Skip to content
Piano Books Require The Right Teacher
Piano books are useless without the right teacher. The manner of the teacher filters the child's experience. For example, I am teaching my grand-niece online via webcam. We started using numbers, and the child is remarkably quick at picking up the physical sense of the keyboard. Then came reading music, which we started after three months of lessons. Reading music exhausted her.
Piano Is Easy
Use Numbers As Relief From Reading
Every time she waned in interest and energy, I steered away from reading music to lessen her exhaustion. You have to sense the student's fatigue, It is easy to tell a child's interest level by the tone of their voice. When reading music, she became subdued and listless.
It's Not The Book, It's How You Use It
The key to her interest was not the music reading book we were using. It was more important to use music reading sparingly. Most piano teachers use only books with notes. They allow no learning of fun pop songs, no letting her choose a Beethoven piece to play, no exploring music that interested her. It was all notes.
Teach Them Piano Is A Fun Machine
She was wide-eyed and incredulous, because she had been carefully taught at first that the piano was a fun machine, not a source of drudgery. She was more than willing to enter into a subject that carried the baggage of drudgery (reading music.)
This was because I carefully controlled how much of this subject she consumed. It is not the actual content that matters to a child, it is the manner in which it is presented. It's not the piano book, it's how you use it.
REFERENCES
Piano Teaching
Using Piano in the K-12 School Classroom
So You Want To Be A Piano Teacher?
The Art of Teaching Children’s Piano
Piano Starting Methods
Starting A New Child Piano Student
Even A Good Piano Teacher Has A Bad Day
What Sort Of Piano Teacher Are You?
Carrot and Donkey: Find The Interest In The Piano
What’s The Point of Piano Lessons?
Patient Piano Teachers, Pro and Con
How To Find A Good Piano Teacher
Teaching Children’s Piano
Piano Lesson Minute By Minute
A Short History of Piano Methods
Piano Fun for the Teacher, Fun for the Kids
