Piano for Beginners: From the First Key

Beginners · 3 lessons · Four weeks

From nothing to your first note: how to sit, how to find middle C among the black keys, and how to hold your hand so that it never starts to ache.

Meeting the instrument and sitting down

1. How to Play Piano: Meet the Map of the Keys

   Seven names, one pattern that keeps repeating, and a zero point you can find with your eyes shut. Plus: how to sit so that nothing hurts.

   What you'll learn

   • Read the pattern of black keys in groups of two and three, and know why it is the map to the whole instrument.
   • Find middle C on any piano in the world, with no sticker and no counting.
   • Sit at a height and a distance that will not leave you aching after half an hour.
   • Know what genuinely matters when choosing an instrument, and what only looks important in the shop.

Hand position and finger numbers

1. One to Five: How the Hand Sits on the Keys

   The numbers every teaching method on the planet uses, and the hand shape that decides whether your playing sounds easy or strained.

   What you'll learn

   • Number your fingers one to five in both hands, and know why that differs from the numbering used on guitar.
   • Set up a rounded, relaxed hand that touches with the fingertip rather than with the flat pad.
   • Let the weight of the arm fall instead of pushing with the finger, and hear the difference it makes.
   • Check for yourself that the position is right, with no teacher in the room, using four short tests.
   • Recognize three common practice tips that harm beginners, and understand why they do.

The five-finger position

1. Your First Melody Without Moving Your Hand

   Five fingers on five keys, a complete melody, and two ways of playing it that turn it into two different songs.

   What you'll learn

   • Set up the five-finger position in both hands, and know why everyone starts on C in particular.
   • Play a complete melody from finger numbers, without moving your hand from its spot.
   • Hold a steady tempo with a metronome, including through the hard places.
   • Tell legato from staccato both by ear and by hand, and know what each of them does to a song.
   • Practice in the way that builds movement memory, and measure that it is actually working.

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