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How many times have you wished you can play piano? Have you ever wanted to play your favorite song on the piano or just sit down and enjoy making something up? We all wish we can play piano for a variety of reasons.

Whatever the original reason, it’s clear that piano lessons are about more than playing music. Whether you’re a child or an adult, the learning that takes place at the piano keyboard will reach into practically every corner of your life. Here are three life lessons that are cultivated at the piano.

Piano Life Lesson #1: Setting and Reaching Goals

How many goals have you set and never reached? From simply making better food choice, promising yourself to complete a started project, or learning any new skill, many times we find ourselves falling short of achieving goals.

When learning piano, every new song represents a new goal. When we can see (or hear) the end result it’s easy to be clear about what you want to accomplish. Every time you complete a song, whether it be a beginner’s song, intermediate or advanced, the goal reaching process is being internalized. Your brain does not know how small or big the goal was, it just knows that the goal was r reached, therefore, the habit of setting and reaching goals becomes a natural part of who you become in all other areas of your life.

Piano Life Lesson #2: Paying Attention to Details

You need to coordinate hundreds of small details when you play the piano – things like finger placements, rhythms and the combination of notes on the page. Attention to these details is crucial for success at the piano. You will soon learn that if you leave out a single note, or play the rhythm incorrectly, the song doesn’t sound like it’s supposed to sound. Paying attention to details are just as important in the rest of your life whether you’re planning a presentation for work, working on a project for school, or preparing a meal for the family! I can think of a million things that we all need to pay attention to detail to like cleaning the house, driving a car, or just listening to a friend. I can’t tell you enough how important paying attention to details is to your life. It includes thinking ahead, being thorough, being thoughtful, choosing your friends, developing good communication skills, following directions, and the list can go on forever. Playing piano offers highly intense detail training, without even knowing you are doing it!

Piano Life Lesson #3: Learning from Mistakes

We all make mistakes, and that’s OK! The problem is we are too hard on ourselves and we as human beings think it’s not ok. Anyone who plays piano can tell you that there are a lot of mistakes on the road to completing a song! The more mistakes you make, the more you will come to realize that you can recover from them. The fear of making a mistake does not have to stop you from trying. Making your own mistakes also helps you feel more in tune with others around you, whether that’s at a recital, at work, school, or at home! None of us have to be perfect!

Piano lessons teach us more than just music. Goal-setting, perseverance, attention to detail, expressing our talents and accepting mistakes are just a few of the endless life lessons that can be found on a keyboard.

When you improvise you need to know the relationship between chords and scales. You can of course use your ear when you improvise over chord changes but you will benefit from the freedom of knowing what you are doing when you press down the keys to create music.

Let us start with the C-major chord. In this piano lesson you will use your left hand to play chords and your right hand for scale improvisation. You can practice improvising with your left hand and playing chords with your right hand too. You are the one to decide what you need to practice.

This article is not written on a music sheet so I can not use traditional sheet music notation. I will instead use the note names together with an indication of which octave to play the note.

Here is the C-major chord for your left hand:

C: C3 E3 G3

The number three tells you to play the chord in the third octave of a common piano keyboard. That is, a keyboard with 88 keys. The important thing to remember is that the fourth octave is the middle octave of a keyboard. C4 is the famous middle C or keyhole C on an traditional piano.

Okey, it is time to see what scale to use together with the C chord. The most common choice would be to use a C-major scale as a base for your improvisations. The C-major scale consists of the white keys on your piano. Here is the C-major scale in the fourth octave:

C4 D4 E4 F4 G4 A4 B4

As soon as you can play a piano scale by heart it is time to create music with it. You can practice to play patterns built upon these scale notes. Here are a few examples:

C4 E4 G4 B4 D5 B4 G4 E4 C4

E5 B4 D5 C5 B4 G4 E4 C4 B3

C4 D4 E4 G4 A4 4B C5 E5 B4

Another common scale to use together with the C-major chord is the C-major pentatonic scale. This scale consists of only five notes in each octave instead of the seven notes in the C-major scale. This scale is constructed by omitting the fourth and seventh note in the major scale. Here are the notes:

C4 D4 E4 G4 A4

The pentatonic scale has a few benefits:

1. With only five notes it can be used together with more chords without interfering with the chord notes.

2. It is so interesting as it is that you can create melodic patterns by just playing it up and down the keyboard.

Let us create a pattern with this scale:

C4 D4 E4 G4 D4 E4 G4 A4 E4 G4 A4 C5

You can also play it the other way:

C5 A4 G4 E4 A4 G4 E4 D4 G4 E4 D4 C4

Before we finish this piano lesson we have to take a look at another interesting scale. It is the C Lydian scale. It resembles the C-major scale but with a F# instead of F. Here is the scale written out:

C4 D4 E4 F#4 G4 A4 B4

As I mentioned before the scale looks a lot like the major scale with the exception of the raised 4th. The raised 4th gives the ear the sensation of momentum and it sounds modern. Many people feel that the normal F is dissonant together with the C major chord. The F# on the other hand can be used the same way as the other notes in the scale.

Here are two examples of patterns:

C4 E4 G4 F#4 A4 C5 B4 G4 E4

C5 B4 G4 E4 A4 F#4 E4 D4

The important thing with all these scales is to create your own melodies. Give yourself time to practice slowly which will give your heart and mind time to create music.