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podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 3
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —okay but did it actually stay smeared for a month, or is that the exaggerated version?
MEAGAN: no, a full month. i thought that was just what pedaling sounded like. rich. blurry. i thought i was getting good.
JESS: this is meagan dean, everybody, piano fundamentals, and we are three weeks in and she is telling on herself already.
MEAGAN: someone has to.
JESS: okay so, catch people up. this is episode three. what are we actually covering this week in class.
MEAGAN: hand position and getting the metronome out for the first time. which is the week everybody starts resenting me a little.
JESS: why the resentment.
MEAGAN: because nobody's internal rhythm is as good as they think it is. you play something, feels fine, feels even, i turn on the metronome and suddenly you're rushing every third beat and you didn't know. it's like hearing a recording of your own voice. deeply unflattering.
JESS: so what do you do, just let people sit there and be humbled.
MEAGAN: pretty much. i'd rather they hear it themselves than have me say "you're rushing." if i say it, they think i'm being picky. if the metronome says it, they believe it.
JESS: brutal but fair.
MEAGAN: it's not brutal, it's honest. slower and even beats faster and lopsided, every time. i say that probably every class.
JESS: you do. i've heard it through the wall.
MEAGAN: sorry.
JESS: no it's good, it's sticking with people. okay, tell the pedal story properly, for people who missed it.
MEAGAN: so this is early on, i'm teaching myself off youtube because i didn't have a teacher, i had braxton's abandoned sheet music and a keyboard and stubbornness. and i watch this video on pedaling, how to use the sustain pedal, and i press it down like the video says and i just. never let it up. because the video shows you pressing it down and then cuts to the next thing. never shows the lifting part.
JESS: oh no.
MEAGAN: so for about a month my practice sounded like one long chord. everything blurring into everything. hymns, scales, all of it, just soup.
JESS: and you didn't notice.
MEAGAN: i thought it sounded rich! i thought, oh, i'm really filling out the sound now. it was nathan who finally said something. he came in one night and just went "does it always sound like that" and i said like what and he went "underwater."
JESS: (laughing) underwater.
MEAGAN: so that's the gap i'll cop to. pedaling is still not my strong suit three years later. i teach the basics honestly, down and up, down and up, but past a certain point i tell people go find a proper teacher, because i taught myself off a video that skipped the important part and look how that went.
JESS: okay, so for someone listening who isn't in the class, who's just got a keyboard at home, gathering dust. give them something they can use today.
MEAGAN: check your hand position before you check your notes. most people, when they sit down, their wrist is either collapsed down or hiked up, and neither one lets your fingers move independently. so, quick thing. let your hand hang loose at your side, totally relaxed, notice the natural curve your fingers already have doing nothing. that curve, that's basically it. bring that hand up to the keys without changing the shape.
JESS: that's it, that's the whole tip.
MEAGAN: that's the whole tip. i don't push posture hard with beginners, honestly, i'd rather you get the right notes with a slightly wrong hand than a picture-perfect hand playing wrong notes. but that one adjustment, the hanging-hand thing, costs you nothing and helps everybody.
JESS: i'm doing it right now at my desk.
MEAGAN: good. do it away from the keyboard first so you're not thinking about two things at once.
JESS: okay, last thing. what's coming next session, give people a reason to show up.
MEAGAN: next week we start putting two hands together on an actual hymn line. small one. and i bring the metronome back out, so, brace yourselves.
JESS: the resentment returns.
MEAGAN: the resentment returns. but it's the week it starts sounding like music instead of an exercise, so it's usually the one people say they enjoyed most, right after they were mad about it.
JESS: love that. mad about it, then grateful.
MEAGAN: that's most of learning an instrument as an adult, honestly.
JESS: on that note. thanks meagan.
MEAGAN: thanks. go hang your hand at your side, i mean it.
HandoutPiano Fundamentals — Handout 1: What to Actually Buy
Piano Fundamentals — Handout 1: What to Actually Buy
Here's the thing behind the thing: you don't need much to start, and most of what's marketed to beginners is a waste of money. Below is what you actually need, what's genuinely nice to have, and what I'd skip. This is my preference, take it or leave it, but I've bought a lot of used keyboards off classifieds listings at this point and I've got opinions.
The instrument (budget tier)
A used digital keyboard with weighted, full-size keys. Not a toy keyboard from a big-box store, even a nice-looking one. The tiny springy keys on those teach your fingers a lie about how much pressure a real piano key takes, and you'll have to unlearn it later. Unlearning takes longer than learning right the first time. Ask me how I know.
Look for "weighted" or "hammer action" in the listing. 61 keys is workable for this class, 76 or 88 is better if you find one for a similar price. Test every key before you hand over cash, sometimes there's a dead one buried in there and it's a bargaining chip, not a dealbreaker.
Budget: $60–150 used. I'm happy to look at a listing with you if you're not sure it's legit.
The instrument (nice-to-have tier)
An 88-key weighted keyboard or a used acoustic piano, if you've got the space and someone's giving one away. Free pianos exist up and down the valley, mostly because moving them is a nightmare. Get help carrying it and expect to tune it once it settles into your house, our dry air and elevation are hard on them.
The basics, budget tier
- A adjustable piano bench or a sturdy chair at the right height. Your kitchen chair works fine for now.
- A metronome app on your phone, free ones are fine. You will hate it at first. Everyone does, including me. Use it anyway.
- A three-ring binder or folder for handouts and sheet music, so nothing gets lost in the pile on the counter.
- A pencil. Not a pen. You'll be marking fingering numbers over the hard measures, and you'll want to erase and redo it more than once.
- A spiral notebook, small, for writing down what you're working on. I keep one for piano the same way I keep one for crochet. Clyde from my ward saw mine once and said it looked like a crime scene diagram. Fair.
Nice to have
- A real piano bench with storage underneath, for keeping music organized.
- A stand-alone metronome if you don't like using your phone during practice, some people find the phone too tempting to check.
- Over-ear headphones if you're practicing at 5:30 in the morning and don't want to wake the house. I do this most days.
What I'd skip
Beginner "method kits" with flashcards, stickers, and a keyboard bundled together. You're paying extra for stuff we'll cover better in class. Also skip anything advertised as teaching you to play in "10 easy lessons." If it were that easy this class wouldn't need to exist.
Shopping notes
Check local classifieds and secondhand groups before buying new, there's a steady supply of keyboards up around Draper and through the valley from families whose kids quit lessons. Test it in person if you can. Costco sometimes carries beginner keyboards seasonally, but check the key action before buying, some of the cheaper ones are the springy kind I mentioned.
Bring whatever you've got to week one, even if it's borrowed or a little beat up. We'll figure out the rest from there.
HandoutPiano Fundamentals: Cheat Sheet
Piano Fundamentals: Cheat Sheet
Print this, keep it by the keyboard, and ignore whatever part you don't need yet. Here's the stuff people ask me to repeat most.
Middle C, for real this time
Middle C is roughly in the center of the keyboard, just left of the two black keys grouped together (the ones flanked by a group of three black keys further down). If you've got 88 keys, it's the fourth C from the left. Don't count from the end of your keyboard unless you know for a fact you have all 88 keys. I learned this one the hard way on a piano missing a key at the bottom. Took me longer to unlearn than it did to learn wrong the first time.
Note names, quick and dirty
White keys: A through G, repeating. Black keys are sharps and flats, named off the white key next to them. A sharp raises the note a half step, a flat lowers it. Same key can have two names depending on which direction you're coming from. That's normal, not a trick.
Counting, the part everyone skips
- Quarter note = 1 beat
- Half note = 2 beats
- Whole note = 4 beats
- Dotted note = add half the value of the note to itself (a dotted quarter is 1.5 beats)
Count out loud while you play, at least at first. Feels dumb. Works. Josephine corrected my dotted-quarter counting once and made me feel it, which is fair, she plays clarinet and actually reads rhythm for a living.
Fingering numbers
Thumb is 1, pinky is 5, same on both hands. If the sheet music has small numbers over the notes, that's your fingering. Follow it even when your own instinct says otherwise, especially on a new piece. I pencil in fingering over any measure that trips me up, same notebook system I use for crochet hook sizes. Clyde said mine looks like a crime scene diagram. He's not wrong.
Metronome settings
Start slower than feels necessary. If a piece is marked at 120 beats per minute, start at 70 or 80 and only move up once both hands are even at that speed. Slower and even beats faster and lopsided every time, no exceptions, and yes I hated this rule too when I started.
Hand position
Curved fingers, relaxed wrist, don't let your hand collapse flat. But — get the right notes first. Fix your hand shape once your brain isn't on fire trying to find the keys. A pretty hand playing wrong notes helps nobody.
Pedal, the one rule I'll give you
Down when you play the note, up before you play the next one that would clash with it. That's it, that's the whole basic rule. Past that I'm honestly not your person. I taught myself off a video that never mentioned lifting the pedal, and I played one long smeared chord for a month before I noticed. Find a real teacher once you're past the basics.
Practice schedule
Fifteen honest minutes a day beats an hour you keep putting off. Same day, same time if you can manage it, mine is 5:30 a.m. before anyone's awake. Consistency does more than duration.
Keyboard shopping
Full-size, weighted keys, used is fine. Skip the tiny springy toy keyboards, they teach your fingers a lie about how much pressure a real piano takes. I'll help you check listings if you want a second opinion, I genuinely like doing it.
When you're stuck
Follow it twice. Once slow, just to see what the measure is asking. Second time, actually play it. Show yourself the fingering before your fingers memorize the wrong one, because once they learn it wrong, unlearning takes twice as long. Ask me how I know.
Worksheet```markdown
```markdown # Piano Fundamentals — Handout 3 ## Practice Log & Self-Check
Fill this in as you go, not after the fact. Fifteen honest minutes a day beats an hour you keep putting off. This is a preference, take it or leave it, but I've watched it work on a lot of people including me.
---
Week ___ Practice Log
Day Minutes What I worked on Metronome? (y/n) Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun If you missed a day, don't backfill it. Just start again. Nobody's checking this but you.
---
Before You Play — Fingering Check
Before you play a new measure, write the fingering numbers above the notes in pencil, and say them out loud once before your hands touch the keys. Catch the mistake before your fingers memorize it, because once it's in your fingers it's much harder to get out.
Hardest measure this week: ______________________
Fingering written in? ☐ yes ☐ not yet
---
Metronome Check-In
Circle honestly.
- I used the metronome this week: every day / most days / barely / not at all
- When I slow the tempo down, my hands stay even: yes / mostly / no
- I hate the metronome: yes / less than last week / it's fine now
(All of these are normal answers. I hated it too, for about a month.)
---
Self-Check — Read Before You Judge Yourself
Go through this list slow. Check what's true right now. Nothing here is pass/fail.
- ☐ I can find middle C without counting up from the bottom of the keyboard - ☐ I know which note names the lines and spaces stand for, treble clef - ☐ I know which note names the lines and spaces stand for, bass clef - ☐ I can clap or tap a dotted quarter note correctly (ask someone who plays an instrument to check you — my daughter caught mine once and she was right) - ☐ I can name the key signature of the piece I'm working on - ☐ My hand shape is something I've thought about at all yet
That last one — don't worry about it yet if you haven't. Get the notes right first. A stiff, correct-looking hand playing wrong notes helps nobody. We'll fix hand shape later, once your brain isn't on fire just reading the page.
---
One Honest Sentence
Write one true sentence about your week at the keyboard. Not a good sentence. A true one.
_______________________________________________________________
---
For Next Lesson, Bring:
- This handout, filled in - Your piece, with fingering penciled in over the hard measure - Any question you were embarrassed to ask out loud. Write it here instead and hand it to me if you want:
_______________________________________________________________
I'd rather you show up with an honest mess than a clean page you didn't actually work from. Check your work. See you next week.
— Meagan ```
HandoutHandout 4: Troubleshooting Guide
Handout 4: Troubleshooting Guide
Every one of these problems is normal. I've had most of them myself, so this list is really just me writing down my own mistakes and putting your name on them. Find the one that matches what's going wrong, try the fix, follow it twice before you decide it didn't work.
1. "I can't find middle C without looking every time." Normal for the first month. Don't stare at your hands, stare at the two black keys grouped together near the middle of the keyboard. Middle C sits just to the left of them. Check the sticker on the key if you've got one. If you don't have one, put one there. I learned a whole keyboard wrong once because my grandmother's piano was missing a key at the bottom and everything shifted over one. Took me longer to unlearn it than it took to learn it right the first time. Check your landmarks, not just your memory.
2. "My hands don't want to do different things at the same time." They're not supposed to yet. Practice each hand alone until it's boring, then put them together at half speed. This is the single most skipped step and it's the one that actually works.
3. "I keep losing the beat, or speeding up in the easy parts." Metronome. I know. Nobody wants to hear it, including me three years ago. Slower and even beats faster and lopsided, every time, no exceptions I've found.
4. "The pedal makes everything sound smeared." You're probably holding it down through the whole piece instead of lifting it between changes. I did this for a month once, taught myself off a video that never mentioned lifting the pedal at all. My practice sounded like one long chord. Lift on the beat, don't just press and forget it.
5. "My hand cramps up or my fingers feel stiff." Usually tension, not weakness. Shake your hands out between lines. Also check your bench height, elevation and dry air don't affect this one, bad posture does.
6. "I can't tell what a dotted note is worth." Add half the value of the note again. A dotted quarter is a quarter plus an eighth. My daughter Josephine corrected me on this once, correctly, and I still made her show her work before I'd admit it. Fair trade for all the grammar corrections I hand her.
7. "I keep playing the wrong finger and it's become a habit." Stop and check the fingering before you play the measure again, not after. Once your fingers memorize a wrong pattern, unlearning it costs you double. Show me the fingering, out loud if you have to, before your hands go.
8. "Sight-reading feels impossible, I freeze at anything unfamiliar." I still can't sight-read past two sharps without stopping to spell out the scale in my head, out loud, like a kid. I've decided that's fine. Accurate beats smooth. Slow down until you can name every note, speed comes later on its own.
9. "My hand shape looks wrong, curved fingers, all that." Get the notes right first. Fix the hand shape once your brain isn't on fire trying to find the keys. This is a preference, take it or leave it, but a stiff correct hand playing wrong notes helps nobody.
10. "I skipped a few days and feel like I lost everything." You didn't lose it, you just went quiet on it. Fifteen honest minutes tomorrow morning beats an hour you keep promising yourself and never doing. Start again at the last place that held together, not from the beginning.
If your problem isn't on this list, bring it in and we'll look at it together. Past pedaling and basic theory I'll tell you honestly when you've hit the edge of what I know. That's a real gap, not a small one, and I'd rather say so than guess.
podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 1
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —okay wait, say that part again, about the missing key, because I don't think I've heard this one.
MEAGAN: which part.
JESS: the grandmother's piano.
MEAGAN: oh. right. so I didn't take lessons as a kid, I've said this before, I'll probably say it every episode. but there was a piano at my grandmother's house and I'd pick out melodies on it, one finger, the way most people do. and I just assumed that was the ceiling. like, that's what I get to have.
JESS: which, for anyone just joining us, is not true. that is the whole premise of this class.
MEAGAN: right. but here's the thing behind that thing. years later I finally sit down to actually learn, at home, on a different piano, and I spend two full weeks convinced middle C is one specific key. like a landmark. I find it, I play from it, I feel very good about myself.
JESS: and?
MEAGAN: and it turns out my grandmother's piano was missing a key at the very bottom. so the whole keyboard was shifted over for me, my whole life, and I'd learned it wrong without knowing there was a wrong to learn.
JESS: no.
MEAGAN: had to unlearn the entire keyboard. and unlearning took longer than learning it would have the first time. which is a pattern, by the way. we'll see it again this class.
JESS: okay, that's a great cold open, I'm glad we led with it instead of, like, "welcome to episode one."
MEAGAN: welcome to episode one.
JESS: there it is. so, for people listening who haven't signed up yet and are just trying to figure out if this is for them. who is this class for.
MEAGAN: adults who missed it. that's it, that's the whole audience. maybe you had a piano in the house and a sibling got lessons and you didn't. maybe you quit at nine and you've regretted it for thirty years. I hear some version of that story constantly.
JESS: and adults feel weird about it. starting something that feels like a kid thing.
MEAGAN: they do, and I want to say this early because it settles people down. adults learn faster than kids. everyone lies about this, they act like kids are little sponges and adults are stiff and it's the opposite. kids have time and no shame. adults have neither of those things, but you can read, you can follow a system, and you actually understand why the notation says what it says. that's worth more than hours at the keys.
JESS: give me a practical thing right now. something somebody driving to Costco can use today, doesn't have to take the class.
MEAGAN: okay. metronome. get one, there's free ones on your phone, doesn't matter. everyone hates it at first, including me, three years in I still sort of hate it. but slower and even beats faster and lopsided every single time. if you're teaching yourself anything right now off youtube, slow it down until you can play it evenly, then speed up. resist the urge to just muscle through at tempo. that's the tip. free, works today.
JESS: I like that it's not "buy this thing."
MEAGAN: no, that one's free. the buying one is for later. cheapest used full-size weighted keyboard you can find, not a toy one with the springy keys, they teach your fingers a lie. but that's a whole other conversation.
JESS: which we will have.
MEAGAN: which we will have.
JESS: okay, so who's actually in the room this session. can you tell me anything about the group without, you know—
MEAGAN: without embarrassing anybody, sure. it's what I expected. couple people in their forties and fifties who had a piano growing up and never touched lessons. one guy who says he wants to learn one hymn for a specific reason he wouldn't tell me, which I respect. nobody's a kid. that's the room.
JESS: and what actually happens in the first real class, next week.
MEAGAN: we find middle C the correct way, unlike me. we talk about the staff, just enough of it, not a whole theory lecture. and everybody puts their hands on a keyboard and I watch what their hands do before I say anything.
JESS: you're a watcher, not a talker, in the room.
MEAGAN: I'd rather you struggle for two minutes at the keys than have me jump in and rescue you. that's where it actually sticks. I remember struggling being the part that worked, for me.
JESS: alright. so next session, middle C, the staff, hands on keys. anything people should bring.
MEAGAN: nothing. don't buy anything yet. bring your hands, that's the whole list.
JESS: I love that as a supply list. okay, that's episode one.
MEAGAN: that's episode one.
podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 2
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —okay but did they actually learn it in ten minutes?
MEAGAN: ten minutes. flat. no handout involved.
JESS: and you'd made the handout.
MEAGAN: i'd made a beautiful handout. note names, the key signature, why it's got one sharp instead of none. hayden asked for one hymn line for the young men, fifteen minutes tops, and i showed up with a packet.
JESS: this is Meagan Dean, everybody, back for episode two of piano fundamentals. she over-prepares. it's in the file.
MEAGAN: it's a real problem. they learned the line by watching my hands and copying it, never looked at the paper once. i kept the handout though. still got it in a folder somewhere.
JESS: why keep it if nobody read it.
MEAGAN: because somebody might, someday. one kid out of that whole group. that's who it's for. you write the thing behind the thing even if most people skip it, because the one person who wants it really wants it.
JESS: okay, that's basically the whole class philosophy in one sentence.
MEAGAN: pretty much.
JESS: so last episode we talked about starting late, adults versus kids, all that. today i want a tip. something a listener could try tonight, no keyboard class required.
MEAGAN: at their own piano.
JESS: or the one at grandma's house.
MEAGAN: sure, as long as it's got all the keys. that's my tip, actually, or half of it.
JESS: go on.
MEAGAN: find middle c the right way, don't assume. i spent my first two weeks convinced middle c was one specific key on my grandmother's piano. turned out that piano was missing a key at the bottom, so the whole thing was shifted over. i learned every note wrong for two weeks straight.
JESS: how do you even find that out.
MEAGAN: my teacher at the time sat down to check my hand position and just stopped. stared at the keyboard a second. said "this piano's missing a key." and i had to unlearn the whole thing, which took longer than learning it right the first time would have.
JESS: so how do people actually find it, the real way.
MEAGAN: look for the group of two black keys, not three. middle c sits just to the left of that pair, roughly in the middle of the keyboard. count the black keys in twos and threes across the whole board and you'll never lose it again, no matter whose piano you're on.
JESS: that's it. that's the tip.
MEAGAN: that's the tip. costs nothing, takes thirty seconds, and it'll save you two weeks of unlearning something. check your work before you build on it. that's true of the keyboard and it's true of about everything else i do, honestly.
JESS: crochet too?
MEAGAN: crochet especially. count your stitches before you're six rows past the mistake.
JESS: alright. last thing, quick plug. next session.
MEAGAN: next session's hand position and the metronome. i'll say now, everybody hates the metronome at first, including me three years ago. dang thing just sits there being right about your timing. nobody wants that.
JESS: nobody wants a machine that's right about them.
MEAGAN: nobody does. but slower and even beats faster and lopsided, every time, no exceptions i've found. we're also finally getting hands on actual keyboards next week instead of just talking about them, so bring whatever questions came up while you were poking at your own piano this week.
JESS: including "where is middle c."
MEAGAN: especially that one. no wrong questions in this room. slow ones either.
JESS: that's episode two. see you at the next session.
Videos worth your time
Hand-picked by your instructor, with notes on what to watch for.
- How to play piano: The basics, Piano Lesson #1Andrew Furmanczyk
This is lesson one on piano basics, so watch how the instructor introduces posture, hand position, and finding notes on the keyboard before playing anything.
- How To Play Piano for Beginners, Lesson 1 || The Piano KeyboardBill Hilton
This lesson focuses on learning the piano keyboard layout, so pay attention to how white and black key groups are identified and named.
- How to Play Piano: Day 1 - EASY First Lesson for BeginnersBecome a Piano Superhuman
This is day one of a beginner series with a companion cheat sheet, so follow along slowly and pause to practice each new hand position before moving on.
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