One of the most common rituals that beginner piano learners include in their practice is scales. Playing scales can start as an exciting step toward playing piano independently! But all too often, and too soon, practicing scales can become stale.

Over my last two years of creating social media content on learning piano, I've learned a lot about the process and benefits of creativity. Believe it or not, these lessons are really applicable to people who are interested in being creative at their pianos!

Have you ever had an idea to try something at your piano, but you were so intimidated by the idea that you ended up "bookmarking" it for later? Maybe you tell yourself you need to prepare for it better, like building more skills first or "getting in the right head space."

It's really common for piano learners to try to stifle or ignore any boredom they experience while studying piano. But is that a good thing to do? When I started paying closer attention to the source of my boredom, I learned to see it as an important indicator of how aligned my actions were with my true goals.

I often get asked how long a person should practice, but the honest truth is that I don't like giving time-based recommendations. What's more important to me is the quality of a person's practice, and that's impossible to gauge from a time-based threshold.

When students ask me about learning to write music, I tend to start with the same advice, so I thought I'd collect that advice into a short video in case it helps you along your songwriting journey!

When we're constantly challenging ourselves and trying new things at our pianos, it can be easy to start thinking that our piano journey is nothing but one big struggle. But I want to encourage you to purposefully build times of rest or relief into your piano practice.

I've noticed a misconception that learning your piano pieces better is the key to becoming comfortable with performance. While it's certainly important to know your pieces well, performance is actually an entirely different skill that needs to be developed separately.

If you’ve been playing piano for a while and would like to branch out into writing music, here are a few tips I've learned over the years to help you enjoy the process and bring your best ideas forward.