Piano for Kids

Several years ago Hillary Clinton wrote the book It Takes a Village to Raise a Child.  There is great truth in the words of the book’s title, and for you piano students you are an important part of that Village.  Any teacher can have a great positive influence on a child, but a piano teacher has a unique opportunity to do so.  If a child comes to you at the age of 4 or 5, you could very likely be part of that youngster’s life for 13 years.

A school teacher can see a student five days a week for about nine months, then the child moves on the next year to a different teacher.  Each teacher will leave their own unique imprint on the child’s life.  However, as a piano teacher, you see the child once a week for as many as 48 weeks out of a year for 13 years.  The child grows up before your eyes.  You get the privilege of watching them change as they develop from a child to a young man or woman ready to walk out into the adult world.  What a wonderful opportunity and honor for you.

That is why it is so important that your teaching techniques be positive and supportive.  Yes, a student must be corrected, but corrections can be phrased in a positive way by explaining to the child why the correction is necessary.

Put yourself in your student’s shoes and try to see the situation through the child’s mind.  Doing so will help you approach your teaching in a positive, warm, and loving way, thus creating a constructive learning environment.

Any of you that have read more than one of my blogs have probably figured out that I truly believe in, and love, teaching piano, a job that often calls me to teach very young children.  If any of you are considering teaching piano as a part time job, or even a full time career, I truly want to encourage you to do so. 

It does take a lot of patience and persistence to teach piano especially to very young children.  The creation of the Animal Notes has helped me more than I can ever measure.  They have made success with the little ones much easier. 

When a child comes to you, they don’t realize what it is going to take to truly learn to make wonderful music on the keys of the piano.  They have no way of understanding the complexity of the instrument.  The rewards of helping them learn and succeed are beyond bounds.  The smiles on their faces when they are complimented on their performance at their first recital, the joy they feel when they have actually gained enough confidence to practice at home, and the joy of hearing a parent tell you, “Our child is so enjoying this that we are all loving it.”  Yes, all of this will happen and more.  The day will come when a child you have taught since they were very young will come to her/his lesson telling you that they are playing the music for a school play, accompanying a solo at church, performing in a school talent show, or have won first place in a piano competition. 

Your rewards as a teacher are worth all the effort you have put into your teaching.  The hours of helping a young child learn with love, patience, understanding, persistence, and, yes, even the Animal Notes are so worthwhile that I want to encourage every individual who is thinking about teaching piano to give it a try. 

It is very important to be calm, positive and patient when teaching piano to very young children.  At times they are going to act like they just don’t have a clue what you are talking about. 

Most young children do not know what you are talking about when you ask them to use their left hand; they will in most cases use their right hand instead.  They honestly do not know what you are talking about because they are too young to have that knowledge firmly planted into their minds.

After lots of trial and error, this is my solution to the problem.  First I teach them that the Treble Clef normally holds all the notes above Cat (middle C) and the Bass Clef normally holds all the notes below Cat (middle C).  I have them play notes going up from Cat and we talk about how their “voices” get higher.   Then we go down from Cat and talk about how the voices get lower.  I then ask them which hand they would play the high notes or Treble Clef notes with.  They will usually place their right hand in the appropriate area of the keyboard.  Ok, what hand does that leave for the low notes or Bass Clef Notes?  The left hand goes to its proper position.  For the fun of it I will have them try to play notes with the left hand on the Treble Clef Notes and the right hand on the Bass Notes.  They will normally have a very confused expression, but a few want to be smart about it and play that way.  I let them play a couple of Animal Note pieces, and they are ready to do it the right way. 

Now I start calling their right hand the high note hand and the left hand their low note hand.  As that gets well established, I add “the right hand is for the high notes” and “the left hand is for the low notes”, which helps them accept and recognize which of their hands is the right and which is the left.

Doing this has helped them not only in music, but in life.

You’re right, this is a really tough one; but there are very good reasons why the problem exists.

It is difficult it get any beginning student to practice on their own.  Note reading is difficult and discouraging.  Four to seven year olds are just too young to understand that learning to play the piano is worth all the effort it takes.  The Animal Notes help a lot with this as it is easy for young children to recognize the notes, but the Animal Notes are not always enough to get a very young child to go to the piano at home and play the piece or pieces that have been assigned.  Self-discipline, which develops over time, is needed. Helping the child develop good practice habits will enable them to build the self-discipline they will need for the routine of school homework.

OK, we as teachers know we are facing a difficult problem, but it is not a mountain that can not be climbed.  After much trial and error, I personally have found that my lessons with very young children are divided into two major parts, one for working on learning the notes and timing, the other for practice.  I work these two parts together.  As we start a new song, I ask the child to identify the notes, tell me about the notes, and what they have used to identify the note, reinforcing the location.  The child then plays the song a couple of times.  We talk about what was good and what needs to be corrected. Then I ask the child to play the piece again.  If the piece is short, we start another song and repeat the process.  I then ask the child to play the two new songs one more time giving praise when I can and making needed corrections.  I then ask the child to play two or three of their old songs that they really like, followed by one more “go” at the new songs.  Sometimes I will choose a couple of old songs to insure the child is reviewing specific problem areas I feel are most important to the individual. This is followed once again by the two new songs.  This has helped the child play the new songs about six times.

 It’s amazing how playing a song six times at age’s four to seven implants the song into the child’s mind.  The child has practiced without even knowing it.  I encourage the youngster to have a concert of the new pieces for his/her family after supper that night.  They are always so excited when this works out, and the parents show pride in their progress.  Of, course, this is not always possible with every family schedule, so I ask the parent that picks up the child to try to find time for it whenever possible.