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Two Note Chords for Younger Kids
Two note chords for younger kids on the piano is an invention that fits the capabilities of young hands. It sets up the correct position for three note chords. The simplest place to start learning chords for kids is to try to acquaint the child with the concept of skipping a piano key. Children are most at home with adjacent piano keys at first.
This is natural, like the way a toddler laboriously lumbers up each step of a stairway. You don’t notice toddlers skipping stairs at first. It is the same with piano keys. If a child is able to move comfortably from one adjacent white key to the next, then they are ready to skip over keys, like the game leapfrog.
Skipping Keys
Make a game of skipping over keys. Thus, in Piano by Number that would be playing the keys 1 and then 3, or 2 and then 4. I call it Skippy. In this game, the child has to find all the skipped intervals they can on the piano, using only white keys. If they play two white notes at the same time, separated by a key not played, it is a chord.
Have them play every chord they can find, with two fingers. I suggest the 2nd and 3rd fingers because they are the strongest. Children use those two fingers as a unique tool. It is their instinctive choice of fingers, anyway.
Awareness Of The Black Keys
The next step involves the black keys, as an aid to finding chords infallibly at the piano. Anything that promotes awareness of the groupings of the black keys is a victory. The lowest key (furthest left) determines the name of the chord. That is, the name of the lowest key (furthest to the left) is the name of the chord. Two skills are required for a child to do this. Kids must distinguish left from right and groups of two black keys from groups of three black keys.
At this point perhaps you are beginning to see how multi-skilled even the simplest actions are at the piano, especially to a child who is only now acquiring those very motor skills.
Distinguish Left From Right
To distinguish left from right, I use a glissando. I use it as part of a little game that we play every time they complete a task. When they complete a small task, I make mock celebration out of it, and play a sort of vaudeville ending riff (F, G and then C chords.) At the end of this vaudeville, I add a quick glissando upwards, which I train them to respond to by hitting the very top white key on the piano.
It’s like a musical period on the end of a sentence. They love this. You can teach many things with it, like timing and planning. But the real point of the Vaudeville Ending Game is to give children a natural sense of direction at the piano.
Up Down Left Right
The prime piano skill for kids is up/down. That is difficult to grasp sometimes on a topsy-turvy instrument like the piano, where up is right and down is left. I vary the game, and sometimes playing a glissando going down. In that case they have to scramble for the lowest key on the piano. Regardless of which type of glissando I play, the comic question is always posed, “Which direction was that, up or down?”
You have to play this game and ask this question a thousand times until they suddenly get it, and then one more skill is under their belt. Every other skill at the piano depends on this.
Using The Black Keys As Landmarks
Once they know left from right, you can say, “A C chord is just to the left of the two black keys.” If they can observe the group of two black keys, another giant task in itself, they can then find C chords all over the piano.
I find it easiest to put a C sticker on the first C below Middle C, and another on Middle C. The reason for this reassurance strategy is simple: I don’t want them to fumble finding chords, because the flow of music will collapse and they won’t enjoy it.
Keep The Music Going
Anything that keeps the music going is a victory; anything that stops the music has to be fixed when appropriate. That’s why stickers make sense and produce results. Besides, you can always remove the stickers suddenly and see how they do without them, involving an entirely separate group of memory games.
Strangely enough, about 50% of the kids who start out with stickers will ask for them to be removed when they feel ready. Follow the child’s lead and keep the music going. The more a child feels they are reproducing a recognizable piece of music, the more they will want to try it further. It’s far easier to teach a child who is interested and has been engaged on their level. Once you engage a child’s real attention, they are ready to be transported patiently to somewhere higher.
REFERENCES
Chords
Kids Learn Chords
Basic Piano Chords For Kids
Root Position Chords
First Inversion Chords
Second Inversion Chords
Two Note Chords For Kids
Six Basic Chords For Kids
What Is A Root Position Chord?
Chords for Kids
