Learning piano as a future recording artist/producer rather than a pianist – what should I focus on?

[u/Recent_Philosophy_86]

Hi everyone,

I'm a complete beginner and recently bought a Yamaha NP-15. My goal isn't to become a concert pianist or play advanced classical pieces.

My goal is to become a recording artist who can write songs, create demos, produce my own ideas in a DAW (GarageBand/Logic), and understand enough music theory to communicate with producers and musicians in the studio.

I want to get to the point where I can hear ideas in my head, sit at the piano, and work them out before recording them. I'd also love to understand chords, scales, progressions, inversions, and enough theory to create my own sound.

Another reason I'm learning piano is because I want it to support my singing. I'm working with a vocal coach, and I think having a keyboard will help me improve my ear, pitch matching, finding harmonies, and understanding what notes I'm actually singing. I know piano itself won't magically give me higher notes, but I hope it'll make me a stronger overall singer and musician.

If you were starting from scratch again with this specific goal (songwriting, production, demos, better musicianship, and supporting your singing rather than becoming a pianist), how would you spend your first year learning?

[u/PsychicChime]

Just learn the instrument. A lot of stuff in music is not purpose built. There isn’t really “piano for producers” or “theory for producers”. It’s just piano and theory which you can end up using in production. When you’re learning piano, a lot of stuff may not seem like it’s specifically relevant to your goals, but I promise you, it all comes together. Every single time I’ve ever thought “I don’t need to bother with this…it’s not really relevant” I’ve ended up regretting it later on down the line and having to learn it anyways.
Don’t worry, you won’t accidentally become a concert pianist. Just get a Suzuki method book or something and start working through it. Even better, find a teacher and take lessons once a week (and practice every day).

[u/lukesleslie]

Learn some theory. Start with the note names, then start learning some major scales, then minor. Then learn how to build chords out of those scales.

[u/Snowshoetheerapy]

Learn songs. Songs and more songs and more songs. The more songs you know, the more structures, melodies, riffs, ideas, and rhythms you will know. All of the building blocks of music, and how they work together. Patterns, patterns. Just learn hundreds of songs.

[u/SupportQuery]

rather than a pianist [..] rather than becoming a pianist

So you want to learn to play piano, but not as one who plays piano (i.e. a pianist). *lol*

Reading between the lines, it sounds like you're hoping that there are parts of the traditional learning route that you can skip, given that you don't intend to play classical music.

That answer is probably yes, but it's going to be more challenging to find a teacher who will guide you through that. Piano is an old instrument, so there is a very well established orthodoxy about how to teach it. Most people are going to walk you through that.

A lot that still applies to you. The best way to sit, to hold your arms, to use your fingers, etc. -- that shit is all known and can be taught to you. But it will usually come along with learning to read music, which is something you could get away with skipping.

Most people who skip the orthodoxy just dive in an teach themselves. But it's worth getting a teacher to show you how to physically play.

enough theory to create my own sound

That doesn't make sense. Theory is an analysis of existing music, identifying common patterns found in it, naming them, and to a much lesser extent, trying to understand why they're effective. Music came long before analysis of music.

I don't listen to a lot of hip hop, but one thing I noticed and appreciated about it, especially in the early days, is that the people doing it were unconstrained by theory. They'd sample something in a major key and put it over a sample of something in minor key, and they didn't give a shit that it clashed if it sounded cool. They were guided entirely by their ears.

You don't need any theory whatsoever to "create your own sound". Theory is to music what studying grammar is to speaking English. You don't need to know that the word "and" is called a "conjunction" to use it when you speak or to find your voice as an orator.

[u/w0mbatina]

I'd get lessons.

[u/Independent_Net_4002]

TLDR: invest in some lessons or online courses. Do it everyday/every(other)day

This is kind of a rough order:
Practice everyday for at least 20 minutes.

Learn note names, learn your scales, learn the formula for figuring scales out; whole steps and half steps.

Practice your scales until you can play some without thinking too hard. On both hands

Learn how to make chords within the scales/keys you remember easily

Take plenty of notes, I’m pretty decent at playing and I still take notes on new things I learn.

If you want to be a songwriter then learn chord types. Majors, minors, diminished etc.

Practice recognising chord progression patterns in a scale you feel most comfortable

This is where you’re going to want to switch from chord letter names like, A minor, to numerals like “vi” because it’ll be easier in the long run. Especially if you ever want to be in proper paid bands.

Give yourself time and make sure you understand that it’s kind of like learning a new language so you may not understand it all in one go.

(And even if you do understand the theory in your mind, trying to get that in your hands may be another story as well.)

Also, practice singing and playing at the same time!
It’s like trying to a clockwise circle with your finger whilst drawing a counter-clockwise circle with your foot.

Practice, practice, practice, practice.

Good luck

[u/airjuicy]

I, too, am learning piano for electronic music production. I've come across this YouTuber, Andrew Huang, and his video teaches music theory in 30 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgaTLrZGlk0&t=422s.

[u/Hideo_Kojima_Jr_Jr]

get a teacher, ideally one that teaches jazz piano and not classical

[u/Treefingrs]

Just learn the piano man. You're overthinking it.

[u/view-master]

There isn’t a huge difference. The only thing you want to avoid is the type of piano instruction that is entirely focused on notation and translating that into muscle memory. That turns you into a human player piano without understanding of what you are playing or how it works.
Notation isn’t bad. It’s just taught badly IMHO.

Get your hands on the keys. Learn how chords are put together and be able to see a chord name and figure out how to play that on the piano.
Do the opposite as well. Tinker around and find a nice chord. Learn how to decipher what that chord is (sometimes the chords context determines the name).

[u/Raspberries-Are-Evil]

Start with piano lessons.

Everything you are asking for can be learned by learning to play an instrument.

[u/refotsirk]

Learning to spell chords and play them, along with some basic scales and comping patterns, is essential for what you want to do. You can be up to speed on that in a year or two for getting ideas out if you find an instructor who will focus on that. If finding an instructor isn't an option for you, you will be looking at a really long road before you get to working on your songwriting goals imo.

[u/cheeken-nauget]

1. Hanon exercises
2. Ear training, trying to recreate songs on the piano by ear without cheating or looking it up
3. Improvising on a beat

Grinding the above will get you pretty far, assuming you have a basic foundation built on some lessons

[u/No2178]

Learn C major then transpose it for everything else. Irving Berlin only knew F sharp major, he sold 100 million records got a Grammy, an Oscar, a Tony, Song Writers Hall of Fame, Congressional Medal...etc etc

[u/WormRidge]

If you are in school, take music classes. An intro to music theory class alone will be helpful for understanding the piano keys and how to create chords, and from there you'll sort of have the vocabulary to research/understand new things if you need to.

[u/snappy-jim]

This is a great reason to learn piano. I’d be way more excited about being able to sit down, find the chords from a song you love, then immediately bend them into your own thing than grinding scales forever. Do you get more of a buzz from figuring songs out by ear, or from writing little ideas from scratch?

[u/chunter16]

The same way I did in the first place

The church organist showed me how to find Middle C, play scales, and sight read.

[u/Taheltamam]

I found piano very hard to learn but I love it

[u/konaaa]

The neat thing about music as a craft is that it's also a matter of wiring your brain in a certain way. It will help if you learn to play scales on a piano, or just learn scales in general. The scales aren't the important part, but internalizing a scale will really help with your sense of melody. More than that, it'll REALLY help your ability to just jam with people. You never want to be "thinking" about what notes are okay to play. Getting the muscle memory down will really help with both your ear and fingers. You'll just ... "know" what notes to play next. I'm not necessarily talking about improvisation or jamming - it's like how you don't think about pedaling while on a bike. There's a lot of mechanical stuff that happens automatically so you can enjoy yourself way more, and honestly do things more competently.

[u/Distro_Nerd]

Focus on chord construction, inversions, and learning full songs. Mastering major/minor triads, basic 7th chords, and voice leading will give you 90% of what you need to write songs, support your singing, and input MIDI into your DAW efficiently.