How to Start Learning Piano as an Adult: Part 1

A Clear, Structured Path for Adult Beginners

Learning the piano as an adult can feel overwhelming. With so much information online, it’s easy to jump randomly between videos, apps, and pieces without a clear sense of progress. This guide lays out a structured, step‑by‑step path designed specifically for adult beginners—so you always know what to work on and why you’re working on it.

Step 0: Goal Setting and Managing Expectations

Before touching the piano, it’s important to clarify what success actually means for a beginner.

The goal of any beginning piano learner is not mastery.

The real goal is independence.

By the end of your first year, a successful adult piano learner should be able to:

• Read simple music comfortably

• Practice without confusion

• Improve without constant supervision

  
  

As you read through the steps below, keep this goal in mind. Each step is designed to move you closer to independent learning—not just playing a few songs.

Step 1: Instrument Orientation & Locating Notes on the Piano

Begin by learning to identify all the white keys on the piano.

To do this, you only need four key ideas:

• The keyboard is built on a repeating pattern of black keys: groups of two and three.

  
  

  

  
  

• The note 'C' is always to the left of two black keys.

  
  

  

  
  

• White keys are named using the musical alphabet, and each subsequent piano key to the right is named after the next letter of the alphabet (but only up to the alphabet 'G').

  
  

  

• After G, the alphabet loops back to A—there is no “H”.

  
  

  

  
  

Once you understand these patterns, you can locate any white key note on the piano with confidence.

Step 2: Finger Numbering

In piano playing, which finger you use matters, and the fingers are numbered as follows:

Thumb = 1

Index = 2

Middle = 3

Ring = 4

Little finger = 5

Knowing how to number your fingers, you will want to be able to follow instructions such as:

“Play an A with finger 2 of your right hand”

or

“Play an F with finger 5 of your left hand”

This ability to find a specific note on the keyboard and play it with a specified finger forms the foundation for reading music and following written fingerings later on.

Step 4: Learning to Read Basic Music Notation

Learning to read music notation takes time, but it places you in a much stronger position for long‑term learning. It opens up multiple pathways for progress, allowing learning to be built systematically rather than relying solely on imitation, while also encouraging greater awareness during practice.

Music notation deserves its own in‑depth explanation, and we have dedicated blog articles for it here

• How To Read Piano Sheet and Notes Like A Pro: Part 1

• How To Read Piano Sheet and Notes Like A Pro: Part 2

• How To Read Piano Sheet and Notes Like A Pro: Part 3

For now, here is a note‑reading reference chart showing common beginner notes.

Here’s that same reference chart with the corresponding notes shown on the keyboard.

While using a note‑reading reference chart like this is not exactly the best way to learn to read notes, you should still be able to work out simple melodies from it. For example, here’s the first line of Jingle Bells written in music notation. Can you figure out the notes using the reference chart?

If done correctly, you should arrive at the following notes:

Step 5: Learning to Play in Time (Rhythm)

In Step 4, you learned how to identify and read basic notes from a music score. The next step is learning how to play those notes rhythmically and in time.

To illustrate what “playing in time” means, here is a video that first shows what not playing in time sounds like.

In the video above, all the notes of Jingle Bells are played in the correct order, yet it doesn’t sound like the song we recognise. This is because the durations and timings of the notes are incorrect. This aspect of music is what we refer to as rhythm.

Rhythm is the concept that each note has:

• a specific length, and

• a specific placement in time

  
  

Both must be respected for the music to make sense.

Many beginner piano learners are not sufficiently aware of rhythm early on. While this may not seem like a serious issue at first, it tends to accumulate quietly and become a significant obstacle very quickly.

One effective way to develop a stronger sense of rhythm is to learn to practice with a metronome. A metronome is a practice tool that produces a steady, repeating click at equal time intervals. When using a metronome, notes are played in relation to the click. For example, shorter notes may align with a single click, while longer notes are held across the duration of multiple clicks.

Here is a video demonstration showing how Jingle Bells sounds like when practiced along with a metronome click.

Part 1 Conclusion: Building the Foundations

By this point, we’ve covered the most important foundations of piano learning.

You now understand:

• How the piano keyboard is organized

• How fingers are numbered and used deliberately

• How to decode basic music notation

• Why rhythm and timing matter just as much as the notes themselves

  
  

These skills may not feel flashy, but they are what allow progress to become repeatable and sustainable. Many adult learners struggle not because they lack talent, but because these foundations were never clearly laid out in the first place.

In Part 2, we’ll move beyond what to play and when to play it, and begin addressing:

• Basic techniques for pressing and releasing the keys in piano playing

• How to choose pieces that actually support learning

• How to practice efficiently instead of just playing through mistakes

  
  

If you’re an adult learner who would prefer structured guidance rather than figuring everything out alone, Alpha Piano Studio works specifically with adult piano beginners to build these foundations clearly and systematically. Whether you’re learning online or in person, having feedback at the right moments can prevent small issues from becoming long‑term obstacles.