As we all know, the piano is an elegant musical instrument that may look a wee bit intimidating to learn how to play it yourself. But if you want to save on expensive tuition fees, then you can teach yourself how to play piano as it can be done. This article will show you how to do it.

First of all, you need to decide what style or what kind of pianist you want to be. If you aspire to be a concert pianist, then you need to learn the classical styles of great composers such as Beethoven or Mozart. To learn classical piano, you must be able to read notes and thus this form may be more difficult to teach yourself.

But if you only want to learn the piano so that you can accompany a singer or play songs that you have written yourself, then you can start by just learning how to play piano chords and add in the frills and thrills later as you get more proficient as a piano player. Of course, learning this way is much easier.

Also there are many musical genre and you have to decide which genre you want to start with although as you get better, you can dabble with all the various genre whether they are jazz, classical, blues, new age, country or whatever style you like.

Of course, in order to learn how to play piano, you must have access to one. Yes, pianos are more expensive when compared to most other musical instruments. It is a good idea to buy one if you can afford it, if not there are many other ways you can practice on the piano such as in your school, church or approach friend and neighbors to allow you to practice on their pianos.

If you are a little embarrassed about letting people hear you practicing, then you need to invest in an electronic keyboard that you can plug in a pair of earphone so that nobody can hear you practicing but yourself. If you want to do that, just make sure you buy one with full sized keys because the there are cheaper versions with smaller sized keys. This is because if you are used to playing with smaller keys, then you may have problems when playing on real pianos with bigger keys later.

Once you are ready, you should look for piano lessons to start with. There are multitudes of beginner's books, DVDs, CDs and online lessons which can help you to teach yourself to play piano easily. As everybody learn differently, do be mindful that you find the teaching format you are most comfortable with.

When teaching yourself, of course there will be times when you may be stumped on a lesson simply because you don't understand it or are not using the right technique. However, if you choose to learn online, many of these teachers allow you to email them with your questions or you can also find different resources for references or simply ask someone you know who is already rather proficient in playing the piano.

Just like in learning everything else, consistency and determination is the key to success. Therefore you must practice regularly whenever you have the chance. Overtime, sooner than later, you too can become a good self taught pianist.