I am sure everyone reading this has at least done one thing in their life with a smartphone that they did not imagine they could do. From measuring the width of a corridor to checking the authenticity of a pair of shoes or a watch. The broadness of utility of the tool we all carry around in our pockets these days is unimaginable. And what if instead of scrolling or watching videos and consuming content that makes my attention span and capacity of focus worsen I could learn some kind of new skill or discipline?
That is exactly why I decided to try something different, something that would be rewarding and motivating to invest my time on the phone wisely. Learning how to play the piano? Let’s get it! And at first, it can be daunting and confusing, but in this post we will go over the experience and benefits of learning how to play the piano without a teacher, from wherever we want, and some tips and surprises you could use to know.
Why I Wanted to Learn Piano Without a Teacher
In the past it was common for anyone that wanted to learn how to play an instrument to start attending some kind of musical academy or hire a private teacher to get lessons. And as much as this is not a horrible option and it can actually be quite helpful to have an expert giving suggestions real-time and helping us develop it can also be annoying in some ways. For me it always ends up creating a sense of responsibility and pressure that ends up being too much and causes me to be stressed and demotivated.
On top of that, having to schedule and arrange with a teacher means allocating a defined and immutable slot of our time to that activity, which a lot of times is very hard to do considering all the changes that can affect or schedule throughout our week or month. For most people, commuting is also a big problem as it takes more time out of our day, and with all the time the class ends up entailing I feel pressured to quit learning. Those and some others, are the reasons why I decided that I wanted to learn to play with my smartphone.
Choosing the Right App: What I Looked For
First Impressions: Setting Up and Getting Started
So now that I had made all my “logistic” choices it was time to actually get to it and start learning. In my case I downloaded the app on my smartphone, however it is also available for other devices like tablets, which honestly might be a better choice if possible as the display is much bigger and it would be much easier to follow (but the phone was more than fine too, it was the method I used). In terms of setup, registration and all of the initial “to do”s everything was surprisingly simple and smooth.
The app started its personalization of the learning process by walking me through some basic questions to be able to properly tailor the lessons to my level, interests and preferences.
In my case I had an old MIDI keyboard that had been sitting at my garage, so I decided to use it. And the only thing I had to do was connect my phone to it and start my journey. For all those who might not have access to a keyboard it is worth noting that there is an option to use both a regular acoustic piano and use the microphone of our smartphone or even use an on-screen keyboard if we do not have access to any instrument, which can still be an effective ways for beginners to get familiarized with the basics of music theory and piano as an instrument.
Learning Curve
One thing I really liked about this app is that the lessons were carefully organized into modules, each focusing on a new technique, piece, or musical concept, as if I had a professional teacher who created a custom plan for me to learn! I started by the beginning as I had zero knowledge going into this and the first module walked me through all the basic aspects I needed to know before starting to play the piano. I learned about the basics of posture, basic fingering, and by the end even the playing of some simple popular melodies using one hand. Having this chance to get the satisfaction of playing from the first module made me very excited and eager to keep learning.
After the completion of the first module and then going into other ones that focused on different and slowly more advanced and interesting aspects of piano playing made me realize how amazing and smooth my learning process was. The progress was faster than it ever was with a teacher and it really stood out to me most how interactive the app was. It was extremely helpful to have functionalities like real-time feedback on accuracy and rhythm after each note or bar. I really did not expect to have all of these and more and it definitely made the learning feel much more alive than just watching a sequence of tutorial videos or just reading from the score of a song.
The surprise benefits of learning through an app
After all I believe this was a great experience, and now I am proud to say that I have reached a very acceptable level of piano where I can play melodies and songs I like with both hands, play chord progressions to accompany my singing and replicate a version of basically any popular song that gets stuck in my head! I talked a lot about the structured lessons and all the features, but some other perks I noticed from learning how to play the piano through an app were:
Since I could always access my phone with ease and I had access to the on-screen keyboard, even when I did not have the time to sit on my MIDI keyboard and dedicate hours, I would just pull my phone out and get a quick session in, to the point where it became part of my routine
Unlike my past experiences with traditional lessons, being able to grow and learn at my own pace and with no expectations, allowed me to focus on learning the proper way, without feeling judged and having the need to rush things
One last thing that might seem kind of evident but it goes a long way is the ability the app gave me to be able to go back and review any detail or part from any lesson from the commodity of anywhere I wanted at any time, which is something I couldn’t do with a conventional piano teacher, unless I decided to pay for another lesson or hour of teaching.
Can You Really Learn Piano on Your Phone?
Final Thoughts
To summarize, learning how to play piano through an app meant learning easily, at my own pace, saving time in my daily life and gave me the ability to bring music with me anywhere. Whether I was traveling, sitting at home or waiting for my coffee to get ready in the morning
