Thinking about lessons

I have been messing around with keyboards for 40+years, starting out on mono synths but I have never has a lesson and while I can fumble my way around, know chords and scales and generally "put things together" using MIDI I would like to play a whole lot better, particularly piano and organ parts.
 
So I am thinking about finally taking some lessons now I have retired and I am no longer hopping around the world for work. BUT, will my lifetime of self taught bad habits make this futile? Would I be better off learning a completly new instrument like the guitar?

It's never too late to take lessons.  However, with 40+ years of self taught playing, you have some deeply ingrained habits and techniques.  You need to find a teacher who will be able to accurately assess your current skill level and be able to develop a method for you to use that as a basis for moving forward.
 
A good teacher who is able to do that can really be an asset to your playing. One who insists that you go to square one and start from scratch may not be all that useful.
 
Having said that.... you didn't state your current music reading level if any, and if that even matters. Most teachers I have been familiar with insist on reading the music. And they teach from that perspective. Obviously, you've been playing like I play.... from hearing the music and playing it by ear.  I took 7 years of piano lessons and was fortunate to have had a teacher who not only taught the reading of the music, but theory as well as allowing for and acceptance of playing by ear.

The other option is to simply continue to play the keyboard more often and work on learning new piano parts in songs you like.  The more you play, the better you will become.   I don't know what your playing/practice schedule looks like, but are you currently spending an hour a day playing and practicing scales and other finger exercises and learning new, more difficult pieces?  If not... there's your answer.  All the teacher is going to do, essentially, is to make you practice more.  If you want to read, you can pick up a computer program that can help with that..... but it comes down to the amount of time you are willing to put in at the keyboard simply playing.

My 7 years of piano lessons came to a very abrupt halt when I went to my teacher's house for my weekly lesson. She opened the music book to the song she had assigned and asked me to play it. I launched into it and when I finished she said.... "That was nice. Now... would you mind playing what's actually written on the page?"   I fumbled through the piece. She asked me how much time I had spent practicing the piano that past week. I said maybe 30 minutes total.... I fudged, since it was less than that.  Then she asked how much time I spent playing the guitar....  I said an hour a day and I fudged that one on the short side..... I spent several hours a day playing along with the radio and my 45-rpm records. She told me to go home and practice the guitar and stop wasting my mom's money and her time.  Mom was mad for a while.  So I continued on as a self taught musician. 
 
What do you think you would gain by having a teacher?  Or, would you be satisfied to simply play better and could you accomplish that with more one on one time at the keyboard on your own?

You already know keyboards; why don't you try something completely different, like the saxophone?
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Sax-Maniacs-m3460053.aspx
 

Thanks, the various comments echo my conflicting thoughts. It may very well be down to finding the right tutor. I think I might look for someone and initially just have a chat and get their opinion. But I really do need to define my objective first!

Glyn Barnes
Thanks, the various comments echo my conflicting thoughts. It may very well be down to finding the right tutor. I think I might look for someone and initially just have a chat and get their opinion. But I really do need to define my objective first!

 
The one great thing about taking lessons as an adult is you can find the teacher that's best for you as opposed to being stuck with the teacher your mom and dad or..finds for you.  I got turned off to jazz by a scoundrel of a jazz teacher who smoked about a pack of pall malls through each of my 45 minute lessons.  He was a grouch and was disappointed in his own career prospects...taking it out on his students.  
 
I know alot of older men and womyn who enjoy classical guitar lessons as adults.  The repertoire is unmatched (except of course with piano).  It's very exciting music.  It's basically meant for adults as well...I mean that's the audience the works were written for in the first place!  It's very challenging and will require alot of practice time.  If you're in a major city I can  steer you in the right direction.

Glyn Barnes
Thanks, the various comments echo my conflicting thoughts. It may very well be down to finding the right tutor. I think I might look for someone and initially just have a chat and get their opinion. But I really do need to define my objective first!

 
Hi 
 
I have a master degree in music Education -  I teach Piano, Guitar, any woodwinds or Brass instruments and Drums - Been using cakewalk and a member of this forum since 2005 -- we can do lessons on skype with just about any instrument you want --
 
With you being a fellow cakewalk user -  I am willing to give a couple lessons free  and maybe you can try out something until you find an instrument you really want to learn -- I am in Chicago so unless your around town we'd probably have to skpy these lessons which is no problem -- I have done many lessons via skpy 
 
 
Here is my Web site and contact information http://zionmusiclessons.com/
 
 
Whatever you decide to do good luck -- Music a of course my favorite art form! 
 
 
Paul 

Glyn Barnes

Mooch4056
With you being a fellow cakewalk user -  I am willing to give a couple lessons free  and maybe you can try out something until you find an instrument you really want to learn -- I am in Chicago so unless your around town we'd probably have to skpy these lessons which is no problem -- I have done many lessons via skpy 
 

Well, Thanks! I will certainly consider that. I am in the UK so time difference may be an issue but not an insurmountable one for sure.
 
(I will have to learn to use Skype first )

 
Awesome! Let me know what you decide. If you have a camera on your computer Skype is pretty simple to use. If it's not all ready on your computer  the software for Skype is here >>https://www.skype.com/en/...pe/skype-for-computer/

craigb
Was Bapu your Master's thesis Paul? 

 
I only Learned from the Bestest! 

Glyn Barnes

Mooch4056
With you being a fellow cakewalk user -  I am willing to give a couple lessons free  and maybe you can try out something until you find an instrument you really want to learn -- I am in Chicago so unless your around town we'd probably have to skpy these lessons which is no problem -- I have done many lessons via skpy 
 

Well, Thanks! I will certainly consider that. I am in the UK so time difference may be an issue but not an insurmountable one for sure.
 
(I will have to learn to use Skype first )

 
 
Glynn there's many fabulous players in London of course.  My teacher at one point was a Lutenist for the Royal Shakespeare Company.  The spanish guitar centre located in the royal opera house is the place to get connected.  

eph221
Glynn there's many fabulous players in London of course.  My teacher at one point was a Lutenist for the Royal Shakespeare Company.  The spanish guitar centre located in the royal opera house is the place to get connected.  

Yeah, but I am out in the boondocks! There are quite a few people around however, its a nice part of the country that tends to attract arty types of all sorts.  

Don't bother thinking about lessons.  I've been thinking about lessons for decades and it hasn't helped a bit 
 
OK, seriously.  My primary is guitar but I've become interested more and more in getting better with keys.  Are piano lessons the foundation for all things keys/synths?

craigb

BobF
Don't bother thinking about lessons.  I've been thinking about lessons for decades and it hasn't helped a bit 
 
OK, seriously.  My primary is guitar but I've become interested more and more in getting better with keys.  Are piano lessons the foundation for all things keys/synths?

No Bob.  That would be tuba lessons.
 
(I keed!  I keed!   )

You funny guy, Joe. 
 
I ask this because of the obvious differences I hear in approach to pure piano pieces and synths/keys that I hear as part of a rock ensemble, for example.
 
My question is really about style, I guess.  Will playing Floyd Cramer or church tunes on piano help me play better synth parts for my own rock creations?  I can see where basic fingering exercises to develop muscle memory would be a huge help.  But style is a completely different aspect.
 
When I was a kid playing power chords on my guitar, my brother was taking piano lessons.  He was pretty good, but his repertoire was entirely gospel.  Something neither of us had any real interest in playing.

BobF

craigb

BobF
Don't bother thinking about lessons.  I've been thinking about lessons for decades and it hasn't helped a bit 
 
OK, seriously.  My primary is guitar but I've become interested more and more in getting better with keys.  Are piano lessons the foundation for all things keys/synths?

No Bob.  That would be tuba lessons.
 
(I keed!  I keed!   )

You funny guy, Joe. 
 
I ask this because of the obvious differences I hear in approach to pure piano pieces and synths/keys that I hear as part of a rock ensemble, for example.
 
My question is really about style, I guess.  Will playing Floyd Cramer or church tunes on piano help me play better synth parts for my own rock creations?  I can see where basic fingering exercises to develop muscle memory would be a huge help.  But style is a completely different aspect.
 
When I was a kid playing power chords on my guitar, my brother was taking piano lessons.  He was pretty good, but his repertoire was entirely gospel.  Something neither of us had any real interest in playing.

Ok, the real answer has two parts.  
 
The first one is this: Find the right teacher.  DON'T get an 80-year old lady as your teacher (which should remove the gospel parts).  Find someone who can teach you all the fundamentals of playing keyboards.  I know that, when I get this chance, I would like a little bit of Classical knowledge as well as some organ exposure - wait, that didn't sound right!   What I mean is that my goal will be to play MY own music, but I'd like to know the correct way to play a piano.  I'd also like some exposure to how Classical music is put together and played (so I can incorporate aspects I like) as well as the basic fundamentals of how an organ is played (which builds on the piano parts and adds "boards or ranks," "drawbars" and "pedals" for example - proper organ playing can really sound good even in non-traditional songs).
 
The second part is: You will also want to learn how to create and synthesize sounds (analog and/or digital).  This includes wave types (sine, saw, etc.), ADSR envelopes (attack, decay, sustain, release), portamento, latching, arpeggiation, wheel usage (volume & modulation), filters (resonance, cutoff), oscillators (like LFO's which are Low frequency oscillators), identifying common sounds & patches (pads, drones, strings, brass, vocoders, etc.), keyboard mapping (splitting, octave shifting, sampling, key transposing) and MIDI.
 
Because combining all of this is important to me, I would not buy a piano but would go for two items (which may be in one device, but I would prefer being separate).  One is a decent, weighted keyboard (probably 60-key, the up & down octave buttons will help cover the rest and I wouldn't have to be limited or abusing those buttons as you do on shorter keyboards). This keyboard doesn't even have to be able to generate sounds, it could be what is called a "dead, MIDI keyboard." A useless device until it is attached to something that can use the MIDI notes generated.  This second device would be a proper, high-end synthesizer (preferably with its own keyboard which can be shorter, say 49 keys).  This gives me the best of both worlds.  The feel of a nice piano with the quick tone generation of a synth.  There are also MIDI-capable add-ons that can provide organ sounds, effects, bass pedals and drawbars.  Plus, when you start to want even more tones and sound-creating abilities or effects, you can get additional rack units (i.e., no attached keyboard) and control them from your MIDI-capable keyboards.

Glyn Barnes
That said when confroned with controls with abstract names like "drama" as on found on some modern VSTi's I do scratch my head. 

 
There's a control called "Drama?"  I used to have a patch on my Korg N5 called "Film Drama" that was pretty cool, but I've never heard of a control called "Drama!"  What does it do?  Cause your synth to have random issues and malfunctions at socially inappropriate times?