Let’s get you comfortable using the sustain pedal!

Here’s a quick tutorial on how to use the pedal, including an exercise that will help you learn to use it smoothly even if you’ve never used it before!

Piano lessons are a really interesting educational setting to me.

On the one hand, with the vast history of music to explore, students objectively have the greatest choice of options in terms of what they could learn, compared to other educational topics.

And yet, out of all the educational settings I have taught in (a lot!), piano learners feel the most limited in what they are allowed to learn because of their expectations of what piano lessons are supposed to look like.

My piano students often know they want to give up on a song weeks before they build up the courage to tell me! Often the reason they hesitate to admit how they’re feeling about a song is because they don’t want to appear undisciplined. There’s a longstanding tradition of suffering through piano lessons in order to “get better”. No pain, no gain — right?

Well, no.

I think there are certain kinds of pain that are actually really detrimental to growing musicianship, and that’s what I’d like to talk about today.

This week, I’m trying something new and adding song tutorials to my social media. I’m doing this because I notice a lack of online piano tutorials for true beginners to piano. Most people who create video tutorials for piano move through their songs pretty quickly, assuming the viewer has some background in piano. They don’t explain each step very clearly and I felt that left a lot of learners behind!

Here’s a collection of tutorials that are written for true beginners. Even if you’ve never played a song before, you should be able to follow along.

Today I’d like to talk about a common struggle that I’ve noticed in piano lessons, in the hopes that it helps others on their piano journey. I’ve noticed that the students who have the hardest time in piano lessons are the ones who wait for me to tell them if they’ve played their song correctly, rather than actively listening to themselves and trying to catch their own mistakes. Why does this happen? And what can we do about it?

I’ve spent some time in the past talking about why I think it’s important to choose the music you want to play before you start piano lessons. I still think that’s really good advice. Choosing music that’s going to motivate you is a really great way to set goals and to develop sustainable practice habits, especially when you’re first starting out.

But I also know that it can be difficult to choose music, especially at the beginning of your piano journey, simply because you can get overwhelmed with choice! So if you need some help choosing musical goals for yourself, this post is for you.

Now that we know a about what a key signature is, it can be helpful to learn a little more about how we use them. Here’s a video describing the difference between major and minor keys. If you prefer to read your content, here is a written summary of that video.

If your teacher is constantly telling you to slow down as you play your pieces or writing Don’t rush! in your lesson notes, I have an observation taken from years of teaching (and years of being a rusher myself!) that might help you.

If you’re interested in learning how to play piano this year but you know that you’re going to struggle with the routing of practicing every day, I have a suggestion for you that will not only honour your creative flow but is also backed by educational science.

Ready?

Rather than choosing a behaviour-based goal (such as practicing 30 minutes a day), instead choose a project-based goal (such as a song you want to learn next). Here’s why that works.