5 Reasons Why Piano Should Be Your First Instrument
I love the piano. I think it is one of the most versatile, and beautiful instruments out there. I also think it's really fun to teach.
But why do I believe that it should be the instrument you start out on? It's not because it's what I started with. In fact, i'm primarily a guitarist, but you know what? Guitar is really hard, and visually is not very intuitive. I began learning Piano while in college. Music programs make you learn piano as you learn advanced theory because it serves as a visual for music theory.
The best example I can think of is if you are learning a language. Let's say you're learning German. In the classroom you learn about how to structure sentences, gendered nouns, etc. But for a lot of people, including myself. It is incredibly difficult to take what you are learning out into the real world. When I was in Switzerland and would try and talk to the locals, they would immediately stop me and would talk in English. Yay for a year of college level German!
But imagine if you lived in Switzerland how quickly you would learn the language just through immersion. You constantly have real world examples of how conversations flow right in front of you.
It's the same thing with Piano. It's all right in front of you, and as a result you are immersed into the world of music theory. Even if you do not stick with piano, you will build an extremely strong music theory foundation that will transfer over to any instrument in the world.
Alright, i'll stop rambling now. Here's the list!
1) Music Theory
As I said in the introduction, you will gain an extremely strong foundation of music theory. Anyone who understands music at a mastery level is generally a pianist.
Think about it, if you want to learn a pop song, and play the chords. You have to know what notes are in the chords and the rules surrounding voice leading. With guitar, you really just have to know the shapes, and you can get by your whole life without knowing what notes your actually playing.
2) Inexpensive
This is a huge selling point for families. Piano's are really affordable. You can even find free baby grand pianos on craigslist. Forewarning, you usually have to move them yourself, but if you buy a few friends dinner maybe they would help! Three burritos are way cheaper than a brand new baby grand piano!
The other option is to buy an electronic keyboard. Beginning keyboards are usually under $100 dollars.
Put this into perspective. Flutes are crazy expensive. Upwards to $80,000 kind of expensive. Granted, those are pro level flutes. But still, a starting flute can be 20k. So good choice on picking piano!
I by no way hate the flute! It's a beautiful instrument. I just think there really, really, really expensive.
3) Versatility
You wanna learn Fur Elise? Done. You wanna learn the chords to Bohemian Rhapsody? Done. Jazz standards? Movie themes? Well good thing you are learning the piano, because it's pretty easy to learn all of this with adjusted levels of difficulty. And it'll sound great coming from the piano.
Think about how funny Imperial March would sound on Mandolin?
I do love mandolin, but that's a no from me.
4) It makes you better at math!
I'm definitely not a case study for this. But there have been several studies done that show that children are far more likely to succeed
There is an theory called the "Motzart Effect"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1281386/
It's essentially suggesting that people who listen to classical music are smarter. Its because it improved their spatial-temporal reasoning which gives them the ability to mentally picture and move multiple objects in the minds. Thus allowing them to solve problems much easier.
If you have the time, which you probably do since your reading this blog post. Listen to 'Moonlight Sonata' by Beethoven. It's incredibly moving, and a masterful piece. As you listen close your eyes and come up with a story. This is the Motzart Effect..... But with Beethoven..... The 'Beethoven Effect'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tr0otuiQuU
5) Reach your goals faster!
I'm not trying to say that playing the piano is easy, because becoming a professional in anything is very difficult. It's crazy what professional pianists can do.
What i'm trying to say is that there is less of a learning curve when it comes to playing piano. And as a result the student (maybe that's you!) get's to their goals that much faster, and are playing the pieces they want that much faster.
You still have to practice to get there!