Piano for Kids

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.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 at 8:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.