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Piano can be a great parent-child activity, even when neither has any musical training or expertise!
PIANO BY NUMBER allows you to explore a huge variety of songs in a simple, easy to understand format. We concentrate at first on enjoyment, and this means getting the child to willingly come to the piano for a bit of fun.
Adults can benefit from the same easy approach: find familiar songs you love amd play them in an easy format.
Don't even think about starting with reading music, for this inevitably leads to stagnation as you struggle to decipher musical notation instead of enjoying songs.
There's time enough for the complexities of reading music once enthusiasm has been established. Without the enthusiasm of an adult or child, piano quickly becomes mired in difficulty and stress.
Both parent and child can discover the amazing ability of the piano to become a sort of musical typewriter, making any song accerssible to the most modest, beginner talent.
There's a reason the piano keyboard has been around for hundreds of years: it is the simplest way to enter the magical world of making music.
[piano]
Kids benefit from watching parents struggle with music just like they sometimes do. You may even find your child attempting to be your teacher, and this builds their self-esteem and enthusiasm.
Think of how much fun it is to play video games with your child, watching them exult in their greater knowledge. Kids love to be better than their parents at something
But most important is the child's realization that you, as parent, are trying something new with them.
It's very special to sit side by side at the piano with your child, trying to figure out something as pleasureable as music.
]]>If you're searching for "Piano Online 123" you're probably looking for a numbered piano keyboard that you can play online.
It's a good place to start. Online, virtual pianos work in many different ways, but the main distinction is whether you play it on a touch screen with your finger (tablet, phone) or a desktop (with a mouse.)
An online piano allows you to try playing piano without actually buying a physical instrument. You can always buy an inexpensive keyboard for $100 if you are still interested.
The distinction between a virtual (online) keyboard and a small, inexpensive electronic keyboard is one of dimensions. Online is really only two dimensions, whereas an actual keyboard, however simple, has numerous dimensions (white keys, black keys, etc.) that you must explore.
Even on a two-dimensional, online-virtual piano, you will see the pattern of the black keys: 2 blacks, then 3 blacks, repeated over and over. This black key pattern (2-3-2-3-2-3) is one of the indelible signposts that will help guide you as you begin to explore the keyboard.
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We present here a selection Verified Google Reviews because we are proud of our popularity with customers. We present them in this simple text format. The reason for this is that, unless you have an active Google Plus account, you won't be able to view them. Also, here is a link if you'd like to try to view them on Google Plus.
Reviews 2016
Abigail Van Alyn
Jan 15, 2016
This approach to learning piano is fresh and elegant, and the book itself is charming and inviting. The method gets learners of all ages past the intimidation phase, encouraging further learning and musical fun. Kids will love the delightful illustrations!
(reply by owner)
Jan 16, 2016
Ah, the intimidation phase! I just skip it.......
Ray Scanlan
Mar 29, 2016
If you are looking for a way to start playing songs on the piano without enduring the traditional purgatory of scales, arpeggios, etc., Piano by Number is the way to go. For children and adults it makes the learning experience much more engaging and is more likely to lead to long-term enjoyment of the instrument. Fantastic!
(reply by owner)
Apr 4, 2016
You're right, Piano By Number delays the scales and arpeggios, but only until the child develops interest on their own level. Thanks!
Reviews 2017
Paul Brancato
May 10, 2017
Piano by number is great for teachers because it makes learning how to play the piano fun for beginners, and we all know that FUN is what it is all about. What is less obvious but quite possibly more important in the long run is that Piano By Number introduces counting to the process of making music.
(reply by owner)
Jun 1, 2016
You're quite right that counting is very hard for kids while they are doing all the other things piano requires. Thank you!
More Reviews
Jennifer Escaravage
Aug 8, 2017
I can't recommend Piano by Number enough. The simplicity keeps my kids going back to the piano day after day, without being asked. They can teach themselves songs they are familiar with and now have a repertoire they can play without the book. As a parent I love watching their confidence grow and their little fingers becoming more and more adept at navigating the keyboard.
(reply by owner)
Aug 12, 2016
That's exactly how it's supposed to work! It's fun to watch the process.
Reviews 2018
J. D. Cooper
Aug 8, 2018
At first you think - this is really simple but how will they learn 'real' music? Then they start playing and a bit of that success makes them curious. The process trained his fingers and his ear. But how about the 'real' music he will need in the church youth choir next year? One day I came home and he was picking out a hymn by looking at the music. He'd connected those buggy scribbles I hated with intervals which comes from seeing it as numbers first, instead of good boys deserving fine apples. Give it a try.
(reply by owner)
Nov 10, 2016
Really glad it worked for you! Thanks!
I used Piano By Number for a severely disabled girl who could never have played piano without the simplicity of the number method. I’ve taught piano to kids so severely disabled that it would make you weep to see these brave kids try things that people say are impossible. I taught a little girl with one hand.
When her Mom asked me, I could not refuse. I never knew how she lost the hand. But she wanted to play very much. To myself, I thought, “How far can I honestly take this child?”
Then I looked at the bright side. She had one hand, and luckily it was the right hand. So we learned every song we could in Piano by Number. She was very bright and easy to work with, and did a year’s worth of work in a few months.
She could play all twelve chords, major and minor, with her right hand, as well as read flats and sharps. Her preference was playing by eye and by ear, a process I encouraged. The way I did this was to use the capabilities of the little electronic keyboard that she had.
I saw that it had an “auto-chord” function, where you could create an accompaniment just by playing a single key in the left hand.
It would break your heart to watch this sweet child embrace the idea of playing with the stump of her left hand. But embrace it she did. It led to her becoming an amateur rock’n’roll composer. This was because the keyboard had a rock beat we could not figure how to turn off, so we went with what we had.
She was a clever little artist, and began composing songs for which she sang and wrote the words. We arranged classical masterpieces for this setup. She played Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and other things you would never think a one-handed nine year-old could possibly play. And she played with a style and zest that almost all two-handed kids lack.
By choosing a “transparent” method like Piano by Number, she was allowed to use her unique talents in her own way, a fun performance that made her proud of using her left hand. Before she started piano, she held the hand slightly behind her, as if she were ashamed of her terrible injury.
But as time went by she stopped doing it, leaving her arm out for all to view. I never saw a trace of bitterness or sadness cross her face. I think she was the bravest kid I ever taught.
REFERENCES:
PIANO BY NUMBER AND DOWN'S SYNDROME
PIANO BOOKS FOR SPECIAL NEEDS CHILDREN
PIANO BY NUMBER FOR A SEVERELY DISABLED CHILD
HYPERACTIVE CHILDREN AND THE PIANO
BRAIN HEMISPHERE COORDINATION AND CHILDREN’S PIANO
BRAIN CHEMISTRY AND EMOTIONS IN CHILDREN’S PIANO
BRAINS, CHILDREN AND PIANO
THE PIANIST WITH TWO BRAINS
ENDORPHINS, CHILDREN AND PIANO
WHY KIDS DISLIKE PLAYING WITH THEIR LEFT HAND
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHILDREN, PIANO, MUSIC AND MATH
EINSTEIN’S PIANO
EINSTEIN’S VIOLIN IMPROVISATIONS IN GYPSY STYLE
PIANO BRAIN CHEMISTRY FOR KIDS
BRAIN HEMISPHERES AND KID’S PIANO
MATH, PIANO AND KIDS
NEUROTRANSMITTERS, CHILDREN AND PIANO
BRAIN STRUCTURE AND KID’S PIANO
Kid's computer time affects piano lessons, usually in a profoundly negative way. I've been able to compare children taking piano lessons when they have just finished an hour at the computer, and when they have not spent an hour at the computer. In all instances, the piano lesson came directly after the hour of computer activity.
While this is not by any means a scientific sampling, some interesting observations can be made. I have a student, a bright boy of eight, who is so motivated that he knows all about Bizet's Carmen, and the life of any classical composer you can mention. He's hooked on Scooby Doo, too, so his tastes have a wide and unusual range for his age. He likes classical music and computers in about equal measure.
All of this, according to his mother, is at his own instigation. This is a boy who is hyperactive, and might have ADHD for all I know. We have worked out a set of games that calm him and allow him to play me the songs we have worked on. He progresses slowly into reading music and other basic musical skills at the piano.
This child's thirst for culture is deep. He is the only child I have ever had walk up to me and say, "Teach me Handel's Water Music right now!" I taught him the tune immediately, using Piano by Number. But his lessons often consist of moments of clarity followed by episodes where he practically chews the furniture.
In between these moments of craziness, we try to cobble his musical education. He's very good at all the chords, fingering and sight-reads C position very well.
Then came a day when he had just been on the computer directly before his lesson. His eyes had a glazed-over look. Sluggish and exhausted mentally, he became almost impossible to deal with. It was as if the computer had sucked out all his energy. He had none left for the piano, his very favorite activity. I noted this, and said nothing.
The following week, I was told he had been on the computer for the previous hour. Once again, this wraith of a child appeared, and dumbly took his place at the piano, quiet and withdrawn. We began a game of playing famous pieces that he would try to identify and learn the opening bars or theme.
But this was all we could accomplish that day. Having had the same experience with other children, I concluded that the computer drains their brains, and renders them practically inanimate. It's impossible to keep a child from a computer, for it has become such a part of our lives. But I ask parents to try to save the computer time for after the lesson. Otherwise some kids will be unable to participate in any useful piano activities.
Piano learning software almost never benefits kids, only the manufacturer and the dealer. It is dreamed up by same sort of people that make up Standardized Tests. It's like asking me if I'd rather travel to my destination, or just pretend to travel in a computer mockup.
If I'm actually trying to get somewhere, a computer simulation is of little use. It's the same with software. No piano software I've ever seen compares to the experience of sitting at a real keyboard and using one's mind to solve musical problems.
Great for the school system, great for getting tax dollars, not so good for the kids.
It is estimated that only 10% of the money spent on education is actually spent on the child. The rest goes to the school administrator's $250,000 a year salary. Then there's testing, useless building contracts awarded to the favored friends of the administrators, the contractors, and phony learning software.
It all looks good on paper, but kids remain musically uneducated by this foolish system. Piano learning software sounds good to the inexperienced parent, but the inevitable result is boredom. Why? Piano learning software always results in boredom because the most you can do with it has already been built in.
You follow the course, like a video game, but then where do you go?
Once you get to "level ten" of the software, you'll find yourself no better prepared for a real piano than you were before you started the software. Of course, piano software is attractive to parents and kids addicted to computers and video devices.
The software marketing will point out that you have no piano and no teacher, so where else will you go to try the piano? I'll tell you where: to the closest piano or inexpensive keyboard. The piano keyboard, unlike pre-arranged software, has no limitations, and a child can see that immediately.
The freedom from limitations that comes from the 'blank" keyboard is both exhilarating and frightening.
In fact, it is this "blankness" of the real piano that is responsible for the piano being such an admirable teaching instrument: you can make it as easy or as difficult as you want. Of course, if you can, just go get a great piano teacher and a real piano.
But you will soon find there are far more real pianos than good children's piano teachers. And without the right teacher, you are better off waiting until you can find one. The teacher is far more important than the instrument or method. You'll never convince me that a computer is a better piano teacher than a sympathetic human.
Piano software has one inherent flaw, which is boredom. Ultimately, either the computer plays you, or you play the piano.
Piano stickers work for reading music because reading music is an inherently confusing system. It’s over 800 years old and was devised by monks to record the chants, not to introduce kids to the piano. The system of five lines was actually devised by a brilliant nun in the 11th century, Hildegard von Bingen.
It is said that she was dyslexic, as the two planes, page and piano, are in opposite planes. Their relationship is very hard to understand. Expecting a six year-old to understand this graphic mess is madness.
I Can Read Music e Book Download
Reading music requires coordination of horizontal and vertical planes. In addition, you have to understand a myriad of other elements. And that’s before we add the piano keyboard into the mix. The keyboard is an entirely different set of visual elements than the notes on the five lines. Let’s try to decipher this, and thus find a relationship between the page and the keyboard.
The purpose of the five blue stickers (and the red one) on the piano keyboard is to give a reference point for children.
Kids must coordinate the keys on the piano to the notes on the five lined musical staff. That is where children become confused. The five BLUE stickers define the location of the five lines of the musical staff and the RED sticker defines the location of Middle C.
This allows kids to relate the notes on the page to the to keys on the piano. We repeat the drawing so you can see the relationship between the page (the five lines) and the piano keys below:
The first step after applying the removable stickers to your piano is to make the child aware of the circular symbol for Middle C. It is the circle in the above drawing with the little horizontal line through it. This is the piano key that corresponds to the RED sticker. See below for the unique look of Middle C.
Look through some pages of music and help the child identify the graphic symbol for the note Middle C.
Here is a page with lots of Middle C’s to find:
Make a game of it, saying “Who can point to Middle C on the page first?” Then let them win every time after a few tries. Go through page after page, making a game of finding Middle C on the page. Ask only for this one note, and don’t confuse kids with the other notes.
After the child can easily find Middle C and distinguish it from all other notes, it’s time to find the relationship between Middle C and the piano keyboard. Specifically, the note Middle C is defined as the white key with the RED sticker.
Once you have established security with Middle C, it’s time to move beyond it. Now find the FIVE horizontal lines and their relationship to the FIVE blue stickers. The five blue stickers mark the five horizontal lines on the page. Children understand this quite quickly, but you must be patient.
First establish that the lowest of the five lines on the page is equal to the blue sticker furthest to the left on the keyboard. See the drawings above.
All beginning piano music concentrates on the note Middle C and the five white piano keys directly above that. There is no reason to learn the other lines yet. You’ll find that it is a large enough job simply to get a child comfortable with Middle C and the first two of the five lines (the lowest two lines.)
Some kids take years to really absorb these first five notes. Once they understand, they move very quickly and become very good sight readers.
All of this is introduced slowly in I Can Read Music, whose actual purpose is to get the child comfortable with the first five white keys, that is, Middle C and the four white keys above it. One of the main reasons that most conventional methods are a failure for children is because these methods move too quickly into naming notes and assigning fingers.
You should first make absolutely sure that the child can find the visual relationship between the notes on the page and the keys on the piano.
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TV is bad for kids and piano can help balance the intense brain drain. Tech destroys your child's ability to form thoughts. Television is the worst offender, due to the largely verbal content. But any technology that takes over one's mind like the internet or cell phone is actively lessening people's ability to think for themselves.
This is especially true of children. Video games, for example, lead a child's mind through what seems like a series of free choices. But the options are in reality a random assembly of prearranged actions in which the child has no real choice. The child creates no thoughts of their own.
The child is just part of the tech robot. It may be fun, but it leads nowhere in terms of mental development. The video game keeps going even if the child makes a mistake, but music stops entirely if the player is not in control, and this is a huge difference.
To play music at the piano, the child's brain must be quiet and attentive to the assigned set of tasks. As a child plays a song at the piano, there emerges a verbal and visual log of events that teaches the child how to produce original thoughts and actions.
The path through a song at the piano is different each time, even though the child may be playing the same song over and over. This is because they are in charge of everything and unexpected events occur (errors) with which the child must deal. If you want to develop your child's ability to think, choose a musical instrument like the piano instead of a computer.
If you have ever tried to teach a child anything after they have been using a digital device for an hour, you know what frustration is like. The child's mind is dulled, not sharpened by using the digital device.
Easy songs to play on your keyboard include mostly children's favorites. There are many timeless classics that younger kids love to play. Here are links so you can try out samples of easy songs to play on your keyboard:
Love Me Tender
| 1 4 3 4 | 5 2 5 * | 4 3 2 3 | 4 * * * |
[piano]
We use the Piano By Number method. Getting started is as easy as possible. Starting with reading music is not recommended, because many kids and adults find it too difficult in the beginning. Put the numbered, removable stickers on the piano and you're ready to play. Here's what your piano will look like with the stickers installed:
Our library is the largest collection of Piano By Number songs available anywhere. Kids get a fun start to piano, with reading music deferred until later in this unique method.
Here's a sample page from Piano Is Easy, our easiest starter book:
ABC Song, Alouette, Amazing Grace, Animal Fair, A Tisket a Tasket, Aura Lee, Ba Ba Black Sheep, Barcarolle, Bicycle Built for Two, Brahms’ Lullaby, Camptown Races, Can Can, Chopsticks, Clementine, Dora the Explorer, Down by the Station, Down in the Valley, Do You Know the Muffin Man? Draydl Song, Eensy Weensy Spider, Fantasie Impromptu (Chopin), Firework, Flintstones, Frere Jacques, Go Tell It on the Mountain, Happy Birthday, Hey, Diddle, Diddle, Home, Sweet Home, How Much is That Doggie in the Window, I’m a Little Teapot, If You're Happy and You Know It, I Gave My Love a Cherry, Indiana Jones, In the Gloaming, It’s Raining, It’s Pouring, Jingle Bells, Lazy Mary, Let It Go, Listen to the Mockingbird, London Bridge, Lonesome Valley, Long, Long Ago,
Mary Had a Little Lamb, Mickey Mouse Club, Muppets, On Top of Spaghetti,
Piano Man, Pop Goes the Weasel, Red River Valley, Scooby Doo, Skater's Waltz,
Spongebob, Star Wars, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Take Me out to the Ballgame,
The Bear Went over the Mountain, There's a Hole in the Bucket, This Train,
Wallace and Gromit, Waltzing Matilda, Wheels on the Bus, Wiggles,
You Are My Sunshine
Hyperactive kids are very difficult to teach piano, especially using the standard methods. You will find very few piano teachers willing to take on such a challenge. They almost always refuse to teach such kids. But some piano teachers like the challenge of teaching a kid who bounces off the walls with energy.
Stay at least ten steps ahead of such a child, or you will be left in the dust. Some parents warn me that their child is on medication, or is in therapy, and is very hyperactive. Some are called ADHD. I have taught them all and had fun at the same time. You just have to listen to the kid.
First I observe to what degree they are hyperactive. Are they just fidgety or are they bouncing off the walls? I had one ADHD kid with a wonderful mom who put the piano in the basement, with about three soft sofas and lots of big fluffy pillows. The kid would bounce off the sofas onto the floor, luckily carpeted.
Your first observation should be their attention span. If it is 12 seconds, you will have to devise games that are 12 seconds long, strung together into a half hour lesson. It can be done.
Many piano teachers interpret hyperactivity as "bad behavior" but it is not. A hyperactive kid does not know where to put their tremendous energy, and the piano is a perfect tool for them. Try the following activities, each 12 seconds long, each followed by a "game." Not a musical game, but a game like throwing a ball, or something that expends the child's physical energy. Play a single line of a song on our online piano:
Have the child play the above, then quickly start playing ball for a few seconds, keeping a fake "score." Then back to another song or musical game. As long as there is a non-musical game in between, they will do this activity endlessly.
Another game is seeing if the child remembers what they have just played. Play Mary Had A Little Lamb and then come back to it later and see what notes they remember. Give a hint if they falter. This repetition game builds their memory, which is very necessary since their minds move so fast that they might not even remember what happened 12 seconds ago.
Create Theatrical Scenarios
Hyperactive and ADHD kids hate to repeat things which seem pointless, so you need to create scenarios which allow their imaginations to go to work:
In between each musical game should be a physical game, throwing a ball, throwing a pillow, running around the room. Find what the child likes. That's their reward for working at the piano. It also expends excess energy. I had one kid who rolled a baseball into a shoe every time he got something right. That was his reward!
The conclusion is that hyperactive kids can learn piano, but you have to bend over backwards to create an atmosphere that they do not find stuffy. They have to have action, fun and games. My experience is that these kids are smart, maybe even smarter than most kids. But the wiring of their brain is different, faster, and you, the teacher, have to accommodate it.
REFERENCES:
PIANO BY NUMBER AND DOWN'S SYNDROME
PIANO BOOKS FOR SPECIAL NEEDS CHILDREN
PIANO BY NUMBER FOR A SEVERELY DISABLED CHILD
HYPERACTIVE CHILDREN AND THE PIANO
BRAIN HEMISPHERE COORDINATION AND CHILDREN’S PIANO
BRAIN CHEMISTRY AND EMOTIONS IN CHILDREN’S PIANO
BRAINS, CHILDREN AND PIANO
THE PIANIST WITH TWO BRAINS
ENDORPHINS, CHILDREN AND PIANO
WHY KIDS DISLIKE PLAYING WITH THEIR LEFT HAND
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHILDREN, PIANO, MUSIC AND MATH
EINSTEIN’S PIANO
EINSTEIN’S VIOLIN IMPROVISATIONS IN GYPSY STYLE
PIANO BRAIN CHEMISTRY FOR KIDS
BRAIN HEMISPHERES AND KID’S PIANO
MATH, PIANO AND KIDS
NEUROTRANSMITTERS, CHILDREN AND PIANO
BRAIN STRUCTURE AND KID’S PIANO
Use recognizable songs in the first piano lessons for kids. There is a rude awakening when kids realize all the music in standard methods consists of fake, exercise pieces (see below). Made-up compositions fill the pages of the standard methods. Every piece shows a particular concept of piano pedagogy but has zero musical value.
The truth is that familiar songs can teach the same concepts without boring the child (see below.)
As a result, these exercise pieces do not interest the child, at least in a musical sense. Thus kids hate these songs, and frankly are more interested in the pictures.
Recognizable songs produce a positive reaction in kids.
Even the simplest familiar melody delights kids. They experience a rise in self esteem from having figured out how to play something familiar, especially something they can show their friends.
Yet all standard piano books follow the same strategy: Start with right hand, learn the first five adjacent notes going up and then down. Then they slowly introduce notes which are not adjacent.
It's like chess, or checkers. You learn the rules, the moves, and that's it. As a result you are never asked to make music or even know what that means. This is all very well, and is a carefully constructed curriculum, except there is one glaring problem: your child will fall asleep and quit piano before they complete one of these "methods." There is another problem, which is the lack of music making, the act of plunking out a tune without regard to page or pedant.
Here are better ways of presenting these same concepts, using recognizable songs:
I’m A Little Teapot to learn the first five adjacent white keys:
| 1 * 2 | 3 * 4 | 5 * * | 8 * * | 6 * * | 8 * * | 5 * * |
Mary Had a Little Lamb shows how to start on a note other than Middle C:
| 3 2 1 2 | 3 3 3 * | 2 2 2 * | 3 3 3 * |
Jingle Bells shows how to skip over notes:
| 3 3 3 * | 3 3 3 * | 3 5 1 2 | 3 * * * |
[piano]
In fact, any musical concept is better taught using familiar material that has the added advantage of asking the child to make music, not just read it. Recognizable songs make kids happy!
You have two broad choices of format for beginning piano education: piano software or print books.
Which is better?
I've published both forms of learning products, and there is a tangible difference that parents and children report. Supporters of piano software and music learning software point to advantages such as carefully graduated increments and attractive graphics.
But if you've ever talked to a child who used one of these products, you'd get a resounding snore.
Here's what one kid told me. "Once you get to the top level, it's boring. It's like a video game without the excitement." No machine will ever replace the gentle hand of a good teacher guiding you, personally, through the difficulties of the piano.
"How is that computer program?" I ask. The kid replies, "Well, it's kind of boring. You never get to play anything, really."
And that is the essential problem with software in general, and music software in particular. No matter what you do with software, ultimately it is playing you, rather than the other way around.
The point of a musical instrument is that you can take it to places that software cannot go. Software is always limited by a group of functions, but your brain, in terms of music, is not limited to any set group of outcomes.
You can play a computer game only one way, the way it is set up at the factory. Playing a real piano yields unexpected results, unexpected outcomes and problems with which the child must learn how to deal.
The benefits of playing the piano are derived partly from the two-handed nature of the piano, which develops brain function. Using a computer, physically, is not a two-handed enterprise, because either hand or only one hand may enter the information necessary.
Playing the piano is a wordless ballet of the hands, impossible to capture or experience within the confines of a computer. Looking at a screen and sitting at a keyboard are two completely different experiences.
There is no substitute for the experience of sitting at a musical instrument and having to solve the problems that arise.
It's an intellectual experience that cannot be put into a bottle.
Or a computer.
There is a general rule for selecting children's songs for the piano. All piano methods begin with songs only on the white keys.
This makes it easier for children. Leave the black keys for later when they are familiar with the landscape of the piano. Avoid the confusing, irregular pattern of the black keys at first. This allows kids to start easily and without confusion.
The white keys form a nice, easy-to-navigate stairway. All piano keys are 3/4 inch wide, consistent and inviting. A perfect example is Mary Had A Little Lamb. This song uses the white keys, and almost all the notes are adjacent, a big plus for little kid's fingers.
Mary Had A Little Lamb
What physical movements are difficult for a 5 or 6 year old? We don't mean on a permanent basis, but only at first. Remember that a child's first impression of piano lessons is about all that matters.
Make it too difficult initially and you will lose them right away. It depends on the child, but here are a few guidelines that will help you choose the right songs: Leaping from note to note is rather harder than moving to adjacent notes. Thus, some songs are harder than others. Choose the easiest ones. Find songs with largely adjacent notes. Build up to harder songs with more leaps.
Playing with both hands at once introduces needless complexities. Avoid it at first, unless they play the single melody with both hands. This is fine, because in using both hands to play a single line, the child is showing their natural tendencies. Make a note of it.
Songs on the white keys include:
Go with their "fingering flow," no matter how ridiculous the posture.
Using familiar songs in piano lessons is the wisest choice when kids are starting piano. Kid's piano books try to interest the child with "exercise pieces" instead of with familiar songs they know and love.
For this reason, conventional methods start with "songs" made of entirely original but boring (see further below) musical material.
These "songs" are designed to show the child how easy it is to keep their five fingers in a row. The result is uniformly boring music, which never excites the child in any aural, musical or spiritual way. The only reaction the teacher has is to praise you if you succeed in playing it correctly.
This is an exceedingly poor choice of material. Children have much more positive responses when the first songs they play are familiar to them.
Their reaction becomes one of amazement and pride as they hear a familiar tune from the piano. Let's take the first song in most conventional piano books. It almost always consists of the first three to five white keys, in a row, going up.
[piano]
It's the same, more or less, in Bastien, Schaum, Thompson, Alfred and any other conventional piano method you might name. To step back a moment, the strategy behind all these worthy methods is solid, but the material they choose to illustrate is uniformly poor and unlikely to engage any child:
1 2 3 4 5
Second, do the same as above but have one note change direction. This teaches the child to pay attention to the direction of the notes (up or down.)
1 2 3 2 3 4 5
In other words, throw in a little monkey wrench, in terms of linear direction, and see if they can catch it. Third, do more or less the same, starting on a note other than good old Middle C.
3 2 1 2 3 4 5
Fourth, do the same but with a skip between notes.
1 3 5 4 3 2 1
Previously, all note movements have been the adjacent white key to prevent confusion. You can see the progression of events like a chess game. We're teaching the child to move on the keyboard in terms of the printed page only. It's like a board game with five squares.
Within that limited scope, we teach the child how to move around via the five notes on the page. The steps are solidly constructed, but there is one huge problem. Your child will fall asleep before they ever have a chance to get excited about piano.
As to the four steps of the conventional lesson above, here are better ideas. First, play I'm A Little Teapot to learn the first five adjacent white keys:
1 2 3 4 5 8 6 8 5
Second, play Alouette:
1 2 3 3 2 1 2 3 1 5
Third, play Mary Had a Little Lamb to show how to start on a note other than Middle C:
3 2 1 2 3 3 3 2 2 2 3 3 3
Fourth, play Jingle Bells to learn how to skip over notes:
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 5 1 2 3
Now you have a first lesson that teaches the same concepts as conventional methods. In addition it gives your child four songs they know and like, which they can proudly play. No child is proud of playing the meaningless "cardboard" music in all conventional piano methods. Give them a song everyone knows!
The children that piano teachers neglect are those that do not pick up the knack of reading music. Piano teachers are notoriously impatient. These piano teachers have no tool other than reading music. They have no idea how to handle such a child.
Only a very small percentage of children measure up to the piano disciplinarian's lofty standards. These elite few are nurtured in the best way the teacher can find. I should know: I was one. A talented student is pure pleasure to a piano teacher.
An average piano teacher can recognize natural piano talent. What about the rest of the children? For every prodigy child there are thousands of kids who are eager to take a shot at the piano but have drawbacks such as poor music reading, and poor cognitive and physical skills.
In addition, they may have personalities that may not lend themselves to most piano teacher's methods. But these children are eager to make music at the piano. You must bend your method enough to allow them space in which to roam.
The success of this approach is based on watching children at play: Children at play teach each other how to do things so they can do them together. Kids at play are entirely themselves, unless they adopt a theatrical pose. They are exerting all their natural intelligence in a happy, unpressured way.
Kids at play will expend all their energy to solve a "problem" that they see needs fixing. Children at play are concentrating as hard as they can with no stress. Imagine yourself a child playing with another, and your companion wants to learn a song on the piano.
Since you like your friend, you're going to be friendly, patient and understanding. You'll work for a bit on the song, and then you'll tire of it and move on to something else.
An adult teaching a child using this ruse has a huge additional advantage. The child accepts you as leader, and will, within reason, allow you to set the pace. But as soon as you exceed a working pace that would be normal between two friends, you draw upon the good will you have "put in the bank" by being patient.
If you're a friendly person, the child will allow you to lead them towards more serious work, disguised of course as play. I've found the unlikeliest of children prosper and learn to enjoy the piano with this approach.
These are the kids for whom the piano is not immediately interesting without a lot of guidance and support.
Most piano teachers refuse to take these children in the first place, or their methods make the children into quick failures, easy to replace. To these piano teachers, there are always more six year-olds with a check from Mommy.
If your goal is to make every child a piano player in their own right, in their own way, then you are on the right track. Why shouldn't every child understand the rudiments of piano? The only people preventing this are the piano teachers.
A Piano By Numbers book is a good choice as a child's introduction to the piano. The standard method is to have the child start reading music right away. But kids find this a boring process. The reason for this is that the music in conventional piano books consists of fake exercise pieces that are completely unknown to the child.
A better approach is to give kids familiar songs to play. Piano By Numbers is a child-friendly starter system that allows kids to get an immediate start at the piano.
Just put the numbered stickers on the piano keys and you're ready to play. Kids can play music far more difficult than what they can read from notes. Thus reading music is a poor starting platform for kids. You can see all of our Piano By Numbers products here. Here's a sample page from one of our easiest kid's books, Piano Is Easy.
Children understand numbers from a very early age. So using it as a starting musical language, to be replaced later, is a wise move to get kids started.
Try a song on our online piano:
Twinkle Twinkle
| 1 1 5 5 | 6 6 5 * | 4 4 3 3 | 2 2 1 * |
[piano]
Children have a happier start if the initial experience is smooth and trouble free. Complexity can come later, when the child is engaged with the piano.
Allowing a child this "grace period" at the very beginning pays huge benefits later. They will have more confidence to tackle the battle of learning to read music.
A good start leads to further interest.
Once you have established that piano lessons are a fun exploration of familiar songs, you can move slowly to start reading music.
I would suggest that you present a proportion of music reading to fun and games of about 1 to 5. In a 30 minute lesson this means 24 minutes fun, six minutes reading music.
In between the music reading, use piano games to maintain a convivial atmosphere.
Reading music is mentally exhausting for kids in ways that adults may barely understand, so different is the level of development of our brains.
Things that are easy for adults (doing different things with each hand) are excruciatingly difficult for kids whose brain hemispheres are not yet fully connected.
Kid's music and the piano are inextricably linked. The piano is the first instrument most children learn, given how simple it is to just push the buttons.
Which type of music the kid is listening to is largely dependent on the parents. But there are some qualities of musical taste that are forever popular with kids.
Kids music should be fast. They get very excited and happy if there is a bouncy beat. For that matter, we all do. But kids can be attracted to any piece for a while, slow or fast.
Thus, during a piano lesson, you might try playing a jaunty 8 bars of music to liven them up. Out of the blue. Play a Chico Marx riff for a moment.
Learning piano is hard work, and a child's smile creates more energy for themselves than all the commands you will issue that day.
Have you ever noticed how animated and excited a child becomes when there is fun, fast music playing? Part of the trick of kids music lessons is to get them to have that feeling during the lesson as well.
To accomplish this good mood, you need to think of a kid's piano lesson as a whole music experience. Consider these points: If you don't play them some good music today, nobody else will. If you have to, play a CD of some great classical music.
Try lively selections, like Herrold's ZAMPA Overture, or Beethoven's 7th Symphony. Let them dance and be boisterous to the music. Sober, serious study is for people who know why they will undertake such labor.
Childhood is for exploration and joy.
Never forget why people listen to music in the first place. They listen because it is pleasurable. No matter how difficult the work of learning the piano, you can dilute the frustration by demonstrating the reward. The reward is playing kid's music that is fun, not drudgery.
In infancy, music is rhythm. As a toddler, it is the shape of familiar tunes that are fun to listen to and to sing. For a youngster of 5 or 6 it is a mood shaper that tells you how to feel.
At the onset of puberty, music is your personal definition, what distinguishes you from your parents. The future musical taste of a child is nothing more than the sum what they have listened to.
Enrich the child's future musical taste by showing that music is a demonstration of joy. Then you may show the complexity of music, which is almost unlimited. You have to get a child to believe that making music at the piano is a joy. If you don't you will only teach them that the piano is meaningless drudgery at which they will never be good.
The primary motivation of any maturing child is to be good at something. Every child is naturally joyous. First get them to feel exuberant about the piano.
Popular music uses, in general, the "singer songwriter" style of piano. The melody is in the right hand, and the chords (groups of three keys) are played by the left hand. Using numbers for the melody makes it easier for the beginner because you don't need music reading skills to enjoy the easy popular songs you want to to play on piano.
Pop music is fairly easy to learn because it usually has a limited group of chords. "Louie Louie" has three chords, and most pop songs follow that easy formula. And you'll notice that most songs include the same chords, making it easy to learn one song after another. Once you've learned the chords to "Louie Louie," you have the basis of MILLIONS of songs that use the same structure.
This the story of a little girl who started lessons with me at about age six, and the rewards that come with patience. Come the pandemic, and I had to stop travelling to teach, but she continued with her lessons elsewhere.
Her lessons continued for about five years. In the beginning, she was taught entirely with numbers, and only discovered musical notation much later. Even so, she showed a quick understanding of notation, although like most kids she would get frustrated with it and revert to numbers.
She is the middle child of three daughters, and is the most volatile and humorous of all three. She was by her own admission and her friends (many of whom I taught) "crazy," but I knew that she was simply intoxicated with life, and excited about everything. Luckily she has a very understanding mom, and was never punished for such flights of personality.
Since she learned quickly and easily, we simply worked around her flights of fancy.
I would categorize her as a "furniture chewer," a child so hyperactive that it was often all I could do to get her to simply sit at the piano for a few moments. But she was bubbly, pleasant and intelligent, and capable of excellent work.
She was actually so funny (even her sisters found her amusing) that we nicknamed her "Miss Froot Loop" after the bunny in the cereal ad. She rarely sat still.
She made reasonable progress for about two years. The real inspiration was her older sister, a pianist as well, who wanted to be in recitals and competitions. Not to be outdone, Miss Froot Loop signed up for her first recital. Here it is, below. She was about six.
She missed a few notes, hesitated a bit, but was happy during the whole thing and very proud of herself.
Most teachers would have given up on her, finding her exhausting to teach. But I found her intelligent and hardworking, when she was inclined to do it.
By the time I left, she was progressing more and more and took a serious interest in getting better at piece after piece.
Below is a video from a year ago. Her Mom sent it to me, and it shows much greater command of the instrument. Notice her happy attitude.
Just a few days ago her Mom sent me another video, and she has progressed by leaps and bounds. Her performance below is expressive and musical.
She plays with dynamics (not just banging) and her timing shows her understanding of the musical content.
This is not a child's performance, but the beginnings of a young artist who was allowed to grow at her own pace.
The rewards of patience are that any kid, even Miss Froot Loop, can find their own way through the maze of beginning piano and come out a winner, given enough time and patience.
Real Children
Attention Span, Children and Piano
The Path of Least Resistance in Piano Lessons
The Piano Kid
Kid’s Piano Is Childish
Inside A Kid’s Piano Lesson Minute By Minute
The Pitfalls Of Personality In Children’s Piano
Piano By Number Video Tutorials
Teaching Kid’s Piano Is Impossible
Personality and Kid’s Piano
Don’t Start With Reading Music
The Piano Kid was short, maybe three feet tall, and he loved candy. He could play any piano song he set his mind to. He devoured piano music. It was nothing to him. Piano pieces that other kids his age (8) were fretting over were putty in his hands.
Then disaster struck. His Dad got involved. Dad was an Manhattan arbitrage lawyer, a very unpleasant man who was used to getting what he wanted. And Dad decided that his son should be able to read piano music at a high level, even though the kid was only ten and had great difficulty with reading music.
"I set my standards very high," he coldly informed me in his $10,000 suit. He had no musical skill or experience of any kind. although he loved classic rock hits. Dad was a tiger parent. He hovered over the lessons, offering helpful threats like, "Sit up straight or no dessert for you."
Or his classic growl, "Pay attention!" When he entered the room, his sons cowered. He lurked in the room next to the lessons, judging every move we made.
Finally Dad had enough of my "soft piano" approach. "I'm sending him to the Conservatory," he said bluntly. I won't say which one. The boy's afternoons of finding and playing songs came to an end.
I still taught many other kids in the neighborhood, and would see him in his yard playing ball sometimes. Finally two years later, we crossed paths on the way to my car, so I asked, "Still playing piano?" He hung his head. "No, I quit. They made it so boring."
I asked, "Don't you want to just play a song once in a while?" He shuffled. "I don't want to play any more." He shuffled back to the house of doom.
Real Children
The Rewards of Patience
Attention Span, Children and Piano
The Path of Least Resistance in Piano Lessons
Kid’s Piano Is Childish
Inside A Kid’s Piano Lesson Minute By Minute
The Pitfalls Of Personality In Children’s Piano
Piano By Number Video Tutorials
Teaching Kid’s Piano Is Impossible
Personality and Kid’s Piano
Don’t Start With Reading Music
A common mistake piano teachers make is to misjudge a child's attention span. Usually a piano teacher insists that the student follow their directions explicitly, and without interruption.
Any person who thinks this is a reasonable request from an American child at 4:00 PM after school is living in a dream world.
Remember, first of all, that children have a variation in attention span that can run from 60 seconds to ten minutes. It all depends on the day, the mood, and the setting. You have to take each child on an individual basis.
If the child has a playdate waiting, or it is a sunny day and they'd rather be outside, or they are in a bad mood, you will be facing an uphill fight. You need to learn how to be the solution to their problem, and not just another problem.
Thus you must learn to go with the flow, following their mood at first. Gently see what may be happily accomplished. After all, music and the piano are such vast subjects that a little digression is almost always illuminating and refreshing.
If this means you sit and tell them a funny story about Beethoven or James Brown or Elvis, do it. Perhaps this means the child embarks on a four minute digression about Minecraft. Sit and listen. When you see the child relax, you're on the right track.
A few days ago a child was bored, so I played a bit of a bluesy riff from James Brown, for no other particular reason except that it was catchy and uplifting. His ears stood up and he said, "Can you play the blues? My Dad loves the blues and so do I."
So we had a very happy half hour learning James Brown and the blues scale. He left that lesson very happy and proud, and returned that way.
I use humor and games as well to make the entrance into the "work" portion of the lesson as easy as possible. When I see the child has finally forgotten the cares they brought into the room, I spring into action and ask for a little real work.
Sometimes a child will play three notes of a song, and collapse again. I say, "Okay, three notes is your capacity, let's play the first three notes of every song we know and memorize them." And it works.
They happily start the game and we are launched into whatever that lesson will be. If I am careful to not be too demanding, we might get twenty minutes of valuable work done. Even so, I always pull back occasionally during this "work" period, deliberately veering into digression and humor for a few seconds so that they are smiling and ready for the next bit of work.
In some ways, what you are doing is teaching children how to master their mood and still have fun. That's a valuable lesson even for adults. A smiling child is the easiest possible person to teach.
Go with the flow, keep them smiling. Learn how to start real work at the right moment. 99% observation, 1% piano teacher: the opposite ratio is a recipe for disaster.
Real Children
The Rewards of Patience
The Path of Least Resistance in Piano Lessons
The Piano Kid
Kid’s Piano Is Childish
Inside A Kid’s Piano Lesson Minute By Minute
The Pitfalls Of Personality In Children’s Piano
Piano By Number Video Tutorials
Teaching Kid’s Piano Is Impossible
Personality and Kid’s Piano
Don’t Start With Reading Music
The inside of a kid's piano lesson is quite a drama, minute by minute. Part of the reason I am a piano teacher is to be there and witness this transformation, from beginner, to someone who can "think piano." The kids who learn piano the best are those whose parents or family members also play piano or music of some kind.
How can we ask our kids to try music/piano if we don't include it in our own lives? You don't have to be Paderewski or Beethoven. Expensive piano instruction is not needed. You can love country or classical or rock or gospel or rap or pop or anything. Listen to it, sing it, let your kids know that you think music is great.
Be like a sheep dog, watching the piano student and trying to see their process. I never care about my “piano instruction method." What matters is how the child is feeling moment to moment during the piano lesson.
Your concern should be about the student’s perception of the method, which is their “process.” The "method," whatever it is, numbers, letters, the old school, is useless unless appreciated by the student’s “process.”
The practical result of the above is that I proceed incredibly slowly but persistently. I include the concepts of sheet music after I have had the child play successfully at least two dozen songs by number. This can take months or years, or weeks or days. It depends on the child.
A nervous child makes a poor student. Set them at ease by lowering the bar imperceptibly until they are ready for more advancement. You are the gatekeeper to the mysteries of music. Judge the height of the entrant and lower the bar accordingly.
The mystery of piano instruction is that there is a secret door to each individual child’s perception of music. All you have to do is sit there and guide them until they find that magic door themselves, like blind men with no skill or tools.
It may be chords, it may be jazz, it may be Beethoven. But you'll have to find that key that opens it up for them. In most cases, it is simply fun. Apply fun and success comes out. Repeat.
You cannot force the moment wherein they perceive that they can play piano. It will come, and you can prepare them. If you force reading sheet music before you have adequately prepared the child, you lose the child as a willing, excited student.
If you lose the child it’s your fault, not theirs. Prepare them adequately, gently. It’s not easy to learn to read conventional sheet music. It takes time.
Indeed, an exceptional, brilliant child may indeed learn the skills of reading music in several minutes or days. I know, because I was one of them. I was seven when I learned to read music in about five minutes. I'm not bragging. I'm pointing out that reading music is a very specific skill, for which some children have "the knack" and other kids must be given "the knack."
But what about the other 99.99% of kids? Should these average, even gifted kids, be denied the wonders of playing piano music because they didn't have the skills necessary to read conventional sheet music?
Set limits that the child can realize right away. Break down the elements until the child easily scales each carefully graduated step. I teach 30 minute lessons for almost all kids. Here’s the log of a hypothetical but typical lesson with a child who has not yet started reading conventional music:
Is the child uneasy or happy? If they’re uneasy, haven’t “practiced” I play number games and joke around and play TV themes or Star Wars or some silly pop or folk song or game until they calm down and see that I’m rather easy to please.
Convince them piano instruction will be a fun, give and take, no-pressure sort of thing. I’m not serious in demeanor in any way. I don’t really care if they have practiced, because it’s impossible to enforce.
Remember that the goal is to get kids excited enough that they go to the piano by themselves. The goal is not to get kids to play some song they don’t understand like a robot. The goal is to get kids to play piano under their own steam, without forcing them.
My secret goal with each child is to be somewhere in between a game show host and drill sergeant, but I start out all game show host. It grabs even the most unprepared child. Who would you rather perform for, a game show host or some snarling negative military presence? These are kids, folks.
Assuming this is later than a first lesson, I try several skills to see what has stuck since their last lesson. I try a few songs by number, praising all the way if the child uses one or many fingers, slow or fast. Any initial effort is applauded if you see their attitude is clear and calm.
Even the most humble effort has in it something worthy of praise. A child who bumbles through a song like London Bridge but never loses their place has done something remarkable. Tell them about it. Tell them about how preachers and actors have to read from a book, too. They look up at people but not lose their place in the book.
A child who has been rightfully praised is readier for the next task. Whatever level of skill the child shows you is where you will start this lesson. It’s pointless to berate or even chide a child for not having mastered a particular skill from the last lesson. I never ever let a child know they have disappointed me.
Better to work with a positive attitude on that same skill again in this lesson, perhaps disguising the skill in a new way as a game. Don’t expect anything and you’ll be pleasantly surprised with some tiny accomplishment. Take that tiny something and build on it. If you can’t build on that tiny accomplishment, go back to earlier skills.
Never let them know they are being demoted from an attempt at a new skill. If you can’t seem to get the next skill launched, just pull back the difficult activity like a magician and go back to something easier. There’s never time lost in going back and cementing earlier skills.
Another secret of piano instruction is the bait and switch" maneuver. Go on to something else and come back again if they are confused. In fact I look for each skill to be almost automatic and offhand (finding keys, use both hands, flats and sharps) until I go onto another more complex skill.
This is the main work period of the lesson. They’re calm, they know it’s fun and fast and they aren’t being yelled at. They know the lesson is almost over. Why not have fun and learn this piano stuff? As soon as they are comfortable, we work on a general level of competence, playing recognizable songs that they either know or have heard of.
What songs do they like, I ask. Let’s play them! I often only let them play a bit of a song, whisking it away from them just as I see them get tired and confused. As soon as you put another song in front of them, they are refreshed and try again. It’s better to play just a bit of 25 songs than one long song, painfully slowly, all the way through.
Kids learn the same principles from a variety of simple pieces as from a tightly limited repertoire. Variety is refreshing. I play a game called “first line of the song” in which we zip through dozens of songs playing only the first line of the music, like a couple of greedy kids sampling chocolates.
If a child is really wandering, we play “first note,” in which we whisk through dozens of songs, and they only have to play the first note. The process is the same, but the kids have fun and don’t feel overworked. They learn the same thing no matter how long the task.
Look at the page and then press the piano key. Other kids will demand to play the entirety of certain songs. Sit back, help if needed, and be happy and praise them no matter how poorly they do. If they play poorly, don’t make them aware of it, but instead find the basic skill that eludes them. Never ever be negative. No matter how they do, it’s an honest effort.
You’ll get much further if you take mental note of what skill they failed at and then attempt later to find a way to present it. One of the great pleasures of piano instruction using this method is making up the games that allow the kids to learn. Always break the skills down to the lowest possible level. Make it easy to please you and kids will never stop trying.
Make it difficult to please you and only that .01% of genius kids will succeed. I bring new sheet music to each lesson. The kids come to expect it, and say, “What did you bring me?” Here are kids anticipating the new sheet music for the week, not a TV show or a junk food item.
No kid wants to play the same songs over and over until they find that first song they can’t seem to stop playing. All kids seem to find at least one special song that they can play from memory.
This song seems to be their way of saying, “See, I can play this great big piano all by myself!” Some kids love Star Wars, other Twinkle, Twinkle, or The Wigwam Song (a staple of early kids piano books.) I’ve had parents come to me and say, “Can’t you make him play another song? He plays it all day!”
I point out that when he’s good and ready he’ll move on, but for now you better sit down and listen to him play “that song” again, and praise him mightily. If the child wanders at all during the minutes 10-20, we play a quick game to blow off steam, then dive right back in.
By now the lesson has produced whatever advancement will be possible. All you can do now is cement the sense that piano is fun and easy to do. Be aware that the last 5 minutes of the lesson are practically useless. I always ask at 25 minutes, “How’s your brain doing? Getting tired?”
If the honest answer is “Yes,” we play a fun number or chord game or two, maybe play a line of a couple of songs, and then I let them go. These kids come back every week willing to do anything to try to learn to play piano. If the kids don’t come back, you can’t teach them.
Real Children
The Rewards of Patience
Attention Span, Children and Piano
The Path of Least Resistance in Piano Lessons
The Piano Kid
Kid’s Piano Is Childish
The Pitfalls Of Personality In Children’s Piano
Piano By Number Video Tutorials
Teaching Kid’s Piano Is Impossible
Personality and Kid’s Piano
Don’t Start With Reading Music
The path of least resistance in kid's piano is a path that will lead to much quicker progress by the child. Constrained by a method they hate, kids wilt. After they wilt, they resist the piano with every fiber of their being. I've seen it.
People often ask how I achieve such good results in my piano lessons. I’ll tell you how. Kids like my lessons because they want to be there. It’s as simple as that. I make piano lessons an enjoyable place to be.
It doesn’t matter if the child is inept, inattentive and untalented. I can still get them to play and enjoy it. Here’s my secret: the Path of Least Resistance. When the child enters the room, I am attentive to their mood, and their mood only.
Children are quixotic creatures, and a bright, sharp child may be dull and listless on another occasion.
I've learned to read a certain expression on kid’s faces, and this expression says, “I don’t want a piano lesson, I won’t resist you, but today I’m not interested.”
Even my very best, super-talented, accomplished kids wear that face occasionally. We’re all human. In such a situation, would you….
Proceed as usual, with the same expectations
Tell them to straighten up and pay attention
Ask them if they’ve practiced
None of the above.
The answer is to immediately occupy the same emotional space as the child.
For example, if a child doesn’t want a lesson, you should immediately create an environment totally unlike a normal lesson. You can……
Sit down and start playing interesting music and talk to them about it
Say, “Have you ever looked inside a piano?” Open the piano and take a tour
Suggest, “Here, you be the teacher. I’ll play and you tell me what to do.”
The first result will be that the child’s expectation of boredom is immediately dispelled. Whatever assignment they had can be forgotten momentarily.
Show the child why the piano interested you when you were their age. If you can’t do that, you can’t really teach children the piano. You might teach them to play a few notes, but you’ll never get them to love the instrument.
Most piano teachers have that backwards. They think that they first must get the child to play correctly in order for the child to love the piano.
But the truth is just the opposite.You must get the child to like the piano first. Then get them to play in however humble a fashion they can.
And it is impossible to get a child to love an experience (the conventional piano lesson) that is full of corrections, interruptions, guilt, embarrassment and fear.
First establish the correct feeling in the lessons, determined according to the child. Then, you can try to see what can be learned that day. If the child asks about chords, you go with chords. When the child wants to hear a certain song, you play it. If the child wants to make up a song, you compose with them.
Any basic concept of the piano can be taught using the idea the child is interested in. Abandon your curriculum, ostensibly, to explore the child’s current area of interest. I say “ostensibly” because you will find a way to teach some valuable element within the direction the child is leading you.
Sometimes, the path of least resistance in piano lessons leads to the best results.
Real Children
The Rewards of Patience
Attention Span, Children and Piano
The Piano Kid
Kid’s Piano Is Childish
Inside A Kid’s Piano Lesson Minute By Minute
The Pitfalls Of Personality In Children’s Piano
Piano By Number Video Tutorials
Teaching Kid’s Piano Is Impossible
Personality and Kid’s Piano
Don’t Start With Reading Music
Kid's piano is childish, meaning that it must be brought down to their level. Adjust the height of the bar to fit the age of the child.
There's nothing childish about kids piano, as taught by almost all piano teachers. But the opposite should be true.
The conventional teacher's approach is to usher the child immediately into the complex world of musical notation, with no introduction. There is no transition from what the child imagines the piano to be, to the reality presented by the teacher.
What does a child imagine playing the piano to be? Most children take their image from the music itself, usually bouncy and fun.
We, as adults, know that "bouncy and fun" takes a lot of work and skill to be done well. Kids have no idea how much work it will take to play something with "bounce and fun," according to the standards of a piano teacher. But it is a mistake to immediately inundate the child with the rudiments of the skills necessary.
Far better to find what the child can play easily that equates "bouncy fun" to them. It may not be fun for the teacher, but that is absolutely irrelevant. The worst mistake for the teacher is to assume that what the teacher feels is what the child feels.
A child can only feel what they do at the moment, they have little conception of moments beyond the present one.
To put it in terms a child understands, CHOPSTICKS and HEART AND SOUL are fine masterworks to which they can have immediate access. You won't have the same success with the original version of the MOONLIGHT SONATA.
Lower the bar to where the child lives, and raise it later, as they grow. Let the child set the height of the bar, and go from there.
Real Children
The Rewards of Patience
Attention Span, Children and Piano
The Path of Least Resistance in Piano Lessons
The Piano Kid
Inside A Kid’s Piano Lesson Minute By Minute
The Pitfalls Of Personality In Children’s Piano
Piano By Number Video Tutorials
Teaching Kid’s Piano Is Impossible
Personality and Kid’s Piano
Don’t Start With Reading Music
There are pitfalls of personality in children's piano of which a teacher should be aware. Some kids are not at all suited to regimented, repetitive effort. Kids sometimes have personal qualities that work against them in their efforts to learn the piano.
Even so, almost everything depends on the manner of the teacher. Usually it is the very bright, energetic child that may have a problem. The teacher needs to find an immediate channel for that energy.
I taught a girl today that was a "refugee" from a very strict piano teacher who had turned the child off to the piano completely. She is so relieved to have a sympathetic teacher that she becomes almost unhinged, bobbing about, talking like a magpie and generally exhibiting every quality of hyperactivity.
But I have found that she is exceedingly intelligent, and needs only someone patient enough to try to get the best out of her. This is exhausting for the teacher, like herding cats. But like a sheepdog, I have to slowly lead her back to the center and not break her spirit while doing so.
There is no other choice but patience with a child like this, for she was observant enough to catch me losing my cool when she continually wasted time.
"Am I annoying you?" she asked sweetly. I lied and said no. There is no advantage to be gained in that admission. Later, I thought perhaps I might have said, "No, but I want you to learn so you need to pay attention a little more."
But given her history with the strict teacher, I think it is still wise to back off. She is smart enough to know that I am trying to set a limit. But I am smart enough to wait and see if I can get her to apply herself without using guilt as fuel.
If guilt has a power of one, fun or love has a power of ten thousand. Patience always wins, just as a child's stubbornness often wins. As soon as you give in to impatience, the child's stubbornness wins.
Real Children
The Rewards of Patience
Attention Span, Children and Piano
The Path of Least Resistance in Piano Lessons
The Piano Kid
Kid’s Piano Is Childish
Inside A Kid’s Piano Lesson Minute By Minute
Piano By Number Video Tutorials
Teaching Kid’s Piano Is Impossible
Personality and Kid’s Piano
Don’t Start With Reading Music
Teaching kid's piano is impossible. Don't underestimate the difficulty in engaging today's child with the piano. Our competitors are the ipad, the internet, TV, shobiz, celebrity and a thousand other games, softwares, sites and technologies that hypnotize our youth.
Yet the piano is the world's oldest "computer," the first human attempt to digitize and simplify information. Only the abacus is older. The piano keyboard made making music easier than on any other instrument, such as the violin or flute. Even so, it is still hard to learn the piano.
Here are some of the problems. Children's fingers are extremely weak, leading them to believe they cannot play. Both adults and kids struggle with the graphic language of music. It's an 800 year old language which is so complex that it manages to describe perfectly every aspect of a piece of music.
For the untrained, musical notation is a nightmare of conflicting planes and dimensions. Learning the patterns of any song takes repetition, and lots of it. Adults have a tremendous advantage in learning the piano, because their brains are fully developed. Kids are trapped by the development of their brains, and their skills are dependent on their age.
Next comes personality and how well the piano method fits the child's needs and interests. Some kids are not suited to old-fashioned repetitious study at the piano. They need a teacher who will bend over backwards to get the child the experience and facility they need.
Sometimes kids don't get that sympathetic teacher, but rather a pedant or a slave driver.
Next consider the method used to teach the student, and the teacher. Try to steer clear of inflated expectations. You have to select a method exactly suited to the child. For some kids, the best method is right out of a book. For others, they need the teacher to make up a curriculum that engages and excites the child, perhaps not using a book.
All of the above difficulties are why I developed Piano By Number. To me, there was a missing step in piano lessons. It seems foolish to start out with the difficult language of music notation. You need to give the child a chance to simply make music first. Let them use their brains, eyes, fingers and common sense.
Real Children
The Rewards of Patience
Attention Span, Children and Piano
The Path of Least Resistance in Piano Lessons
The Piano Kid
Kid’s Piano Is Childish
Inside A Kid’s Piano Lesson Minute By Minute
The Pitfalls Of Personality In Children’s Piano
Piano By Number Video Tutorials
Personality and Kid’s Piano
Don’t Start With Reading Music
Personality is a huge factor in a kid's piano experience. "Let's start little Bobby with piano, he's only five, but he'll be great."
Unfortunately, Bobby's worst enemy at the piano is his own bubbly, engaging five year old personality.
He can't sit still, but he's smart as a whip. He chews the furniture with excess energy, but he knows his numbers and letters, and can read.
All his intellectual accomplishments barely prepare him for what the piano requires. The piano is a Mount Everest in many ways, and requires temperament to take the time to learn.
The piano requires the most intense concentration of almost any activity. Five year olds have an attention span of approximately 12 seconds. Guess what's going to happen. It is a question of temperament.
You may be very smart, but unless you're willing to sit still for a few seconds and watch what the teacher is showing you, you could fall seriously behind.
Unless of course you have a sympathetic, creative piano teacher who has seen this all before and knows how to deal with an explosive personality.
I have a kid right now, six years old, and he goes 250 mph with everything. He is obsessed with the Minecraft game and his mind is occupied with a thousand things other than piano.
He jumps like a flea from subject to subject, but is always eager to tell some endearing, childish story in the process.
So what is the solution? If he goes 250 mph I get in my jet and go 3500 mph.
He can't possibly keep up and starts to calm down and watch. I move through 20 activities in 5 minutes so that he cannot possibly have time to sink into his personality. He's too busy with the piano. Now he needs a rest!
This is exhausting for the teacher, like herding cats. But like a sheepdog, I have to slowly lead the child back to the center and not break their spirit while doing so. There is no other choice but patience with a child like this.
He was observant enough to catch me starting to get mad when he continually wasted time with constant digressions. “Are you getting annoyed with me?” he asked.
I lied and said no, for there is no advantage to be gained in that admission.
Children are aware of their mistakes. Move on with humor. Later, I thought perhaps I might have said, “No, but I want you to learn so you need to pay attention a little more.”
But he still got the idea his behavior was a little off without me getting mad. If guilt has a power of one, love has a power of ten thousand.
Patience always wins, just as a child’s stubbornness often wins. As soon as you give in to impatience, the child’s stubbornness wins.
REFERENCES
Real Children
The Rewards of Patience
Attention Span, Children and Piano
The Path of Least Resistance in Piano Lessons
The Piano Kid
Kid’s Piano Is Childish
Inside A Kid’s Piano Lesson Minute By Minute
The Pitfalls Of Personality In Children’s Piano
Piano By Number Video Tutorials
Teaching Kid’s Piano Is Impossible
Don’t Start With Reading Music
I devised stickers for reading music because I was tired of kids guessing where the notes were. I wanted a system based on exactly what they could see, not a group of unseen and unstated rules.
The old method involves two bits of memorization: One, the child memorizes the names of the notes as they appear on the page. Two, the child then memorizes the name of each key on the piano, and correlates the two, the name of the note, and the name of the key.
I Can Read Music e Book Download
This is all well and good, but kids are not always good at memorization. And if they can't remember the names of the notes, they have great difficulty remembering the names of the keys. Thus what is needed is a system based solely on what the child can see on the page and on the keys.
On the keys, we place six stickers, five blue and one red:
The five blue stickers are the five lines of the musical staff. The five blue stickers denote the location of the five lines of the staff (see below.) The red sticker shows the location of Middle C.
By giving kids a reference point (the stickers) we allow them to develop visual habits and associations more quickly. The first habit to instill is the ability to find Middle C. It is the center of the reading music universe.
This is Middle C (denoted by the RED sticker) and is the first note that kids learn at the piano.
Look through some pages of music in, for example, a book such as I CAN READ MUSIC, and help the child identify the graphic symbol for the note Middle C (the symbol directly above this, the circle with the little line through it.)
Look below for a page with lots of Middle C’s to find:
Make a contest of it, saying “Who can point to Middle C on the page first?” Then let them win every time after a few tries. Go through page after page, making a game of finding Middle C on the page. Every piano method is the same: they concentrate on the first five notes above Middle C. This requires a little exploration by kids.
Quiz them about the staff (the five lines and the spaces between) constantly:
Ask them how many spaces are there? How many lines are there? Point to a space. Ask them to point to a line. Point to a note. Is it on a line or a space? Point to another note. Line or space?
They haven't even tried yet to learn the names of the notes. Kids are occupied enough with the task of building visual habits, of really looking at the page.
Reading Music
Why Delay Reading Music
What Comes After Numbers In Kid’s Piano
You Say Read, I Say Play
Reading Music for Kids Step By Step
The Basic Piano Curriculum for Kids
The Transition From Numbers To Notes
Preventing Kid’s Struggle To Read Music
Resistance To Reading Music Is Age Based
Stay Sane Teaching Kids To Read Music
Helping Children Read Music
Helping Your Child Find Middle C
What Kids Understand About Sheet Music
An Effective Strategy for Kids Reading Music
How To Help Kids Read Music
The Battle To Read Music
Why Is Middle C So Important?
What Comes After Numbers?
Start With Numbers, Then Read Music
Start Kids With Numbers, Then Read Music
Helping Children Read Music
From Numbers To Notes
Why Kids Resist Reading Music
How To Help Your Kids Read Music
Start With Numbers, Then Read Music
Beginner Piano Sheet Music for Kids
Don’t Start With Reading Music
Easy Piano Songs Sheet Music
Piano Letters
Beginner piano sheet music for kids usually consists of exercise pieces which are neither recognizable nor fun. These pieces are created to illustrate an abstract musical concept, not interest a child in the piano. A far better strategy is to select familiar songs the child knows, and then find a simple musical language to use.
Some methods use symbol stickers such as animals or colors as a beginner piano language. The reason for this is that sheet music is very hard for young beginners to understand. In fact, it is the leading cause of kids quitting the piano.
I Can Read Music e Book Download
What we recommend is using numbers, since the basis of all musical construction is mathematical. In addition, all kids above the age of three understand numbers, making it an easy way to start. We number the keys as in the drawing below.
The easiest way to start kids at the piano is to use songs on the white keys. Kids find the white keys a readily understandable stairway with evenly spaced "stairs" (keys.)
Try a few of these songs on the online piano below.
Jingle Bells
| 3 3 3 * | 3 3 3 * | 3 5 1 2 | 3 * * * |
You Are My Sunshine
| * 1 1 2 | 3 * 3 * | * 3 2 3 | 1 * 1 * |
Twinkle Twinkle
| 1 1 5 5 | 6 6 5 * | 4 4 3 3 | 2 2 1 * |
[piano]
Once a child has started many songs via numbers, it is easy to slowly introduce the elements of sheet music. Starting with numbers and then later reading music is a proven success for kids. The transition from numbers to notes is easy once the child is interested in the piano.
Starting with sheet music is usually a recipe for disaster. The child, whose brain is not ready for such complexity, becomes frustrated and may quit because the piano has been made into a difficult exercise Far better to start at the child's level. There will be time enough to explore sheet music once the child is interested and excited in the piano.
Reading Music
Why Delay Reading Music
What Comes After Numbers In Kid’s Piano
You Say Read, I Say Play
Reading Music for Kids Step By Step
The Basic Piano Curriculum for Kids
The Transition From Numbers To Notes
Preventing Kid’s Struggle To Read Music
Resistance To Reading Music Is Age Based
Stay Sane Teaching Kids To Read Music
Helping Children Read Music
Helping Your Child Find Middle C
What Kids Understand About Sheet Music
An Effective Strategy for Kids Reading Music
How To Help Kids Read Music
The Battle To Read Music
Stickers for Reading Music
Why Is Middle C So Important?
What Comes After Numbers?
Start With Numbers, Then Read Music
Start Kids With Numbers, Then Read Music
Helping Children Read Music
From Numbers To Notes
Why Kids Resist Reading Music
How To Help Your Kids Read Music
Start With Numbers, Then Read Music
Don’t Start With Reading Music
Easy Piano Songs Sheet Music
Piano Letters