Playing the piano can be a fun but daunting experience. Anyone can put their fingers on the keys and make a sound but it takes real practice in order to play the piano better. If you know nothing about the piano, including which keys are which, it would pay to take some lessons in order to know what the letters of the keys mean and how to place your hands.
When you think of playing the piano, you have visions of people playing scales for hours on end. While playing scales is important and you should learn how to do them to keep your fingers nimble, it pays to learn a few simple songs so that you can feel like a real piano player while you are learning scales and the like. You will need to learn how to read music so that you know which keys to put your fingers on and how long to put your fingers on the keyboard but a good online piano class or your teacher can instruct you in how to do that.
Take the time to learn the keystrokes on the piano. Play the scale in the key of C to make sure you can move your fingers on the keys properly. Learn to use both hands when you play. Almost all complex piano songs are played with both hands so if you spend too much time plunking out songs with one hand, you will not have the skills it takes to play with both hands. Everyone has a dominant hand and a nondominant hand and you will need to pay special attention to practicing with your nondominant hand. This will be the hardest part of playing the piano but it will be worth the effort when you finally master the playing of that hand.
Mix up playing songs with playing scales and other fingering techniques. Playing the piano needs to be fun and the drudgery of playing scales will get to you before too long. Start your lesson playing a few scales and getting your fingers warmed up and then break out into song by both playing the piano and singing to the song, if it has words. Play along with a CD or video so you can see if you can keep up tempo with the real tempo of the song. Do not worry about mistakes. Just keep playing so that you can have a good time playing along with the CD just for the joy of it.
If you are taken the time to acquire a piano, you may as well have fun with it. Play some tunes, practice your fingering and scales and soon, you will be good at it and be able to play for others.
Need help figuring out piano chord? Check out our awesome piano chords chart.