When I first decided to learn to play piano, I didn’t really know how to go about it. Learning to play piano is de rigueur in a family of musicians, but no one else in my family ever played any sort of music. I had a lot of friends who were guitarists, and I first thought that I would learn to play the way they did. Most of the guitarists I knew learned by ear. They just started playing along with whenever they heard on the radio. When you play piano like that, however, is extremely hard. You see, piano requires a more principled approach. In some ways, piano is one of the easier instruments. It is logically organized, after all, with all of the notes laid out in front of you. When you learn to play piano, however, you quickly come to realize that although the piano is straightforward, piano music is anything but.