Piano Lessons In Tulsa | Life Lessons
This content was created for Curtis Music Academy
All right. And this edition of the Curtis music Academy podcast, we’re going to be discussing life lessons from learning an instrument, especially in piano lessons in Tulsa. These are definitely going to be just things that I’ve learned from the course of my life in being a musician and also being an instructor. I have been a musician for 12 a year or 11 years now, and I’ve loved every single year playing music I’ve gotten to play from for gigs. I’ve gotten to do concerts, I’ve gotten to do American idol. I’ve gotten to do a, a vast array of different contexts that have produced and developed different skills, different parts of my musicianship and ability.
And I know that I’ve got plenty to offer you. And then also, I’ve also been a, not only a musician, but have also been an instructor for going on, six years now. And I’ve loved every single minute of it. I started teaching when I was 18 and have been able to teach, you know, ages as young as five years old and then as old as 65 years old. And so much, much experience when it comes to music, musicianship and performances as even as well. But, definitely, instructing as well. Not as many years as a lot of people, you know, older than me, but I think for my age, six years of teaching, this is pretty good.
So, life lessons from learning an instrument, my first lesson for you will be learning at the pace of no mistakes in piano lessons in Tulsa. It’s important that we learn at a comfortable pace that will not discourage us from learning anything further. For instance, in my ex, in my experience when I was younger and suffering, starting to learn guitar, I was quick to learn a song and I could only play maybe like half the song. So I would get partially good at the song instead of completely good and can play the song incompletion and sound fantastic. This was a big mistake. This was, it hindered me. It hindered my ability to perform fully and to feel as proud of myself as I could have.
However, you know, later in life I learned, you know, learning at the pace of no mistakes ensures that I actually do a good job. I practice with quality and that I sound amazing. At the end of the day. At the end of the day, the goal will be reached and that is the goal is to, to reach the goal. And so learning at the pace of no mistakes is going to be important. One way we can learn at the pace of no mistakes is to, grab a metronome. A metronome is an old instrument. Used to keep perfect time. You can set a new inch metronomes, to whatever beat per minute. You choose anywhere from 20 beats per minute to 240 beats per minute, and maybe even higher than that. But I know on most apps on most devices, 20 beats per minute is going to be your lowest, which is pretty slow.
I don’t know why anyone would try to learn at that pace. That’s pretty slow. But, you know, we all learn at different paces, but try to find your number and what I mean by finding your number is turn on your metronome at 20 beats per minute and just go up in fives from there. Five notches at a time, not necessarily 20 notches at a time. That’s too drastic, but we’re going to use five notches at a time because it isn’t as drastic and it would be enough to challenge you. As you build speed. Now once you find the barrier so to speak, the barrier line is going to be, or the breaking point, the glass roof is when you start to stumble. If you’re going to this at a speed at where you are stumped, beginning to stumble over a few notes here and there, then I would take it down five notches and that should be a perfect beat per minute for you. And from there, perfect.
That pace, once you have perfected that pace, once you can run, say a G major scale from 40 beats per minute, then move on to 45 beats per minute. And if 45 beats per minute, you’re playing the stream, major scale all the way down, all the way up with no issues whatsoever. Go onto 50 beats per minute. And in fact, 50 beats per minute, you are struggling just a tad. You know, you missed one note out of the whole thing. Stay there until you can completely play the entire scale forwards and backwards without any mistakes. And then continue that sequence until you get as fast as you want to get.
It’s really awesome. And so the first point was learning at the pace of no mistakes. My second point has all to do with trusting your ability, trusting your practice and confidence has to do with confidence. You, my second point is you are better than you think in piano lessons in Tulsa. I want you to know as a musician, especially as a beginner or no, not a beginner, but especially as an intermediate guitar player or even an advanced guitar player, you are better than you think in piano lessons in Tulsa. Trust your ability, but don’t trust your weaknesses. Work on your weaknesses and smooth out those rough areas. You want to think of. You not think of yourself more highly than you ought to. You want to think of yourself with rather sober judgment and, prove yourself though to be good at what you say.
Say, you know, if you’re, if you think you’re terrible at the G major scale, go ahead and implement the metronome to play the G major scale at a, say 40 beats per minute. And if you can nail it at 40 beats per minute, go ahead and build the speed. And this is not only a building your speed and your competence, but it will also build your confidence. And that is the byproduct of competence, right? Is confidence. If you can have great competence in something, anything, you could be riding a bike, it could be, you know, driving a car.
It could be playing the guitar, you know, it could be, recording a song, you know, it could be playing the drums. If you have competence in an area, you are 90% more confident, right? Why? Because you know, you can do it while in piano lessons in Tulsa. You know that you’re good, you know that you are competent, you know that you are skilled. And so whatever your skill that you have more confidence in that area in piano lessons in Tulsa. So skill up guys, it’s time to skill up. My third point is to never give up.
Many of us give up on ourselves way too early. And what we must do is to can you continue to encourage ourselves with positive words, with positive thinking. It all starts with your thinking. Positive thinking will lead to positive beliefs. Positive beliefs will lead to positive action. Positive action will lead to positive habits. Positive habits will lead to accomplishing goals. And that is exactly what we want to do. We want to never give up on ourselves because if we give up on ourselves, then we’ve lost you lose. Don’t quit on yourself in piano lessons in Tulsa. Continue to fail and get back up whenever you fail due to more repetitions. Whenever you miss a note, play through the scale two more times as best as you can with no mistakes at the pace of no mistakes.
So you know, whenever you play a song and you, you incorrectly played a chord, play the song two more times or you know, play that progression two more times correctly. And all the way through, the best way you can so that you feel more so that you skill up. The whole point of this is to, is repetition, right? Using repetition to your advantage. Repetition will help you become more skilled. Repetition will become help you become more competent and will inadvertently make you more confident. And so those are my life lessons from learning the piano in piano lessons in Tulsa, learning at the pace of no mistakes, never giving up, and that you are better than you think.