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Soft Piano vs. Hard Piano
Soft piano vs. hard piano is a debate that has only emerged in the last 25 years. The reason the debate arose is the utter failure of conventional piano methods. I’ll tell you exactly what critics of “soft piano” methods say: “Piano cannot be made easy.” “Easy piano methods instill bad habits.” “Only the conventional manner is acceptable. Anything less is cheating the child.” “’Soft piano’ is diluting music education.” Let’s take those four statements and examine them.
Piano Is Easy
Beginning Piano Cannot Be Made Easy
Essentially they are right. You can’t make the Rachmaninoff Concerto #2 easier. Yes, there are obvious standards. The piano curriculum is quite codified and clearly laid out in ascending levels of difficulty. But it is the beginning of children’s piano lessons that concerns us. Unless you can get the child to continue with lessons, it matters not what method you use. A bored child is a bored child.
Thus, we are not talking about making piano easy forever, but only at the most crucial point, the beginning.The dogmatists are insistent. You learn to read music first, and nothing else matters, period.Anything else is heresy, and thus “soft piano.”The dogmatists don’t really care if your child learns, in their own peculiar, slow way.
The dogmatists will be quick to brand your child a failure when they fail at the method.They'll find another parent who believes, “The old method is the only way.”Their concern is income from lessons with the least trouble to themselves. Your child’s unique experience of the piano does not matter.
Play A Song With Numbers
Soft Piano Instills Bad Habits
There’s no doubt that learning the piano is learning to have a series of habits.Correct hand position, good fingering instincts and muscular dexterity are all prime traits of a professional pianist, along with a thousand others.Without them, you really cannot scale the Everests of the piano literature.But the kids aren’t “mountain climbers” yet, and are not even really “hikers” of the piano.
They are crawling into an intellectual and physical world unlike any other.You as their teacher would do well to make their first experiences very enjoyable.You need continued, enthusiastic attendance, which is a minimum requirement for learning the piano.Rather than treat the children like sober cadets committed to the cause, why not treat kids like voters, who must be wooed and reasoned with?
Such indulgence pays off later, a thousand-fold. Never forget that the worst posture you can have at the piano is not wanting to sit at the piano and play. Yet that habit, not wanting to play, is the prime skill most piano teachers unconsciously instill first. The teacher then expects rapt obedience.
They "accomplish" this feat with an unsympathetic attitude and lots of rote repetition. The reverse is true. You’ll need repeated, happy attendance at the piano to instill good habits of any kind.
Soft Piano Cheats The Child
How wrong. “Hard” piano courses are doomed statistically to failure even by admitted industry standards. Nine out of ten kids fail using conventional piano methods alone. These methods are usually restricted to reading music. I refer to Faber, Bastien, Alfred and all the other ancient methods that are derived from Czerny.
The truth about these books is that kids hate everything except the pictures. I have spent thousands of hours with kids and these books. They are a useful side dish, but never the main course. So if you don't tailor the piano curriculum the child, you will cheat them of their individual “piano experience.” They will hate it and quit. This effectively ends your child’s first and perhaps only attempt at the piano.
They may try later in life. But they will remember their childhood experience as unpleasant and, well, “hard.” Anything that does not convince the child to explore the piano as a fun activity is a bad thing. It cheats the child of possible continued interest in the instrument. These are children, after all. Use common sense, horse sense, child sense.
Remember the "Horse Whisperer." He puts the rope around then horse's neck, and then lays it on the ground. He doesn't yank on the rope. He lets the horse decide when it is comfortable to be led around by the rope. Eventually, the horse cooperates fully.
Soft Piano Dilutes Music Education
Soft piano actually does the opposite. I am forwarding music education, specifically piano. I am attracting and keeping far more children as students. You must turn them into avid players at whatever skill level they are comfortable with. Conventional piano lessons keep one out of ten kids. That is nine who are lost forever to the piano experience. And you wonder why piano stores all over the USA are closing. It's the teachers fault, not the students.
"Hard piano," conventional lessons, delete children from the pool of possible players by making them fail in such numbers. Music education is thus diluted by an unneccesarily high failure rate. Eventually, using hard piano, you will have no students to teach.They will all be on their iphones and computers. It has been happening for 30 years.
Institutional Piano Methods
I regard institutional standards and the book methods (Faber, Bastien,Alfred) that support them as irrelevant in the teaching of the piano to young children. All that matters is the child’s experience of piano lessons. Piano by Number does the same, on a larger scale. Any device that allows people to become avidly interested in the piano is good.
Think of the cultural circle. With more liberal methods, you will have more piano players who buy instruments, who attend concerts, who buy CDs, who employ musicians. It is an endless cultural loop that is fueled at the beginning by children. These kids are the future of music and the piano. The more children you interest in music, the more robust your musical culture.
Right now, there is no American musical culture for children other than the wasteland of Disney. If you want the piano to disappear from children’s lives then make it as difficult as possible.
REFERENCES
Piano Teaching Style
If It’s Fun For The Teacher, It’s Fun For The Kids
Piano Methods and Children’s Personalities
The Backwards Piano Method
Reverse Psychology and Children’s Piano
Help Your Child Enjoy The Piano
Ten Rules for A Pleasant Piano Teaching Atmosphere
If You’re Having Fun, You’re Not Learning
The Difference Between the Worst and Best Piano Teacher
A Piano Teacher’s Emotions
A Pleasant Piano Lesson Atmosphere
The Use of Humor in Piano Lessons
Make Use of Your Student’s Sense of Humor
The Piano Whisperer
Fitting the Piano Method to the Child
Why I Teach Piano
Advice To A Young Piano Teacher
Teaching Children's Piano
Guilt Is The Wrong Way To Buy Attention
The Piano Teacher’s Tone of Voice
Knowing When To Back Off
Piano Candy: The Case For Bribery
Why Nagging Your Child To Practice Won’t Work
How To Make Your Kids Love The Piano
Teaching Kid’s Piano Is Like Herding Cats
Repeated Victory Will Make You Invincible
Ratio of Talk To Activity in Piano Lessons
On Which Side of the Piano Do You Teach?
Setting the Mood Of Children’s Piano Lessons
Why Kids Succeed At The Piano
Child Pianists Are Like Guide Dogs
The Purpose Of The First Five Piano Lessons
The Real Goal Of Children’s Piano Lessons
The Philosophy Of Piano For Kids
How Simple Should Piano Lessons Be?
Piano Toys You Should Bring To A Lesson
Fun Kid’s Piano
Joyful Piano Lessons
The Invisible Piano Method
A Patient Piano Teacher
Make Beginning Piano Simple
The Reverse Piano Method
Nurture Your Piano Students
Against Disciplinarian Piano Teachers
