Many Young Piano Students Don’t Know Their Right Hand From the Left
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.
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