Interested in how to play piano? Learning to play piano is easier with our help! Learn piano tips below, including information on the piano keyboard, musical alphabet, and songs
There’s so much to learning the piano, it can seem a little overwhelming at the start. Let’s hit a few basics on what to learn first on piano to get you going!
What to learn first on piano: Basic keyboard geography
The first part of learning piano is that it has a truly fantastic feature: the keyboard! The piano keyboard makes it super easy to learn to play the piano as well as to visualize and understand the relationships between musical notes. The clear, pattern-driven layout of the piano keyboard is one of the things that makes the piano a wonderful first instrument for anyone to learn.
So how does learning to play the piano keyboard work? Music is made of various notes, sometimes called pitches, which can be higher or lower. The piano arranges all the pitches in order from the lowest on the left of the piano to the highest on the right. Every time you move one key to the right (black or white), you’ve gone one “half step” higher in pitch. If you have a piano at home, try starting at the far left and playing every key one at a time. You’ll hear the pitch getting higher and higher as you move to the right.
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What to learn first on piano: Finger numbers
Piano students learn finger numbers to help make playing the piano easier. Each finger is assigned a number. The hands are mirrored, with the thumbs as number 1, pointer fingers as number 2, middle fingers number 3, ring fingers number 4, and little fingers number 5.
When a number is written above or below a musical note on the staff, that means the piano player should play the note with that finger. Using the same finger to play a note each time a piano piece is played helps build strong muscle memory. Also, when finger numbers are written in the music, that means someone has already figured out the best hand position to play the notes in that part of the piece.
What to learn first on piano: First hand position
The very first hand position we teach at Hoffman Academy is to place fingers 2, 3, and 4 on a set of three black keys on the piano. This is the hand position for playing the song “Hot Crossed Buns.”
What to learn first on piano: The musical alphabet
It may look like there are a million different notes on the keyboard while learning the piano, but there are really only twelve! The seven white and five black keys make a repeating pattern of twelve notes. Each of the white notes has a letter name. These letter names make up the musical alphabet, which is one of the first things a piano player should learn. The letter names of these notes link the piano to all other instruments and also to written music. To help you learn the letter names of the keys, watch Mr. Hoffman’s “Piano Street” videos, C D E, F G, and A B, for a simple story that will make the names of the keys easy to remember while learning the piano.
So what about the black keys? Those keys are named for their relationship to the white notes around them. For example, the white note G has a black key just to the right of it. That black note is called G sharp. There’s also a black note to the left of G. That note is called G flat. You might have already figured out that all black keys have two names. For example, G flat can also be called F sharp. You sometimes hear the whole collection of black notes on a piano called “the sharps and flats.”
Now that you’ve been learning the piano keyboard, have met the keys and know their names, it’s time to make some music!
Learning your first piano song
The next thing you should know is that you can learn to play a simple song on the piano in only a few minutes. Give our first piano lesson, a beginner-friendly video, a try! With this first piano lesson video, you can learn to play “Hot Cross Buns.” Hoffman Academy’s ear-based method makes it easy for beginners to learn songs and start making music right away. If you’d like to try learning some more fun and easy songs on piano for beginners, here’s a list of super easy popular songs to get you started learning piano.
Express yourself with improvisation
Another really fun thing you can do right now on the piano, whether you’re a beginner on the piano or you have more experience, is to improvise! When you improvise, you play something new that you’ve never heard or played before. Don’t worry if it’s going to sound good or not. You just do it, like you’re having a casual conversation with a friend.
Try this improvisation activity while learning to play piano. Put the damper pedal down and play only on the black keys. To get you started, you might want to think of an emotion you want to convey, like happiness, or maybe anger, or something in nature you want to imitate, like waves on a beach, or a thunderstorm.
The Hoffman Method encourages improvisation from the very beginning as a natural way to explore music and express yourself on the piano. Interested in improvising while learning how to play piano? Check out this video lesson where you’ll get a chance to improvise a melody with Mr. Hoffman.
Learning to play piano is for anyone!
Finally, the last thing for you to learn right now is that ANYONE can learn to play the piano. Don’t let the negative voices in your head talk you out of trying to learn piano. Voices like:
- I’m not very musical
- I have no sense of rhythm
- I don’t know if I have a talent for music
- I’m too old to learn piano
- I’m not coordinated enough for learning piano
- I feel clumsy with my fingers
Instead, tell yourself:
- I enjoy music
- Anyone can make music
- It’s fun to make my own music
- It’s never too late to learn something new
- Doing something always makes it easier
- Learning piano for beginners is possible
- If I learn to play the piano, I’ll be better at it tomorrow!
You’re learning to play the piano so that you can have the deep satisfaction of making music for YOURSELF. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Set all those negative voices aside and commit to the JOURNEY of learning to make music at the piano.
At Hoffman Academy, we want everyone, everywhere to be able to learn how to play piano. We will teach you good posture, technique, how to sight read, play by ear, compose, improvise, appreciate music, play beautifully, be awesome, you get the whole deal! Give our first piano lesson a try to start learning piano today.
Do you already know a little bit about the piano but want to learn more? Want to find out what Hoffman Academy Unit you’re ready for? Take our handy placement quiz. This quiz is designed to help students start with the right Hoffman Academy piano unit from the beginning. At the end of the quiz, you’ll be directed to the unit that’s the best fit for you! It’s okay if you don’t know the answer to a question. This quiz is just to identify where to begin your piano learning experience. Get started with the placement quiz and jump right into building new piano skills now!
All the best to you as you begin your journey of how to play piano!