Always meant to learn piano? Starting as an adult can look different than you think.

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Maybe there's a keyboard in the spare room, or a piano nobody plays. Adults bring things kids don't: patience, music they already love, and a clear reason for wanting to play.

  1. 1

    Start with songs you actually want to play.

    Adults stick with practice when it leads somewhere they care about. Starting with chords and rhythms used in familiar songs means the music you love is part of the lessons from early on.

  2. 2

    Chords are the backbone of most popular songs.

    Pop, rock, blues and ballads are mostly built on a handful of chords played in patterns. Learn those chords and a few rhythms, and a lot of familiar songs come within reach.

  3. 3

    Patterns stick better than memorized notes.

    Chords make shapes under your hand, and those shapes repeat across the keyboard. Once you see the piano as patterns instead of 88 separate keys, new songs feel less like starting from zero.

  4. 4

    Variety keeps you practicing.

    Practice drags when every lesson sounds the same. Moving through styles, from ballads to blues to jazz to classical, keeps it interesting, and each style teaches you something the others don't.

  5. 5

    Fit it around your life, not a lesson schedule.

    A course on your phone or tablet that works offline lets you practice when you have twenty minutes, not just when an appointment says so.

  6. 6

    Where Pianoforall fits.

    Pianoforall is an online piano course by Robin Hall, offered since 2006. It's a series of interactive ebooks with the video and audio lessons built right into the pages, and it works on PC, Mac, phones and tablets, even offline. It starts with rhythm-style chords, then moves through ballads, blues, jazz, ragtime and improvisation into classical pieces, teaching you to read music as you learn to play by ear. It comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee. You still have to put in the practice. It gives that practice an order to follow.

See the course

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