Resources for a self-teaching piano player

Hey all.

This isn't related to progressive rock at all, by the way.

I'm now beginning to get serious about making music, or at least motivating myself to get serious. I have a decent grounding in guitar, though I'm not playing as much of it now and was never technically impressive. I'm trying to get better at drums and piano concurrently, as they interest me the most.

What I'm asking for here is two things, online and offline:

1) Anything freely available, as online or whatever, that will help me with technique. I have a pretty solid ground and will continue to reinforce my knowledge of theory, but what I really need that I'm not getting now is introductory sheet music to play with fingerings. I can't stress that part enough. What is holding me back now is that I can look at a piece, but have trouble with what motions my fingers are literally supposed to make. This is very important, and also rudimentary, I would assume. I imagine many people look

2) Introductory piano lesson/technique books. This one assumes that I won't be able to get the full package for the best piano education through things scraped together from the web. But hey, if that's not true then never mind. But I'm sure it is. There are tons of method and lesson books, but is there any idea of which are the best?

To get perspective on my situation, I've been going through these videos: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=253192EED47525A8&annotation_id=annotation_540734&feature=iv

This guy is a good teacher and I've learned a lot, especially about the piano, clefs, key signatures, the circle of fifths (I had learned scales a different way before) and I'm currently on lesson 20 out of 40. The problem here is that he says I should practice an hour a day at least, as it is better than three hours every few days. Makes sense, but I don't have a lot to practice. He's offered the chromatic scale and a few related exercises, and I suppose I could map out all the scales and get used to them, but I need to start playing songs.

Any help here would be immensely appreciated, buds.

I'm on my way to bed, so I won't be of that much help (kids are sick, and I've got to be up in about seven hours).

But what I want to tell you- and I know this isn't what you're looking for- is that you find others to play music with.  I've had my nose in so many books learning how to play, but I didn't really apply anything until I began playing with other people, sucking for a while, but pushing through it and getting a little better here and there.

Not what you asked, I know, but just something to bear in mind, that's all.  Now good night. 

Go here:

Edited by jammun - March 19 2010 at 23:02

http://www.gmajormusictheory.org/Fundamentals/workbooks.html

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thellama73 wrote: paganinio wrote: i always play the piano with my left hand. not that I'm left-handed. It just feels good, like part of my brain is opened. Surely playing the piano with both hands is the preferred method.

I play the piano with my left hand, and the synthesizer lead with my right. 

Jimi Hendrix was used to do it with teeths. The nose can be used to inflate a kazoo, instead.