Do you need experience in piano to produce?

[tpantano]

I'm honestly getting sick of piano lessons after switching between 3 teachers. Are piano lessons really needed to produce music? Don't you really only need to know the basics (various scales, which key corresponds to which note) to start producing? I say this because you can always sequence, you don't really need piano dexterity...

[X-Trade]

Playing ability is important but it is something you really just develop over time, simply by repeated playing.

What is important is to know and practise things like improvisation, melody, scales and key signatures, reading music can also help as the sheet music system was designed to work with the way music is actually composed. By this I mean study it, you may not need to actually remember how to read though as long as you understand - I don't think right now I could remember which notes are where on the stave, or the symbols for each note time value...

You might find it better to find tuition or at least read about straight music theory and composition/songwriting, rather than learning the instrument.

You shouldn't rely on sequencing to provide all of your input though - notes that are played in with expression and real timing variations can have a lot more 'feel'. So ability to actually play your instrument does take a big part. A lot of the pianist 'techniques' with regards to wrist motion are developed because they are the most efficient - it saves you spending half your life figuring that out yourself, because other people have already figured it out countless times and passed it on for you. There isn't a lot of technique that literally just exists to make things difficult - it all has a purpose towards better playing.

[Gargamel314]

I say this because you can always sequence, you don't really need piano dexterity...

Piano dexterity also speeds up your future sequencing dramatically, and makes everything sound more realistic and authentic (as opposed to mechanical and... artificial). don't be one of those wannabe's that clicks the notes in with the mouse cursor!

[Ozz]

The process to learn to play an instrument is really slow, you've to be patient.

Piano is not a indispensable skill, but have a decent playing level on any instrument could be. You've to be able to play some of your ideas and not only sequence it, saving your time and giving you the ability to made a good interpretation of your ideas.

Unfortunately, the keyboard is the better adapted instrument on the digital era, but you've to remember that some techniques are slightly differents when you play synth action keys and hammer action or play other instrument differents than piano on a keyboard, becoz the ADSR parameters, etc.

I reccomend you patitence, I've seen a lot of keyboards players with years of experience focusing on playing faster... and after all those years they play worse than a pianist with 2 years of lessons.

Regards.
Alvaro.

[dayuri]

Yeah best to stick to it. You can produce music with no piano exp. but you'll still need a good understanding of music theory, and the best place to get that IMO is in piano lessons anyway. If you have the right teacher, after a year or two of getting the basics right you can probably start asking to get to know more theory, jazz piano teachers are great like that.

You mentioned in the other forum you were going to be playing as part of a band. If you're thinking about playing live you really should keep up the lessons as without good piano technique you'll be limiting yourself (and your band) quite seriously in terms of both the music you write and you just won't sound as good as you could do. I know a few untrained keyboardists who play in bands and in almost all cases they look dorky when the play and are really limited in terms of what they play.