Faber's Piano Adventures -- thoughts?

[Momling]

We are getting a piano for Christmas and I'm so excited to start my girls with lessons. I am a fairly decent pianist and I think I should be able to teach them for a year or two without running into problems. I went through the John Thompson series as a kid (from Teaching Little Fingers to Play to the Grade 5 book), so I only know that series... but I know there's a lot more available now. For them, I'm looking at the Piano Adventures series.

 

Here are my questions:

 

It looks like they have the regular series for ages 7-9, the accelerated version for ages 10+ and the younger series for ages 5-6. Should both my girls learn from the same book? I have a pretty immature 6.5 yr old and a weirdly mature 8.5 yr old. I doubt either are blessed with prodigious musical talent, but I'm sure they'd do okay.

 

Should I get all the components of the level (lesson/performance/theory/technique)?

 

What are the "Pre-time to Big-time" books about? I'm assuming they're additional pieces to play? Are they leveled within each book? Are they worth getting?

 

About how long should I expect each lesson to be?

 

Thanks!

[Starr]

Our children started out with these. There first lessons were 1/2 hour but practice was better with someone at the piano as well.

[suzf242]

I am also a pianist and doing Faber with dd8. We started last year. I would get the same books for both girls to start. If your 6yo is too immature, you could either wait a year or get the book for younger children (don't remember the name off the top of my head).

 

We use the lesson, theory and technique books. I also buy hymnbooks and Christmas books for dd at her level, which she enjoys.

 

You would have to gauge your lessons and assignments to your girls' attention spans. I try to assign enough work that dd will have 15 to 20 minutes of practice a day. We can usually review a lesson in 30 minutes.

 

Hope your lessons go well!

 

Take care,

Suzanne

[Suzanne in ABQ]

I used the regular Faber (not Adventures) for my kids for a year. Dd had already had a couple years of piano (Faber, with a teacher) before we moved, so I started younger ds with her old books. We did that for a year, and it worked fine.

 

Then, I got them a new teacher. He kept them both in Faber, but switched ds to the Adventures series. He thought it would help him to have his own music, and not be comparing himself to his older sister all the time. He was right for my kids. Yours might not have that problem.

 

I wouldn't try to put your 6yo in the older level books, especially since you say she is immature. I'd either wait on piano, or start her on the younger level. If cost is an issue, you could try having them share books, but don't expect too much from her. Keep it light and fun, and see how she does.

 

Definitely use all the books together (lesson, technique, theory). It's easy to do because all the supplements are keyed to the lesson book. The performance book is optional. You don't need to do all the songs in it. But, my dc enjoyed the performance pieces more than the lesson songs. You could hold off on that for your little one.

[flyingiguana]

It seemed like a good series to me, but the only books my kids would use were the popular songs repertoire. They pretty much taught themselves piano with those alone.

 

You might not want to bother with the popular repertoire books for the first couple levels, but by the 3rd level or so they actually are kind of interesting. After finishing the 5th level popular repertoire book, my younger one went right into standard classical music. She's now playing advanced music (Bach inventions and preludes, Brahms' Rhapsody etc), so skipping the lesson books didn't really hamper her. (The older one just got sidetracked by other instruments and didn't go so far with piano.)

 

I think it's really important to have the kids interested in what they're playing rather than worrying about doing all the lessons in the books.

 

The only piano teacher my kids ever had was me, so it's certainly possible to teach your kids yourself.