This is a small site about piano basics. Most online writing on the subject splits into two camps — gear reviews on one side, jargon-heavy enthusiast threads on the other — and beginners struggle to find the practical middle ground. The aim here is the opposite: notes that came out of years of playing the boring parts of piano basics.
If you are completely new, start with posture and hands — that is the foundation that makes the rest easier to learn. Once that is reliable, the daily practice becomes self-sustaining and the rest of the work makes more sense.
Scales
Most beginner advice about scales comes in the form of fixed rules — do exactly this for exactly this long, then stop. That works for the first few attempts but breaks down as soon as conditions change. Scales is more usefully understood as a set of relationships: what is happening, what you want to happen, and the small adjustment that brings the two closer.
A practical way in: take whatever you currently do for scales and try one experiment. Change one thing — a setting, an interval, a piece of equipment — and pay attention to what changes. Two weeks of small experiments will tell you more about scales than any single article. The articles here can offer a starting point; the rest is yours to discover by sight-reading.
Practice Habits
People who have been learning for a while almost all share the same observation about practice habits: it gets quietly easier in the second year, and it is hard to remember exactly when. There is no breakthrough moment. There is just a slow accumulation of small adjustments, plus a growing willingness to ignore advice that contradicts your own experience.
That is good news for newcomers. practice habits feels harder than it has any right to be in the first months, and it stays that way for longer than feels fair. But almost everyone who keeps showing up reaches a point where it stops being a struggle. If practice habits is the part of piano basics you find most frustrating right now, the answer is mostly time and learning.
Reading Notation: the basics
Posture and Hands
The classic mistake with posture and hands is mistaking enthusiasm for progress. In the first few weeks of piano basics, doing something with posture and hands every day feels like a clear sign of dedication. Often it is the opposite — the body and the mind both need rest periods to consolidate what they have learned, and continuous practice without rest can lock in awkward patterns and slow improvement.
A pattern that works for many people: three or four short, attentive sessions on posture and hands per week, with full days off in between. Over six months that consistently outperforms daily practice, and is much easier to keep up. If you are about to push harder on posture and hands, consider whether pushing less might work better.
Posture and Hands
Most beginner advice about posture and hands comes in the form of fixed rules — do exactly this for exactly this long, then stop. That works for the first few attempts but breaks down as soon as conditions change. Posture and Hands is more usefully understood as a set of relationships: what is happening, what you want to happen, and the small adjustment that brings the two closer.
A practical way in: take whatever you currently do for posture and hands and try one experiment. Change one thing — a setting, an interval, a piece of equipment — and pay attention to what changes. Two weeks of small experiments will tell you more about posture and hands than any single article. The articles here can offer a starting point; the rest is yours to discover by sight-reading.
Thinking about Sight Reading
Choosing a Keyboard
The classic mistake with choosing a keyboard is mistaking enthusiasm for progress. In the first few weeks of piano basics, doing something with choosing a keyboard every day feels like a clear sign of dedication. Often it is the opposite — the body and the mind both need rest periods to consolidate what they have learned, and continuous practice without rest can lock in awkward patterns and slow improvement.
A pattern that works for many people: three or four short, attentive sessions on choosing a keyboard per week, with full days off in between. Over six months that consistently outperforms daily practice, and is much easier to keep up. If you are about to push harder on choosing a keyboard, consider whether pushing less might work better.
Sight Reading
When something goes wrong in piano basics, sight reading is the most common culprit. Not always — some problems live elsewhere — but checking sight reading first will solve a clear majority of the everyday hiccups a beginner runs into. This is not a glamorous fact and it is rarely the first answer in online discussions, but it is the boring practical truth.
So: when in doubt, look at sight reading. When the result is off, when the process feels harder than it should, when something has stopped working that used to work — start with sight reading. Even when the answer turns out to be elsewhere, the diagnostic habit of checking sight reading first is worth building.
None of this is meant as the last word. piano basics is a hobby in which experience reliably outperforms instruction, and the only way to develop that experience is to keep drilling. The articles here are a starting frame; the picture you fill in over time will be your own. If something on this site contradicts what you have learned from your own practice, trust your practice.