u/Dependent_Hippo_8742

I’ve played guitar for over 30 years, mostly classical, and recently I picked up piano (i know, I know, this is a guitar forum and this post is about guitar, honestly).

One of the first things that hit me was how logical the piano feels visually. Every note has one clear home. Pitch moves left to right. Intervals are right there in front of you. Even as a beginner reading very simple piano music, I found myself thinking, “Oh, this makes sense. The instrument is basically showing me the music.”

Guitar is not like that.

Guitar is not a piano turned sideways. It is more like a pitch maze with strings.

On piano, if you want a specific note, there is one key for it. On guitar, the same note can often be played in several different places. For example, the same pitch might exist on different strings, in different positions, with different fingerings, different tones, and very different consequences for what comes next.

That is one of the first big shocks for piano players learning guitar: you are not only asking, “What note is this?” You are also asking:

“Where should I play it?”, and that question matters more than it first seems.

The same phrase can feel easy, awkward, beautiful, muddy, impossible, or suddenly genius depending on where you choose to play it on the neck. A note on an open string does not feel or sound the same as the same note fretted higher up. A melody played in first position can have a completely different color and fingering logic from the same melody played further up the fretboard.

This is why guitar sight-reading can feel weirdly difficult compared with piano. It is not only note recognition. It is route planning.

You are reading the music, choosing a position, predicting where the phrase is going, deciding whether you need open strings, avoiding finger traps, and trying not to put yourself into a corner two beats later.

Piano gives you a map.

Guitar gives you multiple maps, then asks you to choose one while the music is already moving, or more like "I'm easy, you can play this in a variety of ways, but be careful, most will lead you to dead ends, and only one can carry you safely to the next bar".

That does not make guitar better or worse than piano. Piano has its own monsters: hand independence, pedaling, voicing, huge range, and the terrifying ability to expose every bad decision in high definition.

But for piano players starting guitar, I think this is the first mental shift:

On piano, pitch is mostly linear.

On guitar, pitch is positional.

The sooner you understand that, the less personal the confusion feels. You are not stupid. The fretboard is just pretending to be simple.

I’m thinking of making this a small series: “Guitar Anatomy for Piano Players” — things that may help pianists understand what they are getting into when they start guitar.

For pianists who started guitar: what confused you most at first? The fretboard layout, chord shapes, right-hand technique, reading, or the fact that the same note keeps turning up in suspiciously many places?

I’ve played guitar for over 30 years, mostly classical, and recently I picked up piano (i know, I know, this is a guitar forum and this post is about guitar, honestly).

One of the first things that hit me was how logical the piano feels visually. Every note has one clear home. Pitch moves left to right. Intervals are right there in front of you. Even as a beginner reading very simple piano music, I found myself thinking, “Oh, this makes sense. The instrument is basically showing me the music.”

Guitar is not like that.

Guitar is not a piano turned sideways. It is more like a pitch maze with strings.

On piano, if you want a specific note, there is one key for it. On guitar, the same note can often be played in several different places. For example, the same pitch might exist on different strings, in different positions, with different fingerings, different tones, and very different consequences for what comes next.

That is one of the first big shocks for piano players learning guitar: you are not only asking, “What note is this?” You are also asking:

“Where should I play it?”, and that question matters more than it first seems.

The same phrase can feel easy, awkward, beautiful, muddy, impossible, or suddenly genius depending on where you choose to play it on the neck. A note on an open string does not feel or sound the same as the same note fretted higher up. A melody played in first position can have a completely different color and fingering logic from the same melody played further up the fretboard.

This is why guitar sight-reading can feel weirdly difficult compared with piano. It is not only note recognition. It is route planning.

You are reading the music, choosing a position, predicting where the phrase is going, deciding whether you need open strings, avoiding finger traps, and trying not to put yourself into a corner two beats later.

Piano gives you a map.

Guitar gives you multiple maps, then asks you to choose one while the music is already moving, or more like "I'm easy, you can play this in a variety of ways, but be careful, most will lead you to dead ends, and only one can carry you safely to the next bar".

That does not make guitar better or worse than piano. Piano has its own monsters: hand independence, pedaling, voicing, huge range, and the terrifying ability to expose every bad decision in high definition.

But for piano players starting guitar, I think this is the first mental shift:

On piano, pitch is mostly linear.

On guitar, pitch is positional.

The sooner you understand that, the less personal the confusion feels. You are not stupid. The fretboard is just pretending to be simple.

I’m thinking of making this a small series: “Guitar Anatomy for Piano Players” — things that may help pianists understand what they are getting into when they start guitar.

For pianists who started guitar: what confused you most at first? The fretboard layout, chord shapes, right-hand technique, reading, or the fact that the same note keeps turning up in suspiciously many places?

Week 2 update after starting piano as an adult learner and transitioning from classical guitar. I wanted to share something a bit more honest than my first post.
So far I’ve been moving through Alfred’s Adult Piano Method and some basic technical exercises (intervals, finger work, etc.), and those have actually felt quite easy. Reading the notes is not the issue at all — I can understand the music very quickly.
Then I hit the first piece that requires both hands together: Jingle Bells!!!
On paper, it looked trivial. I could read it in seconds. I genuinely thought it would be a 10–15 minute task at most.
It took me about 2 hours to get it to a playable state.
The difficulty wasn’t the notes or rhythm — it was the coordination. My right hand can play the melody fine, but as soon as I try to introduce even the simplest left-hand movement, everything falls apart. It feels like my hands stop communicating properly and I have to consciously think through every single motion.
Eventually it did come together, but it was far more mentally demanding than I expected at this stage.
I’ll admit I felt a bit embarrassed about how much I struggled with something so simple on paper, especially this early in the course.
But I’m also realising this might just be part of the process: reading music is one thing, but actually building independence between the hands is a completely different skill set.

After more than 30 years of playing classical guitar, I recently decided to begin learning piano from scratch. I approached it using standard beginner methods (Alfred’s and Faber), expecting the usual challenges: adapting to a new instrument, learning bass clef, and coordinating both hands in a new context.
The actual experience in the first week has been quite different from what I anticipated, and several aspects surprised me.

1. Bass clef was easier than expected
I initially expected significant difficulty with reading the bass clef, since I have only used treble clef for decades.
However, the adjustment was surprisingly fast. After a brief initial learning phase, I was able to read bass clef comfortably within about a day. The transition felt automatic relatively quickly, and I did not experience the level of cognitive load I had expected.
At this stage, I am still reading each clef independently rather than simultaneously, but switching between them is not an issue.

2. Unexpected difficulty: left-hand timing vs right-hand dominance
The first real surprise was not reading or coordination, but timing.
I assumed I could maintain tempo equally with both hands. However, I realised that my right hand is strongly dominant in maintaining rhythm and internal pulse, while my left hand tends to follow rather than lead.
When attempting simple exercises, the left hand struggled to align precisely with the metronome. It tended to rush slightly and strike just before the beat, while the right hand remained more stable in time.
This required deliberate metronome practice, particularly focusing on the left hand independently, to stabilise timing accuracy.

3. Finger-to-key mapping without visual reference
In basic C-position exercises, I found that I can easily locate and play the correct notes when looking at the keyboard.
However, when I remove visual reference, my accuracy drops significantly. The main issue is not note recognition, but finger selection. I may intend to play a specific note (e.g., F) but end up using the wrong finger and landing on an adjacent key (e.g., E).
With visual guidance, this issue disappears almost entirely.

4. Dynamics and left-hand control
Another early observation is that my right hand has significantly better control over dynamics (volume and touch sensitivity) compared to my left.
The left hand tends to produce more uniform, louder attacks (closer to forte), with limited dynamic variation at this stage. The right hand is already more capable of producing nuanced changes in volume.
My initial assumption was that my left hand, being heavily trained from guitar fretting strength, would translate well, but instead it feels less refined in terms of touch sensitivity.

5. Involuntary hand coupling and reduced independence
Perhaps the most unexpected discovery is the degree of coupling between the two hands.
Rather than true independence, I notice a strong tendency toward synchronisation:
When the left hand moves or strikes a note, the right hand often reacts involuntarily, sometimes striking a random key or freezing.
When the right hand is active, the left hand tends to feel “anchored” or dependent on it for timing.
There is a sense that both hands “expect” to act together, even when the exercise requires separation.
This feels less like a lack of ability and more like an ingrained habit of bilateral coordination that is difficult to suppress.

Summary
Overall, the most surprising aspect of transitioning to piano after decades of guitar playing is not reading music or understanding notes, but rather:
Left-hand timing independence
Finger-to-key spatial mapping without vision
Dynamic control asymmetry between hands
Strong residual synchronisation between hands
These challenges were not what I expected going in, especially given long experience with complex coordination on guitar.

So, I’ve played the guitar for 3 decades now. I sight read sheet music as well as expert in classical and flamenco techniques. Now, I thought that it’d be a shame that I’ve never played the piano ever in my life and just bought myself a small Yamaha PSRE-383 (not a piano, I know but I’m not ready for a big investment yet). My question now is, I’m not a beginner but I never played keys either so what are your recommendations for some educational material that focuses on the piano playing techniques rather than theory? I know I will also struggle with the bass bars as I’m not used to reading the F clef but I will get used to it with practice. Printed books preferred and ones I could find on Amazon or Melbay would be best options.

With the increasing fuel prices these days, I come to miss my 93 Charade, 993cc 3 cylinder engine that used to do under 5L/100km. Used to fill it up once a fortnight, tank capacity was 30L probably and drove 600-650kms!!!. It was a mediocre car by all measures even at the time but would be perfect for today’s fuel prices.