Learning Piano in 24 hours

I always hated practicing. I knew I had to do it, in order to become a professional, but I really struggled. My teacher literally said to me, “you don’t stand a chance.” And he was right, I thought.

A couple years later, I was the best applicant of my university.

The written exam didn’t even matter, I was accepted right away.

How was that possible?

It’s not how much, it’s how

I always wondered, why the asian applicants were always superiour to me. I couldn’t imagine they were more hard-working, because I was giving my life to practicing.

Anyway, I was not progressing at all, so I searched for a teacher, someone, who was at this level where I wanted to be. And I found him.

The secrets, my teacher told me, changed my life.

I was progressing like crazy, while practicing less!

My fear of mistakes

Practicing the piano always felt like arguing with my brain.

It usually went like this:

I didn’t want to do mistakes. → Mistakes happened anyway. → I felt stupid. → Tried again → Mistake happened again → Felt stupid → Tried again → Mistake happened → Felt stupid.

Negative emotions built up inside of me.

Now I was distracted from everything my brain was trying to tell me...

After 15 years of playing the piano, it took 10 seconds of another human to make me realize this:

It is impossible to play the piano, without mistakes.
It is impossible to learn the piano, by not WELCOMING your mistakes.
Let lose of the bad emotion that comes with it, and you gain immediate feedback.

If I could start all over again, how would I start ?

As a beginner, 100% of your movements on the piano are conscious. I would want this to change as quick as possible.

A professional player’s movements are maybe 5% conscious.

It’s like writing. Movements are being trained, until they are assimilated in our subconscious.

It’s the same for the piano.

We want to make your fingers move, only by the thought of a sound

Good news: There are specific exercises which were invented to develop an effortless movement on the piano.

Just 10 minutes every day of these movements as a training is enough for our subconscious, so your hand knows what to do, when we want to play.

These exercises are, what I would start every practice session with.

Besides technichal development?

That’s up to you.

Play on sight: Do you like the idea, of seeing a sheet and being able to play it right away?
Play by ear: What about hearing a song, and immediatly playing a piano version for yourself?
Play for show: Maybe there are certain pieces, you want to have as a repertoire, so you can put on a little show for everyone?

In order to suceed, you have to pick one skill at a time. I would start with “Play for show”. It’s the easiest one.

Actually learning piano fast

How?

You just have to practice for 20 minutes a day, for 3 months.

And you have to practice THE RIGHT WAY.

That’s it. This is the time you need to reach a satisfying level.

After this time you built enough competence in the basics.

Trust me, no matter how difficult a song or a piece seems, it ALWAYS boils down to applying the basics. Everytime.

So what is the right way?

It’s always the same formular:

10 Minutes for finger movements. (Training the unconscious, we covered that earlier.)
1-5 Minutes for gaining knowledge (preparation, e.g. finding out the notes or how to move the fingers)
5-10 Minutes for practicing (knowledge gets assimilated in your unconscious)

Suitable learning material

Chinese/russian parents hate this trick:

The key to learning with speed, is to have FUN.

This is why most of the books fail, most music schools fail (in my opinion), and most people who initially want to learn the piano can’t reach a level which is impressive, It’s the lack of FUN.

How do we get fun?

A challenge in the beginning, and success at the end of every practise session.

This is what learning is all about nowadays, challenges must be overcome quickly!

What good teachers do

The best teacher turns YEARS into WEEKS and DAYS into MINUTES.

He saves you time. By doing that, FRUSTRATION is being held to a minimum, and FUN is being present throughout.

This is what everybody should look for in a teacher, it’s way more important than his experience, his degrees or whatever:

Can he INSPIRE you, and can he provide FUN and SUCCESS.

Can he SAVE YOUR TIME.

Learning Piano online

f I would start all over again, I would search for someone like me. Someone who went through it the hard way, because he knows what to avoid.

But also what works, what works FAST, what’s replaceable and what’s irreplaceable.

He can show me the EASY way, the TIME-SAVING way, the FUN way.