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Helping Children Read Music
If helping your children read music and enjoy the piano is the goal, think carefully about the piano book with which you start. And choosing the right piano teacher is crucial. Do you remember your childhood piano lessons, with all those uninteresting exercises?
Exercises comprise the entire curriculum of famous book methods, such as Bastien, John Thompson, Alfred, Faber and all the others. Go look in your piano bench where you keep the piano books from your childhood.
Piano Is Easy
Time Honored Methods
Faber, Bastien, Alfred and John Thompson. We use all these books, but only after we have sparked a child’s enthusiasm. You must get them to play songs that are familiar to them, right away, from the first second of their first lesson.
The only real use I have for these old texts is to teach kids how to sight read. The music is so boring that it is laughable. But we keep reading, a little bit at a time.
The Missing Step
We use the Piano By Number format before we ever attempt to introduce children to the daunting complexities of reading sheet music. Piano lessons have to get off to a fun, quick start. A slow start ensures a lost battle. The truth is that Piano By Number seeks only one thing: to get your children happily started playing piano.
It is far better to get started being happy playing simple music, rather than being mystified and frustrated by sheet music. The vast majority of our supporters are parents who have actually tried our method. They are wildly enthusiastic, because Piano By Number yields immediate results.
No Fun, No Future
These lucky children love the piano and want to play music. Once they have started Piano By Number, they are ready to brave the difficulties of learning how to read sheet music. Starting Piano By Number assures a higher success rate with reading music later. We don’t want to eliminate sheet music. We just want children to get started playing piano with enthusiasm.
The Psychology Of Children
Conventional piano methods are like teaching first graders algebra. Of course children hate it. It is incomprehensible, at least to their developing brains. Children need to start with 2 plus 2 equals 4, and then move slowly towards the complexities of sheet music and algebra.
Piano By Number is exactly like 2 plus 2 equals 4. It is baby simple, and children understand it from the first second they see it. Later, they move on to more complex languages. Piano By Number is much like phonics for reading.
Start At The Child's Speed
Numbers are a language that any child already understands. A kindergarten child understands counting, and already embraces it as a learning process that brings them success and praise from adults.
The problem with sheet music methods is that they do not take into account the psychology of children: if you make a child feel like a failure at something, they are not going to be willing to keep trying to learn it.
Piano lessons are no different. Children say “goo goo,” before “mama,” crawl before they walk, talk before they read. Let them play music before they read music. Let them add 2 plus 2 before they attempt algebra.
Piano By Number is as valuable an educational tool as phonics is for reading.
REFERENCES
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 Your Child Find Middle C
What Kids Understand About Sheet Music
An Effective Strategy for Kids Reading Music
How To Read Music For Kids
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
Beginner Piano Sheet Music for Kids
Don’t Start With Reading Music
Easy Piano Songs Sheet Music
Piano Letters
