Are you tired of your piano playing sounding choppy and amateur? If you are, I have something special that can help you transform your skills and sound like a pro in no time!
In my latest YouTube tutorial, I dive deep into the most common mistakes that beginner pianists often make, which can lead to less-than-perfect performances. From posture and finger tension to pedal usage and song selection, I’ll walk you through these challenges and provide practical solutions to overcome them.
Ready to elevate your piano playing and gain the confidence to perform your favorite songs? Watch my new video now by clicking the link below:
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By tuning in, you’ll receive valuable insights and actionable tips that will make a significant difference in your piano playing. And if you’re hungry for more guidance, don’t forget to explore the resources in the video description for additional support.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION:
Hello and welcome back to PIANOLY. Today we’re going to go over some very common mistakes that I see students making all the time that causes them to sound very choppy and amateur. I’m going to give you five very common mistakes and how to fix them. This will greatly improve your playing and help you sound a lot more fluid and professional. And if you’d like more videos on how to go from zero to playing your favorite songs on the piano in months, not years, be sure to hit the bell and subscribe, because I post new videos every week. And if you’re lost, and you don’t know how to learn the piano, I highly recommend watching my free training. In this training, I show you the exact roadmap that I take my students on that helps them be able to play their favorite songs fast. The link is in the description below.
All right, let’s get to these common mistakes. This first one is huge. Please do not ignore me. It’s having bad posture, poor technique, and zero arm weight when you’re playing the piano. This is how you’re going to sound if you have no good technique and bad posture.
So what you do want to do is sit up straight, sit at the correct distance from the piano. So you want to have your arm straight and your knuckles should be at the very end of the keys. That’s how far away you should be, and your elbows should be in line with the keys. That’s how you know you’re at the correct distance and the correct height. This really matters because when you’re playing things like chords, you need to be able to use your arm weight to play them. So a lot of people just play the chord with their fingers and that’s really hard. So think of your fingers as like a cookie cutter, and you’re pressing into the keys with your arm, your arm weight. So like this. This is going to give you good clean chords. All of your notes are going to come out at the same time, and it’s not going to be choppy.
Number two, I see this with pretty much every single beginner student, and it’s okay, but just be aware of it. A lot of you guys are super tense. You have very tense fingers, tense arms. Everything’s tense. So your sound is intense. It’s very intense and it’s not clean. So what you want to do is remember, think about step number one, use your arm weight, but now also relax a bit. We don’t need to be tense. It’s not going to help you. So when you’re playing those chords with good arm weight, practice just playing the chord and relaxing for a bit. So play it and then try to relax all of your fingers. Just practice this. It’s a very slow and a little bit boring to practice, but just relaxing into those chords and getting rid of the tension.
It’s going to take some time to get rid of that tension, so just be mindful of it all the time with practicing exercises, scales, songs. Be aware of it and try to relax constantly, and it’ll eventually go away, but you’re going to have to be patient with this. All right, number three is improper use of the sustain pedal or just not using it correctly at all. So I’m just going to play through a very simple chord progression and show you how it sounds without the sustain pedal.
Now I’m going to show you me playing the sustain pedal with this chord progression.
So what you should have heard is the chords are connected, and they sound nice and fluid. So, like I said, not using the sustain pedal at all is. You are definitely not going to sound good if you don’t use the sustain pedal. The other thing I see is people just holding it down the whole time. If you hold it down the entire time, it’s going to sound like a sloppy mess like this. All these chords are going to blur together.
Yuck. Another thing people do wrong is they change the pedal while they’re changing the chord. So it defeats the entire purpose of the sustain pedal. So they go like this.
No, that is not right. We’re going to play the chord first, pedal second. My students know this. You might’ve heard it before. Chord first, pedal second. Watch. I’m going to play my chord, now I’m going to go to the next one, and then I’m going to lift the pedal right after. Chord first, pedal second. Chord first, pedal second. That’s a quick overview of how to correctly play the sustain pedal, but if you want more information on that, watch this video. All right. Number four is super common. It’s not playing with a steady beat or playing way too fast. So before you start a song, think one, two, ready, go and keep that pulse the entire time.
That is so important. You have to think of that or else you are never going to sound professional. You’re going to sound like a big mess. Don’t start playing too fast either. Keep the steady beat. If you need to, play with a metronome. You can download some really cool metronome apps on your phone. I’ll link some in the description, and you can also just play along with the song itself. So, for example, you could practice, Let it Be with the actual song Let it Be playing behind you, and that’s going to help you keep a steady beat. All right, number five is playing music that is way too hard. This is so huge. I see this so often. Sometimes, students get super impatient, and they want to zip through the basics and play things that are just too advanced for them. This is never going to work.
If it takes you weeks to learn just tiny pieces of the song, it’s way too challenging for you. I recommend starting with some simple songs with simple chord progressions. Play along with the song playing, just like I mentioned. That way you can enjoy it, but you’re getting that foundation. Once you’re comfortable with simple songs, add in more challenging chords to your songs, like songs with seventh chords. Then get used to that. After that, learn how to jazz it up with some fills and then add the melody last. In fact, I go through this entire process in my free training. So if you would like to know how I take my students from zero to playing their favorite songs in months, not years, on the piano, definitely check out my free training. I’m going to show you the exact roadmap that I take my students through. The link is in the description below, and before you head out, be sure to like and subscribe because I post new videos every week, and I’ll see you next time.
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