In reddit /r/piano there are a lot of similar questions, and as someone learning piano in their 50s is always amuses me.
I self-tought to about an ABRSM grade 1 level before getting a teacher, but I had done a little bit (less than a year) as a small kid.
Particularly the early stages are very hard and it takes a lot of practice to do seemlingly trivial things. It is a differnet skill from touch typing. I find the "Dozen a Day" books of studies really good for training your fingers to do what you want them to, instead of what they want to do.
I tried to learn guitar a couple of years ago. I wanted to learn something which required me to use my fingers differently than on a keyboard. But, as someone in their 50s with a lifetime of working on software I found it practically impossible to get my fingers to curve the way they needed to for the guitar. The physical pain eventually made me give up. If anyone has any tips to work around this limitation will be great to hear
I’ve never understood why the ability to play music is still locked away behind such difficult, even painful ‘user interfaces’ of traditional instruments.
Why don’t we have more beginner-friendly and ergonomic instruments? Is it just because they’re seen as ‘cheating’?
I self-tought to about an ABRSM grade 1 level before getting a teacher, but I had done a little bit (less than a year) as a small kid.
Particularly the early stages are very hard and it takes a lot of practice to do seemlingly trivial things. It is a differnet skill from touch typing. I find the "Dozen a Day" books of studies really good for training your fingers to do what you want them to, instead of what they want to do.