Piano Curriculum Suggestions

[ShelzNH]

I am looking for a piano curriculum. I am willing to spend some money if need be. I know that there are some keyboards that plug into your PC or whatnot. Has anyone had any experience with these. I want some music instruction for my kids but with gymnastics, boy scouts, co-op, CBS, blah blah blah I really would like to keep it at home at least for now until or unless one of my kids showed real interest in taking it further.. My children are 9 and 12 Any shared experiences would be great! Thank you!

[precious4b]

I teach beginner piano lessons and I've used both Bastien and Alfred's series and both are good. I recently began teaching some younger students with Little Mozarts by Alfreds and it teaches piano and music theory through a story about Mozart Mouse and Beethoven Bear. This might be too elementary for your children though. The newest books I just began using with my 5,6,& 7 year old are the Faber series: My First Piano Adventures for Beginners and it's great very colorful and has cool characters that teach different elements of music. Hope that's not too much info. Your best option is to go look at a music store that sells piano lesson books to give you a chance to look through them yourself and see what appeals to you and would fit your kids. Just like school curriculum some fit you better than others :)

[Ecclecticmum]

We use Musiq program.

 

It is computer based (well the software & keyboard is). If you get the proper programs, they come with a teachers manual that leads you through the lesson (theory, history, games, & the directs you to the "appropriate room" ) My daughter has just begun the Year 1 of Early elementary, but they have many different programs & levels. Right now she's being taught by "Mr." Beethoven ;) Then she does practice with Miss Melody, and theres games rooms and other rooms ('fraid I don't know much about all the rooms, once she sequestered into the "Lessons" I slink off to enjoy some hot chocolate :tongue_smilie: She enjoys it.

 

They are currently fixing up their site at the moment, so the links here aren't working right now (not the page, but links within it) If you scroll to the bottom of this it shows you the "stores"

 

http://www.adventus.com/musiq-homeschool/

 

There is a monthly subscription option (I think for "online" software")

The Early Elementary (4-9/10)

And the Multi-Level Curriculum Store (10+ which would probably be your one, this program looks a little more serious than mine, it will be the one we move onto in the latter stages)

 

Your program would probably include (look here for details: http://www.adventus.com/store/ ) The Piano Suite Premier & 1-2 of the Ear Training Coach Softwares

 

Heres more details about the Piano Suit Premier Software: http://www.adventus.com/store/piano-suite-premier/

 

Sorry that there are so many links lol, but since a couple of the links are down from them fixing up their site, I had to go on a little merry go round and thought it may be easier for you to have direct links to each bit of information :)

 

HTH xxx :grouphug:

[GingerPoppy]

I don't know much about them, but the Simply Music videos might be what you're looking for. You can get more information through the Homeschool Buyers' Coop.

 

My favourite books are Piano Adventures, but I think they're best used with a teacher (if you have some music background, they might be a place to start).

[duckens]

I have purchased the Piano Wizard set, and I am incredibly NOT IMPRESSED.

 

1) One has to jump through several computer steps to be able to play, instead of just turning on and the keyboard to play.

 

2) The cheapo keyboard that came with it didn't even last a year. It's great value was in taking it apart with dd one night to see how keyboards are put together. The replacement keyboard we bought for $100 is of far superior quality to the one that came with Piano Wizard.

 

------------------------------------------------------

 

Do you have any music background of your own? If you do, then try to teach your kids yourself.

 

1) This is a second vote for "My First Piano Adventures." Buy both the lesson book and the writing book, and see how the two books coordinate very nicely. Your kids are a little older, so you may want one age group older than what dd5 has been using.

 

2) Games games games!!!! Last year's homeschooling convention had a workshop by a piano teacher who inspired us how to teach piano concepts with games. Unfortunately, her website is not as up-to-date as it should be. Beg your local convention to book her.

 

MelissaWillispianostudio@gmail.com

 

www.MelissaWillispianostudio.blogspot.com

 

Look for Melissa Willis Piano Studio on Facebook.

 

She has a little story that teaches kids all the names of the keyboard notes within the story! There is another game called "Race to Middle C" that is dd's favorite!

 

3) The Big Book of Music Games by Debra Olson Pressnall and Lorille Malecha also has games for music, but it is not as exciting as the games from Ms. Willis.

[garddwr]

:bigear:

[mathnmusic]

This is a topic near and dear to my heart, as I have been teaching my kids piano for over a year. I took piano lessons for about 6 years from elementary to jr high, so there's some foundation there but not much. We started out with Alfred's basic piano books, and the pros were that it's extremely easy to teach and the kids love to play the simple pieces, it was very gentle and fun for them, with colorful pages and kid-friendly instructions written right there on top of each page. HOWEVER, after about 6 months, I noticed the kids were very weak on reading notes on the staff, and had developed a strong preference for "C position" and were afraid of other positions. Theory is a bit weak too. I've heard better things about Alfred Premier. But at the time, we switched to Faber and Faber Piano adventures, and I got the whole shebang, theory books, lesson books, technique and artistry, performance, popular repertoire. Figured it's still cheaper than piano lessons. By the way, the absolute best place to buy piano books that I've found is http://www.sheetmusicplus.com - cheap, low shipping, great customer service. Anyway, Faber was definitely better instruction than Alfred Basic, but I just couldn't keep track of ALL THOSE BOOKS. It got to where it was a major job each day to find the book we wanted because we had like 20 piano books floating around. But if you're more organized than me, you could probably work out a good system to keeping the books in place and making sure you work on each level of each book. But for me, I just kept going to the performance book and teaching out of that, since I didn't want to deal with getting out the lesson, theory, artistry books. So THEN we switched to Suzuki piano school books, which I love because the pieces are just GORGEOUS to listen to, but is VERY hard on the kids to learn the difficult pieces. They work on learning a new piece for about 2-3 days for about an hour each day, and by around the 4th day, they can start to play the piece with both hands. I love the results (beautiful classical pieces in their repertoire), but it's meant more work for both me and the kids. And I still have to add more theory, from the Faber books! So depends on what you want. For me, I want the kids to be able to play classical pieces from Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, even if it's simplified a little, but to get those melodies memorized in their heads and in their fingers.

[HayleyKC]

:bigear: me too!