Self-Taught Piano Guide
Disclaimer: if you found this guide, I assume you would like to teach yourself how to
play the piano. In any case, I must say that this is not a professional guide, nor do I
have any academic music qualifications. I'm merely sharing my experience and
listing apps / resources that I found useful during my journey. Take it as a foundation
upon which you can build your own learning journey. Use what you like and think will
help you improve, ignore what you don’t like.
Everyone is different so this might not apply to you.
Hopefully this guide will save you months of research.
INDEX
I.
II.
Introduction
Why do you want to play the piano?
III.
IV.
V.
How I learned
How I would practice if I was starting today
VI.
How to stay consistent / motivated
VII.
VIII.
FAQ
Direct tips to learn faster
Indirect tips that might help you learn faster
IX.
Hand position
X.
Resources I used
If you would like to support me
Scales Practice Log
Arpeggios Practice Log
Chords Practice Log
Introduction
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably come across my video “2.5 Years of Piano
Progress / Adult Self-Taught (2000h)” (if not - http://tinyurl.com/LGpianoprogress) and
wonder how I did it. It’s hard to give you a detailed answer in a YouTube comment, so I
decided to create this guide. During those 2.5 years, my goal was to learn the maximum
amount of pieces in the shortest amount of time. I just wanted to play for fun, so I wasn’t
really worried about technique.
In this guide I will go over some of the most frequent questions I get asked, describe
what I did to learn and also what I would do if I was starting today and wanted to learn the
piano in the most efficient way. Additionally, I will share what helped me stay consistent /
motivated, tips to learn faster, how to use the pedals, useful books, YouTube channels and
apps I used for guidance.
In the end of the guide, you will find tables where you can log and track your practice.
After all, what you can measure you can improve.
This guide is free, but if you feel like you gained value and you would like to support
my work, you can can subscribe to my channel at www.youtube.com/@luisgraca or send
me a tip using one of the links below:
https://www.ko-fi.com/luisgraca / https://www.paypal.me/luiscgraca
Now let’s get into it.
I.
Why do you want to play the piano?
Before you start your piano journey, try to answer these questions: what makes you
want to play the piano? What would you like to achieve? Do you want to learn pieces for
fun? Do you want to learn how to read music? Do you want to play by ear? Become a
composer? Once you know the answer, you should structure your practice sessions in a
way that will get you closer to your end goal. If you want to be an exceptional
sight-reader it doesn’t make much sense to spend a lot of time playing by ear, and
vice-versa.
II.
FAQ
1 - “What pieces should I play?”
In my opinion, unless you want to be a concert pianist, you should only play the
pieces that you love listening to. That’s one of the reasons why I was able to stay motivated.
Personally, playing something I don’t like just because it’s “what I’m supposed to play at a
certain level” didn’t make me feel motivated. Listen to new pieces often, you will know when
you find one that you want to play.
2 - “How long do you play per day?”
I average around 2h per day, but the amount of time you practice is not the most
important. Rather, you should focus on using your practice time in the most efficient way
possible. So even if you only have 30 min per day, that will accumulate over time. That’s 15h
per month, 180h per year.
3 - “Which piano should I buy?”
The best beginner piano is one that has 88 keys and weighted keys. If you’re not
sure what piano you should buy, the best thing you can do is go to a piano shop and try a
few of them so you can see and feel the piano yourself. If you don’t want to do that, then the
Yamaha P45 is one of the most recommended for beginners - it was my piano for about 1y
and I can recommend it.
Most digital pianos come with a sustain pedal. Personally, I did not like the pedal that
came with the Yamaha P45, so I bought this one on amazon http://tinyurl.com/amazonsustainpedal
4 - “How did you learn? / How would you practice if you were starting today?”
For sure the most asked questions. I will go over both in detail in the next 2 sections.
(III and IV)
III.
How I learned
If you have watched my progress video, you know that the film “Intouchables” was
the reason why I wanted to start playing the piano. The first scene of the film has “Fly” by
Ludovico Einaudi playing in the background. I thought it was beautiful and I wanted to play it.
I searched for other Ludovico Einaudi pieces and I would listen to them on a daily basis.
Years later, I borrowed my friend’s keyboard and started learning “Nuvole Bianche”.
When I started learning, I spent anywhere from 1 to 4 hours a day practicing different
pieces using YouTube tutorials. Again, my goal was to learn the maximum amount of pieces
in the shortest amount of time. I did not care about playing them perfectly - in fact, I thought
that if I started playing scales and learning music theory, I would lose the motivation to play.
I looked for a tutorial of “Nuvole Bianche” on YouTube and I found a channel that
had tutorials on multiple Einaudi pieces, divided in sections. Learning a full piece might seem
like a tall order when you are a beginner, but if you divide it into smaller sections and focus
on one at a time, it is more manageable. (https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelMaiber - if
you are interested, this is his YouTube channel)
For all other pieces, if I couldn’t find a proper tutorial, I used Synthesia tutorials (as in
the image below) to learn and memorize the notes. Believe it or not, I learned Arabesque
no.1 and Fantaisie Impromptu that way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STKYqKQWvnQ
Looking back, while this is a fast way to learn when you just want to learn songs /
pieces for fun, it’s certainly not ideal if you know that you want to achieve more at the
piano. That is because you aren’t actually learning any valuable / transferable skills,
such as sight reading or playing by ear.
In the next section I will go over what I would do if I was starting today.
IV.
How I would practice if I was starting today
After uploading my 2.5 years of piano progress video, I realized I wanted to get more
out of the piano, so I booked a private piano lesson for some guidance.
Although I don’t regret the way I learned (after all that’s what kept me motivated at
the time), I can admit that it was not the most efficient way (unless you exclusively want
to play for fun). Back in the day, I just wanted to play for fun. Nowadays, I know that I want to
become good at playing by ear, composing my own music and creating epic piano
arrangements.
If I was starting today, I would divide my piano sessions into 2 sections - practice and
fun. Before actually starting to learn the pieces I wanted to play, I would dedicate anywhere
from 5 - 10% of the practice time to ear training (or sight-reading, depending on whether you
want to become better at reading or playing by ear).
Then another 5 - 10% to technique (scales, arpeggios, chords, etc.)
Dedicate the amount of time that you know you can stick to. It doesn’t have to be
5-10% every day. The most important thing is that you can do it consistently.
Here’s a practical example:
Imagine you want to learn Una Mattina by Ludovico Einaudi and you have 1h:
1 - Find which key the piece is written in - in this case it’s C Major
2 - Practice sight reading or ear training (or both) in C Major
2.1 - If being good at sight reading is one of your goals, dedicate 5 - 10% of your
practice time (5 to 10 min) to sight reading pieces in C Major that you have never played
before. That will help develop your ability over time. As you get better, increase the difficulty
of the pieces you’re reading.
If you are a total beginner, practice reading the C Major scale while you play it on the
piano. Then move on to arpeggios. Once you feel confident, start reading easy pieces
in C Major. Here’s a great book for scales and arpeggios, which includes the fingers
you should use for each note - http://tinyurl.com/amazon-scales
2.2 - If your goal is to play by ear, dedicate 5 - 10% of your practice time to training
your ear. You can do pitch recognition exercises, interval recognition, learn the most popular
chord progressions, try to identify the chord progressions in popular songs, improvise, put
together your own pieces while practicing chord progressions, etc.
3 - Practice Technique (Scales, Arpeggios, Chords)
Dedicate 5 - 10% of your practice session to practicing the C Major scale (this will
help you develop strength and dexterity)
Example: set your metronome to 60 bpm (or any speed you can play the scale in
comfortably - be realistic). Practice the C Major scale with the right hand until you can play it
4x without mistakes (ascending and descending, 2 octaves). Then do the same for the left
hand. Then both hands together. On the following day, set your metronome to 70 bpm and
repeat the process.
There are loads of exercises that you can do to get better. A few examples:
-
both hands, similar motion
both hands, contrary motion
both hands, starting on different notes
and many more - http://tinyurl.com/amazon-scales
Once you get comfortable with scales, do the same for arpeggios (broken chords)
and chords (triads, 7th chords, etc.)
You can find practice sheets in the last 3 pages of this document. Print them
and fill them out each day so you can measure your progress. If you start learning a piece in
another key, repeat the process but in that key. Besides working on your technique, finger
strength and dexterity, you will also learn some music theory.
4 - Play whatever you want to play / just have fun
During the time you have left, just play whatever you want to play. Just have fun.
I believe this is a solid way to structure your practice if you are self-taught. Because
you’re only practicing technique / theory / reading / ear training for 10 - 20 min a day,
you don’t feel like it’s a chore and it builds your knowledge up over time.
V.
How to stay consistent / motivated
1 - Remember why you started
Why did you start playing the piano? Why do you want to play the piano? Write this
down and come back to it whenever you feel unmotivated. You can update your “why” as
you go along. When I started, I just wanted to be able to play the pieces I enjoyed listening
to. Then I wanted to compose my own pieces. Right now I want to make epic piano
arrangements. Ultimately I think I would like to become a film composer. Let’s see how that
goes.
2 - Take inspiration from other artists
Look for artists that you identify with / you want to play like or that simply inspire you.
During my first year of playing the piano, I would listen to many other YouTubers / artists that
I aspired to be like one day.
In the beginning, that was Ludovico Einaudi. Later on, I found Patrik Pietschmann
(film music) - my biggest inspiration to this day. The way Patrik arranges film music for piano
is mindblowing. I recently started making my own piano arrangements so I find myself going
back to his videos for ideas / inspiration.
Check out one of my arrangements here and let me know what you think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STKYqKQWvnQ
This is the piece that took me the most time to learn and play perfectly. Along the
way, it crossed my mind more than a few times that I wouldn’t be able to do it. Whenever I
felt like that, I reminded myself that I needed to silence that voice in my head and practice
much harder if I wanted to even come close to that level.
Another of my biggest inspiration sources is Traum Piano (although I will never reach
that level, it’s incredibly inspiring to know that one can achieve such mastery at anything in
life)
But remember, use them as inspiration, do not compare yourself to them.
3 - Go to concerts
If you have the chance, go to concerts. Watching your favorite artists play live is
incredibly inspiring. I started composing my own music straight after watching Ludovico
Einaudi live for the first time.
4 - Only play the pieces you love listening to
Sometimes I found myself not wanting to practice because I was trying to play
pieces that I didn’t really enjoy listening to. When you play pieces you like, you don’t have
that issue.
5 - Set realistic goals
If you are self-taught and you aren’t following any plan, it’s easy to lose direction /
motivation. Try to set some short term goals and some long term goals.
Example: in 1 month, you want to learn Nuvole Bianche and in 1 year you want to
learn 10 Einaudi pieces / pass Grade 2 exam. You can choose whatever goal you want. It
should be challenging but realistic.
Also, be realistic with the time it takes to learn complex pieces. Mastering the most
complex classical pieces can take months, so don’t give up if you haven’t learned the 3rd
Movement of Moonlight Sonata in 2 weeks.
6 - Record yourself
Make a habit of recording yourself. It’s often easy to think you haven’t made any
progress, but if you have a previous recording to compare yourself to, you will quickly realize
that it’s not true.
(If it’s your thing, start a YouTube channel. Maybe one day you will be sharing your
own progress and inspiring other people.)
7 - Do not compare yourself to others!
I cannot stress this enough - do not compare yourself to others, especially to those
who have been playing for way longer than you. Everyone has different practice routines,
different habits, different biologies, different sleep schedules, different motivation levels, and
the list goes on. Use other people as motivation, but do not compare yourself to them.
Instead, compare yourself to how you were playing yesterday, last week, last month, last
year. (that’s why recording yourself is important)
8 - Play in public
If you have public pianos available where you live, don’t be shy. Go play them! Not
only do you get more confident at playing in public, but most of the time people will
encourage you to keep going. As a bonus, you might meet other people who are on the
same journey as you, as well as others who are more advanced and you can learn from.
If that's too much for you, start by playing for your family/close friends until you
become confident enough to play for strangers. Most of the time people don’t care if
you make mistakes and most people will encourage you just for putting yourself out
there.
9 - Take occasional lessons for guidance
Piano lessons can be quite expensive, and I believe that’s what prevents a lot of
people from having a teacher. After being self-taught for 2.5 years, I decided to try to have a
few lessons occasionally, mainly when I was struggling with something specific or needed
guidance to progress more quickly. If you take the occasional lesson, it’s no longer that
expensive. Many teachers will help you work on what you want to learn, rather than it being
a rigid practice schedule.
10 - Make sure you’re doing things that get you closer to your goal
Once again, if your goal is to be an excellent sight reader, you should spend more of
your practice time on sight reading new pieces, rather than using tutorials. If you want to
learn how to play by ear, you should spend more time training your ear and learning the
most common chord progressions. And so on. It’s easy to lose motivation if you have no
direction.
11 - Eat healthy, sleep properly, exercise
At one point during my journey I stopped going to the gym to spend all my time
playing the piano. I thought that would make me make progress faster. I started to get
unmotivated and burned out. That changed quickly when I started going to the gym and
paying more attention to what I eat. Healthy body, healthy mind. If health is not one of your
top priorities, you probably won’t be able to feel your best to achieve your other goals.
12 - Change Course
If all else fails, if you feel burned out or if your initial goal no longer motivates you,
take a break or try experimenting with other genres. It might be refreshing. I have had to
adjust course multiple times.
VI.
Direct tips to learn faster
1 - Again - only play the pieces you love listening to
When you find that piece that connects to you, you pay close attention to it when
you’re playing, so naturally you learn faster.
2 - Use a metronome
Imagine you are learning a new piece and you found a challenging part. On day 1,
practice that section at 80bpm until you can play it perfectly 4x in a row, then increase the
speed by 10 bpm on the next day (if 10 bpm is too much, increase by 2 or 4, whatever helps
you). Do this until you reach the desired speed. This is much more helpful than trying to play
at full speed and making a lot of mistakes.
3 - Use a timer
If you give yourself a time restriction, you’re more likely to use your time efficiently,
thus reducing the amount of time you need to learn what you want to learn.
4 - Watch the video below. Denis is an excellent pianist / teacher who gives
solid tips
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSu7JuiYHQo
VII.
Indirect tips that might help you learn faster
(These are more subjective and may not have the same effect on different people.)
1 - Sleep 7-8h
Imagine you are practicing a section of a piece. Besides all the obvious sleep
benefits, when you are sleeping, your brain will replay that section you were learning at
around 20x the speed. That is why you can play better after a good night of sleep. Learning
is accelerated even more if you dream about it during sleep.
Here’s an incredible science backed podcast on sleep and how it improves learning:
https://youtu.be/gbQFSMayJxk?si=bEWHxm4LwbGUsnjI
And also an incredible book written by a sleep scientist / neuroscience professor on
the benefits of sleep, including learning motor skills:
http://tinyurl.com/amazon-whywesleep
2 - Try meditation / non-sleep deep rest protocol / yoga nidra
If you are struggling with a particular section of a piece, practicing it over and over
might not be the best option. There's only so much information your brain can retain.
Instead, try this: set the metronome to the desired speed and practice it for 10 - 20 min. After
that, meditate / follow a non-sleep deep rest protocol for 5 - 10 min. This will give your brain
time to unwind and retain the information.
I have done this multiple times and have noticed an improvement. I don’t do this all
the time, only if there is a specific passage I’m struggling with. It might not work for
everyone, but give it a try and find out.
Here's a good guided meditation / NSDR video you can follow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKGrmY8OSHM&t=164s
3 - Use learning cues (harder to track but might be worth trying)
This might not work for everyone and I’m not 100% sure it works for me, but it
doesn’t hurt to try it.
-
Use a metronome during your practice and then sleep with the metronome playing
faintly in the background
Use perfume while you are learning and then go to sleep with the same perfume on
Use anything else that activates one of the five senses during your practice and use
that again during sleep
During sleep, while your brain is replaying the practice, learning can be accelerated if
one of the five senses is involved. Here’s an incredible science-backed podcast on
how to learn skills faster: https://youtu.be/xJ0IBzCjEPk?si=SaiF9Z7ZCwwvmFEP
4 - Visualize yourself playing
If you have some time to kill and you don’t have a piano, you can still practice. Close
your eyes and visualize yourself playing, focusing exactly on the keys that you would play if
you were sitting at the piano. Visualization is not a total replacement for physical practice but
it can support it well and compound the rate of learning.
VIII. How the pedals work
There are 3 pedals on a piano. On acoustic pianos, each key has a hammer and
strings. Then there is a damper, which is lifted when you press the pedals. When you press
a key, the corresponding hammer hits the strings and makes them vibrate, which produces
the sound.
What does the right pedal do?
The piano pedal on the right is the sustain pedal. When you press it with your right
foot, the felt dampers inside the piano are lifted and the strings are free to vibrate, thus
sustaining the sound until you release the pedal. As a rule of thumb, you lift and repress the
pedal every time the bass note changes.
What does the middle pedal do?
The middle pedal is the sostenuto pedal. I have never used it and you probably
won't for a long time if you're a beginner, but here's how it works: when you press it, it
sustains only specific notes. While the right pedal sustains all the notes on a piano, the
sostenuto holds down selective notes you wish to sustain. When it is pressed, the last note
played continues to sound while all the other notes are damped.
What does the left pedal do?
The left pedal is the una corda pedal. When you press it, it moves the whole
keyboard and hammers to the right, so that the hammers will only hit 2 of the 3 strings, thus
producing a quieter sound. It is commonly used when playing classical music.
IX.
Hand position
Your hand position at the piano should be the same as your natural hand position
when you’re standing with your arms next to your body, relaxed. Your fingers have that
natural curvature. When playing scales, arpeggios, chords, etc., keep your wrists and fingers
relaxed, use your arms and elbows to help move your fingers across the keyboard.
X.
Resources I used
1 - Books
“Discovering Music Theory” (Grades 1 to 5) - http://tinyurl.com/amazon-musictheory
Identify scales, arpeggios and chords on sheet music - http://tinyurl.com/amazon-scales
2 - YouTube Channels
Michael Maiber - https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelMaiber - Ludovico Einaudi pieces
Rousseau - https://www.youtube.com/@Rousseau - classical music (synthesia)
Patrik Pietschmann - https://www.youtube.com/@PatrikPietschmann - film music (advanced)
Traum Piano - https://www.youtube.com/@TraumPiano - best classical channel (advanced)
Antune - https://www.youtube.com/@Antune - best classical tutorials
Denis Zhdanov - https://www.youtube.com/@DenZhdanovPianist - technique lessons
Piano Secrets - https://www.youtube.com/@PianoSecretsChannel - tutorials of classical
Josh Wright - https://www.youtube.com/@joshwrightpiano - technique lessons
Piano Lab - https://www.youtube.com/@PIANO_LAB - technique
Piano From Scratch - https://www.youtube.com/@PianoFromScratch - for beginners
Warren - https://www.youtube.com/@PianoLessonwithWarren - play by ear
Matthew Cawood - https://www.youtube.com/@matticawood - classical / play by ear
3 - Apps
Active Ear - http://tinyurl.com/eartrainingapp - pitch recognition, interval recognition,
inversions, chord progressions
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Scales Practice Log (Example)
DATE
SCALE
BPM
SPAN
1/1/24
C Major
60
2 octaves, right practiced for 5
hand
min
2/1/24
C Major
60
2 octaves, left left hand needs
hand
more practice
3/1/24
C Major
60
2 octaves, both repeat
hands
tomorrow
4/1/24
C Major
60
2 octaves, both smooth, 70 bpm
hands
tomorrow
5/1/24
C Major
70
2 octaves, both smooth, 75 / 80
hands
bpm tomorrow
6/1/24
7/1/24
8/1/24
9/1/24
10/1/24
11/1/24
12/1/24
13/1/24
14/1/24
COMMENTS
Scales Practice Log
DATE
SCALE
BPM
SPAN
COMMENTS
Arpeggios Practice Log
DATE
ARPEGGIO
BPM
SPAN
COMMENTS
Chords + Inversions Practice Log
DATE
CHORD
BPM
SPAN
COMMENTS