Have you always wanted to learn how to play the piano? Did you take a few piano lessons as a kid but haven't done anything to improve your skills in ages? New Year is the perfect time to make a resolution to become a better piano player. Don't put off doing something that you've wanted to do for years any longer. Now is the time to take action.

As one of the most popular songs for St. Patrick's Day, Danny Boy is patterned from Londonderry Air.  You can easily learn to play this on the piano. Londonderry Air is an easy piece and can be learned by pianists even at the beginner level.

What do you play in the left hand when nothing is written out? That’s when you pay attention to the letters over the melody line. Those letters indicate the chords to be played by the left hand.

Always wanted to learn how to play the piano? Good news: it’s never too late. While you might think that you’re past your prime, or are too busy or simply don’t believe that it is possible to learn how to play an instrument later on in the game, fear not. You can do it – while most teacher’s bank on younger students and teenagers, there is a growing number of adults signing up for piano lessons in their 50s, 60s, 70s and more! Of course, the learning process is entirely different and the teaching approach will most likely differ too, but it is possible for you, as an adult, to sign up for piano lessons and learn the songs you’ve always wanted to play.

Learning to play the piano is a bit like learning to read. A beginner piano student must master several skills before moving on to more advanced techniques. These skills may not come intuitively at first, but require repetition and practice. Stick with it, though, and spend the time to develop a solid foundation. The time you take as a beginning student will pay off later in greater fluency. Here are the top five skills you need to master initially:

Four-hand piano music has been around for a long time: Mozart and Beethoven, Ravel and Stravinsky - among many - wrote music for piano duo performance.  The lasting popularity of four-hand piano music more than likely stems from the desire of music lovers to hear symphony or opera, even when they lived prohibitively far from any concert hall. Four-hand piano reductions of symphonic and opera scores were the way they could bring the magic of the concert hall to the parlor of a private residence, via a couple of talented players.