I have been noticing Piano by Pictures pop up on my Facebook feed quite a bit recently and they seem to have a well thought out system. Obviously someone at some point thought long and hard about the fact that there are some people who seem to struggle with learning to read music, so they have devised a way to simplify the music reading process and therefore make learning to play the piano quicker and easier.
This all sounds good in theory (pun intended) but here’s what I know: of all the hundreds and hundreds of students that I have taught the piano to, there has not been one single student that has not learned to read music. Let me repeat myself so I am crystal clear – every single piano student that I have ever taught has learned to read piano music up to the standard that they can play. As a result of this experience, I do not believe that there are people who want to learn to play the piano that are incapable of learning to read the music.
I get that some individuals think that they can’t learn to read music notation, but they come to this conclusion before they even have a try and how do you know that you can’t do something unless you actually give it a good try first? I acknowledge that dysmusia (a musical dyslexia) could exist (experts suspect that it might be a genuine condition like dyslexia and dysgraphia but have yet to conclude that it definitely exists). Of all the people that I have heard state that they can’t read music, none of them have ever actually tried to learn. I get that reading music would look like a foreign language to a lot of people and therefore could be very intimidating, but intimidating does not equal impossible.
What I understand is that some individuals may want to learn to play the piano but they really don’t want to learn to read music and while that seems limiting to me, if this is the way you really want to go in learning to play the piano, then this course might indeed be your best option.
Even though the content of Piano by Pictures might be solid (and I have not researched it enough to know whether it is any good or not) what bothers me about this system is that if you don’t learn to read real music or you don’t learn to play bey ear then you are always locked into their system and you won’t be able to get new music from any other source. Basically they are not just selling a ‘learn to play the piano’ course, they are creating loyal and exclusive customers for many years to come. If this is not a problem for you, then that’s terrific but I don’t want anyone to get tricked into being a customer for many years, simply because their marketing doesn’t explicitly explain this.
The othe issue that bothers me is their Facebook ad . The ad comes across as being very natural where a man is supposedly teaching this young woman how to play the piano, using the Piano by Pictures method. I must admit the conversation in the ad is very convincing and natural sounding as if she is a beginner. I do not think the young woman is a beginner at all because she clearly knows where to find the notes on a piano and when it comes for the man to explain what fingers to use for the chords, she just automatically plays the 3 note chord. If you have never played a chord on the piano, you need to practice playing the 3 notes at the same time because it takes a little effort to coordinate your fingers and making sure that each note is played in the same volume as the others – this is certainly not typically done when you first start playing chords.
Even though I have addressed some of my concerns about the Piano by Pictures course, I do not know enough about the course to know whether what they offer is worth the cost. If you are considering using their system, then just be aware that while I have highlighted two concerns, there may indeed be others. Just be cautious before spending money on this system.