One Month Anniversary of Playing the Piano!

One month of piano, and I feel like I’m getting the hang of it.  I notice my 2 hand coordination is getting better, and I’m getting more confident in my playing in general.  Am I confident enough to play a piece all the way through yet?  Not really, but I have been hashing out arrangements that I want to record as parts of arrangements, and that’s been helping me keep my playing motivation up.

 

I’ve mainly been focusing on arpeggio chords, and playing those while using my right hand for a melody.  I don’t know if that will help me accompany myself singing, but it’s been helping me build up my piano skillz so I figure it couldn’t hurt.  Basically, I’ve been practicing as much as I can until I get the chord I need to be able to record my keyboard on the computer, and I’m half excited, half nervous to actually be using it in a  cover.  But like I said, I’ve been practicing playing different arrangements for covers, so when it finally comes down to it, I don’t think it will be a major issue recording those parts at least.  I’ve also been having a lot of fun just noodling around, finding different melodies and harmonies with key combinations.  I think that’s been helping me a lot with figuring out not only piano playing, but learning music theory (even though I don’t know a lot of music theory terms lol).  A major tip I found amongst all the videos I’ve watched, is to just noodle around and have fun and learn that way, as well as warming up so I’ve been taking that to heart and honestly it’s the fastest way I’ve found I learn things on the piano.  Haven’t touched the black keys yet, though, those still intimidate me XD

 

So progress is progress, even though it’s slightly slow/probably a normal piano pace!  Next month, I’m hoping I’ll be able to record something as a little sample I can show for my next piano progress post, I think it would be fun to document my progress with recordings.  I have a lot of things that I’ll be DIYing and starting next month, which I can’t wait for, all music related so I will definitely be posting about that when it happens!

Piano Playing Progress – Two Weeks

I thought it would be fun to keep a log of my keyboard/piano progress, because what else is a blog for if not for doing something like that?  I’ll be updating with this little feature every 2 weeks, or every month, haven’t decided yet.

 

Surprisingly, it’s a lot easier to play than I expected!  Like learning the chord progressions I’ve got down for the most part, at least in the major scale.  I’m still working on training my fingers to play minor, inverted, and diminished cords, and getting the layout of the keyboard memorized a bit more.  Like, sometimes I hit the right cord, and sometimes I jump down to half a step more than I was expected.  I think that’s mainly because I start thinking about where my fingers should be:  Instead of letting my hands take over and sort of have my brain check out.  When I over think, is when I start to trip up, so I need to get more out of my head.

 

What’s been frustrating me (and I know it shouldn’t since I’ve only been playing for 2 weeks) is hand coordination.  I want to be able to play with both hands already!  I’ve been focusing on training my hands to play together, because I saw this really helpful tip about doing that where your hands really aren’t playing different things, you’re using the same fingers to play the cords, just on different spots on the keyboard.  And, that trick has helped me a lot!  I’ve been doing this warm up where I use my right hand to play a descending  progression, while my left does the harmony cords.  I can do it fine fast, but when I slow down for some reason it’s harder for me to keep both hands going.  But once again, I’m being too hard on myself and hand coordination is something that will grow over time.

 

I’ve been hashing out some song melodies and stuff too, which has been fun.  A few have gone well and a few…not so well, but I feel like I need to read up more on song writing and music theory just to refresh my memory.  It’s annoying when you have a melody in your head and try to play it on piano and just can’t though grrr.  I’m trying not to get overly frustrated, because I honestly think I’ve made a lot of good progress over the two weeks I’ve been playing, and the things I’ve been trying that I’ve failed at have been some decently advanced stuff.

 

But yeah, that has been my progress so far!  I’m excited to use my keyboard in a cover, I’ve been practicing some patterns for two or three covers that I need to just record.  Am excited and nervous to have my lacking keyboard skills be shown in a video XD