New Year, New Me! Hi, I’m Joe, COO of Noisy Clan. As a Noisy Clan-er of 5 years, I have access to some of the best learning tools on the planet (I might be a little biased), and it is about time I started to learn an instrument, don’t you think? Here is how plan on getting started with piano:
Form a habit, make it part of my routine. I'm using our habit tracker.
It’s a known fact that if you put in the hours then you’ll get better. But how do you ensure you put in the hours? Well there are lots of techniques to forming habits to ensure that the hours (or minutes) are put in and you can gradually increase your competency and see progress.
Stack it onto another habit.
Every evening, for 5 minutes I do gundog training with my wee puppy Zero (not so wee anymore!). We do 3 exercises which he loves, in the living room, in front of the piano! So as soon as I finish that training for him, I am going to start mine!
1% Gains
Remember you only have to do better than you did yesterday and compound interest will take care of the rest. If I can manage 5 minutes every day for a week, then the next week do 6 minutes… and so on, then by the end of the year I will be doing just under an hour of play per day! AND I will have done a total of 26 hours of playing, which is not bad for a total newbie!
Have a reward.
And then I want to kick in the dopamine receptors, so once I have completed the piano training then I get a reward. A chocolate, a beer, a whisky… Yet to be decided but a reward must be had! Them’s the rules.
Have an easy goal, and I mean EASY!
What’s the point if I don’t have an end goal? I love learning new things but there has to be something to achieve at the end of the day. Thankfully Noisy Clan have a whole heap of tools which can assist in the learning so it's time to tidy up that piano and start playing!
Micro-mastery
If I play a song that I LOVE, explore the instrument in an interesting way AND it is impressive to hear then it’s a WIN for me and everyone in the house! Most people will think I am a master of piano. (This is a first step on micro-mastery). For years when I was a student at uni, my roommate would play "Metamorphosis 2” by Philip Glass on piano early mornings, somewhat well. If I could play one of those songs better than him then that is another big win!
Work backwards to decide what skills and steps will be required:
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Playing the whole song
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Learning every chord in the song. You can use this to get started.
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Learning how to play in patterns
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Finger movement
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Pacing
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Learning the keyboard
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Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera ….
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Mary had a little lamb (we have to start somewhere right?)
- Find Middle C
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Have FUN along the way.
I’m going to learn as many 80s disco rhythms as possible, then whenever we do karaoke in my house at 2am, I can jump on the piano and make it even more entertaining.
Share the challenge.
The number 1 way to ensure you stick to your goal is to share it. Most Personal Trainer workout regimes these days require you to submit pictures of your progress every week and my dog training requires us to post videos in a facebook group, why? Because social accountability is the number one guarantee to better habit forming and getting results. We avoid loss and losing waaaay more than we enjoy winning. So here are 5 easy ways to share your challenge:
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Join a beginner piano class so that you have peers to compete against, in a fun way!
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Bet someone else that you can play more than them in a time frame. (Must be measurable)
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Book yourself to play at an open mic in the future, nothing beats a deadline more than a live performance!
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Join a beginner band, you can help each other and you won’t be alone in your learning journey.
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Share your journey online, like I am doing now and see how much support you get for your journey. It will surprise you just how much people like to watch others learn and offer their advice.
Comment on how YOU will be playing more in 2025!
