Best Way to Learn Piano: 12 Excellent Free Websites to Teach Yourself Piano

PianoLessons is a free library of online piano lessons provided by the instructors at Pianote. The site has a wide variety of lessons and a library of YouTube videos which can help with your piano learning. Pianote is a paid online piano tutoring course, but at Pianolessons, you can access some of their tutorial videos for free.

The videos are well organised and grouped into different techniques and aspects of piano playing, including getting started on the piano; learning piano theory; piano scales and modes; improving your counting; learning popular songs; and developing your improvisational skills.

PianoNanny is a really comprehensive tutorial website for learning a basic-to-good level of piano and keyboard playing. It covers everything from labelling the keys on the keyboard, to improvisation and jazz scales.

The tutorials give you visual and audio examples of what you are learning about and the instructions are clear, precise and easy to understand. The website offers 13 beginner tutorials, 10 intermediate and 9 advanced lessons meaning that there is something for everyone to work on.

Musictheory is another very comprehensive resource which can be of great help for those who are wanting to learn the piano or keyboard, but particularly focussing on theory.

There is a full list of online lessons that are available to you, as well as loads of tools and training exercises – such as interval training, chord recognition, scale construction and notational exercises.

There are also useful tools available to you, such as interval, chord and scale calculators, a tempo tapper (to give you beat speeds) and a pop-up keyboard.
Musictheory is a free online resource, but you can also pay a small amount of money to download the apps for more convenience.

This is one of the best free piano tutorial websites available. It was designed by professionals and gives a thorough overview of the basics of playing the piano – as well as some vital music theory.

The lessons are divided into small chunks, which are easy to understand and build on, and the interactive piano allows students to hear what they are learning.

Lessons are grouped into skill level, and there are individual lessons which can help students to concentrate on certain aspects – so there are lessons for everyone – from beginners to advanced. There is also a very useful `music tools` section, which gives you the chance to practice certain aspects of your learning – from identifying written notes, to interval, chord and scale training.

There is also a library of sheet music, a good list of resources and references, all for free.

Piano Lessons on the Web is an online course (paid) which is backed up by a series of tutorials on YouTube – for free. The teacher is Tim Wurm – an experienced piano teacher – and his lessons cover a range of subjects – such as reading music, playing rhythms, music theory and beginners lessons. Subjects are categorised into groups to make them easier to find.

The Andrew Furmanczyk Acadamy of Music is a YouTube channel which has a set of online video lessons in learning to play the piano, and another free course in music theory. The music theory course takes you through 50 lessons – from the very beginning to giving you a thorough knowledge. The 40 piano tutorials that are available will take you from a complete beginner to intermediate/early advanced level.

There are also a number of videos of Andrew Furmanczyk playing, which are great for seeing his technique at work, as well as being a great inspiration.

Piano Video Lessons offers courses of piano lessons on YouTube which can be used by people who are wanting to learn on their own, or to supplement other lessons which are being taken. Courses include lessons from pre-beginner, beginner, piano chording lessons (for those who are more interested in playing pop music and keyboard), a note reading course, and a course teaching how to play pop music without reading music.

There is bonus material which can be accessed by registering on the website and also by paying extra, but for basic lessons, you can access them for free via YouTube.

Duane Shinn`s musical tutorials won`t teach you how to play in a classical style which will prepare you to be able to play anything you like on the piano. If, however, you want to play for your own pleasure, music that sounds good, he has a lot of useful videos for you.

The `Beginners` section teaches people who already play a bit, about chords and chord progressions, the `Intermediate` section focuses on technique and helping with music theory for those who can already play the piano or keyboard pretty well, the music theory course offers six lessons about different aspects of music theory, and there is an advanced and semi-advanced amateur course – for amateurs who already play well, but want to improve on techniques and styles, as well as improvisations and progressions.

Amosdoll Music offers a set of YouTube lessons which can help you to learn to play the piano or keyboard by ear, and without the need for sheet music. They give you piano tutorials for specific songs and base the teaching on playing the piano by ear, improvisation and understanding common musical tools – like typical forms of songs.

Concert pianist, Robert Estrin creates tutorial videos for Living Pianos – a piano store. Although his videos aren`t a comprehensive course, he offers a number of useful videos about aspects of playing the piano and technique that people commonly struggle with – for example, playing trills, how to practise productively, and how to play one hand louder than the other.

Robert Estrin also has a number of other videos which talk about a range of general piano issues – such as how to buy a piano, when to tune it and what age to start piano lessons – through to how to choose a repertoire and a history of concert halls.

Plern Piano is a great resource for those who want to learn about the relationship between notes on the keyboard, as well as how they correspond to written notation. It gives you the tools to compose (and notate) a piano piece that you have written yourself, as well as import MIDI files to help you learn to play a song. You can not only see the notation, but the program also shows you where the notes sit on a keyboard.

This website won`t give you a course of lessons to learn to play the piano or keyboard but it will help you with skills in visually identifying notes and notation with sounds, as well as learning to play specific pieces.

Piano Scales is a website which will show you a wide range of musical scales, help with learning them and also how to use them. They range from a `simple` C major scale, through to jazz scales and modes. You get a visual image of a keyboard showing which keys would be used as well as written fingerings.

If you are learning the piano or keyboard, or thinking about starting, there is a wealth of information available to you online. While these cannot be a substitute to having a teacher sat next to you (or even on Skype) who can help you with your individual difficulties, inspire and motivate you, and move the course as quickly or slowly as you need, online resources can certainly supplement what you are learning in your lessons.

As all pianists know, practice makes perfect, so the more you can practice, the better. These resources offer an excellent way to diversify and make practice more exciting.