[hn_]

>anyone can learn to play piano

Is there a belief that anyone can learn to play the piano? I can't. I struggled for many years trying to learn various instruments. I failed miserably no matter how hard I tried. I tried and I tried, I really wanted to be able to play an instrument, any instrument, but I was unable to. I'm not dumb, I am a programmer, but music was just something my brain couldn't comprehend.

Of course we also have to define what exactly is "able to play the piano" and what is "able to program"? If know how to write "hello world" does that mean I know how to program? If I play a couple cords does that mean I know how to play the piano?

[rifung]

I do believe that anyone can learn to play the piano, although I would admit it's harder for some than for others. A lot of it has to do with finding the right teacher though.

What exactly do you mean by you were unable to? People have different ideas of what it means to be able to play the piano.

For classically pianists, it just means you can read notes and play the corresponding notes. I imagine anyone could memorize what notes correspond to what keys and, as long as they are physically capable, be able to press down on those keys. You might not be able to play any arbitrary piece, but I think most people agree that just because you can't play Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto 3 doesn't mean you don't know how to play the piano.

[hn_]

I actually never tried to play the piano, just the flute and later percussion.

>For classically pianists, it just means you can read notes and play the corresponding notes

Couldn't do that. Couldn't read notes, not even very simple pieces. Reading which note was what, them and then thinking about the corresponding fingering, doing it while following along with the beat... nope, never happened. It wasn't like I didn't practice either, I did. I was so so so determined to be able to make music, it was something I wanted bad, but no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't, my mind didn't work that way. I had the mental capacity to remember how to play only a couple of notes at one time. I then went to trying to play the drums since there was no remembering which fingers go where. That, while a little easier, didn't work either. I couldn't keep up with the proper timing of the notes.

You could just say I had terrible teachers (public school) but I don't believe that. I gave up after years of trying, it wasn't like I had a mental block to learning. I practiced on my own time too.

I also was unable to ever learn my multiplication tables.

I am not stupid though. I don't have a learning disability, I got great grades in school. I write software for a living. I have a lot of intellectual hobbies. I love talking about math and probability with friends. Nobody who knows me would tell you I am stupid.

I've also seen people struggle just as bad with stuff that comes naturally to me, so I understand some people's brains are just wired differently.

[TheSOB888]

>I also was unable to ever learn my multiplication tables. >I don't have a learning disability

Maybe you don't have a learning disability, but you definitely seem like you have some sort of mental block that is preventing you from being able to learn certain things. Maybe things you consider boring, and you can't focus enough on them to get past them?

[hn_]

Yeah, no, you are 100% wrong.

[retrogradeorbit]

I find it amusing that you are being downvoted on something that only you know, and you are a complete expert on... yourself.

Ah HN. What's happening to you?

[lfowles]

> I am not stupid though.

> I don't have a learning disability.

There's no reason you couldn't have a learning disability. I was one of the smartest in my class and turns out that I do indeed have ADHD. I've also never been able to learn a musical instrument, but I've only put one or two months of continuous practice into them before giving up for another year or two. Barely enough to get muscle memory working for me.

Edit: From Wikipedia: "Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is often studied in connection with learning disabilities, but it is not actually included in the standard definitions of learning disabilities. An individual with ADHD may struggle with learning, but he or she can often learn adequately once successfully treated for the ADHD." Ok, so it isn't a learning disability technically, but it's been a barrier to _me_ in learning an instrument.

[rifung]

Hm it sounds like because you were unable to learn the flute/drums despite not being very motivated, you don't think everyone can do it. I think this is a fair observation, but I also do wonder if you tried a different approach whether you would be able to learn. I hope that didn't offend you, you certainly sound very hard working, and I wonder if I might be able to help if you were still interested in trying to learn an instrument.

It seems like you felt overwhelmed by all the various parts of making music. But since you are just starting and having trouble, I wonder if it would make more sense to try to isolate the different things until they become easy enough that you can do them together.

Please forgive me if you already tried this, as you didn't mention whether you had a teacher and what music you were trying to play.

For example, if you had trouble with beats, you could try practicing the beats just by tapping your hand or singing or something else. I was ridiculously bad with rhythms (and still am?) so I have a lot of personal experience with this one.

Then, if you have trouble reading the notes, you can just write them down in a way that's easier for you to read. There's no shame in just writing down the note names! Alternatively, you could just try to memorize a single measure and practice that one measure. Again, I found myself doing this all the time, especially because on the piano you have two hands to read notes for. Of course, what might make even more sense is if you just picked easier music to play.

I think for fingering, the same advice kind of applies.. you can pick easier music, or just memorize small sections.

In a way I feel like you could use this same advice for programming as well. If you pick a super huge project and only gauge your progress for that whole project, you might get overwhelmed and feel like it's taking too long, which stresses you out. Alternatively, if you break the project down into manageable chunks, you feel good about your progress!

At least this seems to have worked for me! I don't know if this will help you at all and I apologize for being so stubborn but I really don't believe you are unable to learn an instrument unless you have some learning disability.

[mkr-hn]

I think what happens is people try to formalize all the fun out of music because they don't know any better. They fall back on the broken rote learning they got back in grade school, and the results are predictable.

I usually write out songs in my head as changes in pitch, then work out notes and scales later in my DAW. I learned to keep time by drumming on the wheel with music when stopped in traffic. I can't remember scales for long, but I made a point of committing the notes of the keyboard keys to memory so I can quickly memorize a scale and experiment with melodies.

[zaccus]

You've said multiple times in these posts that you "can't" do this or that. That is an excuse. Stop it.

[hn_]

I'm not making excuses.

I've tried very hard at some things and failed miserably. I've tired hard at some things and had great results that surprised even me. Those are facts.

It is correct that I can't do things that I don't have the ability to do. There's plenty of things people can't do but that doesn't mean everything someone can't do can't be learned. I can't run a 10k but I'm sure I can if I wanted to, tried, and trained for one I could. There was a time I couldn't write a line of code but that didn't stop me from learning or trying.

I believe many people have something or another that is extremely difficult to impossible for them to learn no matter how hard they try and its different for everyone. Most people don't have an interest in trying things that don't come naturally to them so many times people don't experience that so they can't imagine someone else experiencing it.

[colomon]

(Apologies, I'm really replying to your post deeper in this thread -- HM isn't giving me a reply there.)

On learning music, I'm wondering if you ever tried to learn to play by ear? If someone beats out a rhythm, can you repeat it?

One of the weird thing about most music education (at least in the US and Canada) is it focuses heavily on learning to read music. But if you poke around the corners of the music world, it turns out that loads of fantastic musicians have never learned to read or write music. One of the features of written music notation is it tries to reduce musical rhythm to math, so it might make sense if both things were weak spots for you.

(What do I mean by "tries to reduce"? Consider, for instance, swing. Lots of times the ratio of duration of the lengths of the two notes in a swung pair varies pretty continuously depending on how fast the music is going.[1] There's really no good way of notating that concept in standard music notation, other than just punting and writing "Swung eighths".)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_%28jazz_performance_style... starting at "In swing the division is inexact"

[zaccus]

Learning a musical instrument is hard work, but yes anybody can learn to play on an intermediate level. It takes zero talent to do that, but hours and hours of practice with a metronome.

"Able to play the piano" means you can look at a lead sheet with chords on it and play basic accompaniment to a melody. That's not difficult at all once you've learned how to do it.

I would say "able to program" means you can take an arbitrary set of feature requirements and write a program that fulfills those requirements.

[agumonkey]

It's all very interesting. I believe programming is less obscure, less challenging for the senses thus easier to make progress in. In the end not everyone will be able to invent a new paradigm, or even solve hard problems in code.

I still don't understand music, but I've been through long plateau followed by big insights. Same as in programming, some ideas were out of reach for a long time.

Doing things in time is already music. What most people want is a tiny bit of complexity, overlaying melodies and rhythmic patterns to tickle our senses. But to my deepest understanding, it is mostly the state of flow where you feel locked into the invisible energy of music. Maybe it's a high sensitivity between your interactions and the actual waves caused by your instrument, and an inner knowledge of how to keep that vibration moving without choking (think taking successive perfect curves with a car).

[mkr-hn]

"Hello World" is roughly equivalent to playing a random scale. If you can memorize a scale (even briefly), you can play the piano. You might not ever manage to compose a legendary piece of classical music, but you can impress your friends by jamming with a man jue or a gambhiranata.

Most of what I make is mostly or completely electronic, and I can barely listen to classical. If you think "learning the piano" and "playing piano music" are synonymous, that might be the problem. You can make a lot of interesting sounds if you hook a MIDI keyboard up to a computer.

(aside, the best investment I made was Piano Companion Pro. The scale DB is full of interesting scales from all over the world)