember when the frustration of learning musical notes and timing kicks in. To help remedy the situation, it’s best to get a few musical sheets of one’s favorite songs or artists, and learn how to play them. After all, artists and certain songs often inspire younger musicians to pick up a keyboard in the first place,

Learning how to get the perfect listening ear for musical notes is one of the highest sought skills in keyboard playing. This is because anyone who can learn how to play by ear will essentially be able to hear a song and play it just from listening to it! This also serves great purpose for when the keyboardist with the perfect ear wants to record their own music into tablature. Thus, it’s a good idea to try and learn by ear as well as through reading notes.

Two more aspects of the expert keyboard player to keep in mind is timing ability and rhythm. Timing is best bettered by obtaining a metronome and sheet music of one’s favorite song. Try playing the music exactly in time with the song, and listen to the tick of the metronome at the same time. Eventually, one’s body will create a very precise timing measure that will enable the keyboardist to play without the metronome at all!

Next, it’s good to try and use both hands where applicable. Even when one hand can be used to play multiple notes close together, it’s good to use two hands to simplify the action and to help learn placement at a quicker pace. This way, less attention will be put onto trying to find keys with a certain hand, and more attention can be put on reading sheet music that most keyboardists require for learning.

As a last word of advice, it is important to have more fun than anything. Often times when a keyboardist makes multiple mistakes, he or she can do so without the listeners actually being able to tell a difference. This fact helps keyboardists relax, since they know that striking every key precisely isn’t vital to having a great show for an audience- since most of the time they won’t even be able to tell the difference!

Closing Comments

Keyboardists will all agree that once they get past the learning curve, the hobby of playing the keyboard is very rewarding indeed. The trick is to keep practicing, resting, taking ample breaks, and getting back to work at becoming a better keyboard player. The best part is, once you learn the keyboard, you can play the piano just as easy!