xpost: Would you teach your kid(s) piano?

[PeacefulChaos]

If you knew how, that is. ;)

 

Here's the deal: I really, REALLY wanted to put Link into piano lessons this year, but financially we're cutting back big time (stupid medical bills! :lol: ) and I don't feel it's the most responsible thing to do, adding $60/month to what we already are paying out. So we won't be going that route. (We've decided not to put Pink into dance this year for this reason, also)

I have taught Link in the past a little, but it didn't go all that well. DH thinks we should be able to just stick it out and work our way through it. Part of me agrees with him, part of me thinks it will be a nightmare, but more than anything I do NOT want to wait another year to have him start piano! I already kind of feel like I've dropped the ball - I started piano at age 5 and played/took lessons through college. I've taught lessons off and on, as a high school student and when DH and I were first married. I did a little after we had kids but it got to be a lot more of a hassle so I stopped before Astro was born. Occasionally I've had someone say they want to learn, and I've worked with the kid for awhile, and then the people end up deciding they can't make it to lessons anymore so they stop coming, etc. So I do have experience teaching, but it isn't my job, kwim? I'm not bad at it, but I also can't provide the type of 'learning to play the piano' atmosphere that I grew up in - with teachers who were active in the guild, and regular recitals, playing at special events, etc.

I have no desire to teach anyone other than my kids (I really wouldn't teach them, either, if I had the choice), but I just hate the thought of them not learning at all. Music is EXTREMELY important to me. I want them to know how to read music, etc.

So anyway... I guess I'm wondering, would you do it? That's question #1.

Question #2 - Astro has said that he wants to learn to play piano. Sigh. So I guess if I teach one, I may as well go ahead and teach him, too, right?

and Question #3 - what books do you like, if you have experience with this stuff? We have the Bastien books and they're ok, but I honestly don't remember what I had when I was a kid and I don't have much experience with the different ones out there.

Thanks so much!

[Amy Jo]

I would and am - even though I don't have your credentials. I like Mrs. Stewart's Piano (I bought it here).

[...................]

Yes I would. But I would just move at a very slow, relaxed pace so that the pressures and tensions arent high.

[Jenny in GA]

I have no desire to teach anyone other than my kids (I really wouldn't teach them, either, if I had the choice), but I just hate the thought of them not learning at all. Music is EXTREMELY important to me. I want them to know how to read music, etc.

So anyway... I guess I'm wondering, would you do it? That's question #1.

Question #2 - Astro has said that he wants to learn to play piano. Sigh. So I guess if I teach one, I may as well go ahead and teach him, too, right?

and Question #3 - what books do you like, if you have experience with this stuff? We have the Bastien books and they're ok, but I honestly don't remember what I had when I was a kid and I don't have much experience with the different ones out there.

Thanks so much!

 

 

Hi there, I have a music education degree, used to run a small piano studio, taught general music in the public schools, and now work as a free-lance pianist.

 

I currently teach my two oldest children.

 

I don't think there's is anything wrong with waiting another year with one or both children. I myself did not start taking lessons til I was almost eleven. Maybe starting a little earlier would have helped ... but what did hurt me much more than "starting late" was having poor teaching for a few years.

 

So I would recommend beginning with one child and seeing how that goes first. There is no rush. I don't even recommend private music for any child until they are at least seven.

 

I personally like the Faber and Faber Piano Adventures. Pianimals.com is different, but excellent. It might be a great choice, since the authors say you can do the series without a teacher (then move into a different series and get a teacher).

 

Alfred is very very popular and I think it is a poor method with boring songs that can easily lead to kids who have no clue how to read notes.

 

I have been enjoying a relatively new series with my oldest called Celebrate Piano.

 

I would highly recommend that if you take on the role of "piano teacher" (as opposed to "a mom that shows him a few things"), you spend some time doing some research. You don't need a music degree by any means ... but you do need to know something about what you're doing. Get involved in a couple piano teacher forums. Look at different method series and decide how they're different and which approach you prefer. Decide what is important to you: Theory? Ensemble playing? Reading a chord chart? Playing by ear? Memorizing?

 

This guy is great.

 

Good luck and please let me know if you need anything!

[crazyforlatin]

The thing with young kids is that hiring a piano teacher may not be the best use of money if the parent has had entensive training, like yourself. Kids ought to practice every day with someone who can kind of be there to help guide them. I don't think once per week with a teacher is enough. So, I've had years of piano training, and do teach DD.

 

I experimented with a teacher, and still ended up sitting with Dd every day. I did all the work during the week, and the teacher, well, did exactly what I would have done during that one lesson, so it wasn't worth the money. However, I happen to have a Dd who does listen to me when I teach her.

 

When she is ready for composition or advanced theory, I would then send her to a music school.

[Stellalarella]

I can't afford piano lessons for 6 kids. I can't afford them for 1 kid, quite frankly. But I have made use of those 10 years of piano lessons that my parents paid for by teaching my own kids.

It's not ideal, but that's what we've got.

All I can do is give them what I've been given, and in a way, that honors the investment my parents made in me.

We use Bastien books as well.

If one of them decides to become a musician, God will provide a way for us to get them the training they need, but until then, I am their music teacher.

 

I put piano practice on their homeschool "checklists." They feel personal motivation to play the piano. Also, once the kids could read music decently well, I went to a music store and found some books of songs they liked. THAT really motivated them.

 

We have a regular piano that was gifted to us, but it's in the room where we do school (our dining room) and that gets a little crazy. Someone gave us an old electric keyboard. Its chief benefits are that we can use it with headphones and it will also play a laugh-out-loud fantastic synthesizer version of "Everything I do, I do it for you.......There's no love, like your love....." Hilarious.

Edited August 17, 2012 by Andrea Lowry
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[Roadrunner]

That depends on your kids. I was teaching my older son who just didn't listen to me. (music grad here as well) He loves playing but...... We had meltdowns and one day it culminated with a ripped books. That was it. I gave up and now I am forking out $55 for a lesson a week in addition to daily lesson he gets at home. Only this time around he listens because he is responsible to somebody else.

Having said that, my younger boy is a delight. I do teach him and I will continue to do so. He is soooo easy to work with.

So yes, I would teach the kids, unless you felt like it was going to bring untimely death :D

[Dmmetler]

I would if financially it didn't work to have someone else teach her. But what I found when I tried is that for other subjects, it's DD and I working together to find our way through whatever program we're using, and if she gets frustrated with the materials, she accepts my help. But in music, where she knows I am an expert (I was writing music curriculum professionally when we started homeschooling), she ends up getting frustrated at me directly, and it doesn't go well.

 

As it turns out, my DD's piano teacher, who also homeschools, really struggles with teaching HER child math-so I help her daughter with wherever she's confused in a week's math assignments while my DD takes piano, and we're both happier homeschoolers with happier kids.

[kristinannie]

I am waiting for responses because I am wondering the same thing! What are you planning on using? I was thinking of starting my 1st grader in lessons. I play pretty well, but don't know which book to use!

[LindaOz]

Check this out...

 

http://www.freepianolessons4kids.com/index.html

[ForeverFamily]

OP, you sound like you are in a very similar situation as me. I took piano lessons for about 11 to 12 years. I have been playing since I was about 6yo. I also taught piano for a couple of years, but I stopped after my Dd4 was born. I am now teaching my Dd6 and will be adding my Dd4 soon. I think you would be just fine to go ahead and start teaching your oldest piano. I would maybe just start with your oldest and see how it goes. If it is working well than you could add your younger one.

 

I looked through every piano book/method I could get my hands on. I am extremely picky with this. I HATE when piano methods teach notes with finger numbers, or if the songs have a bunch of finger numbers by the notes. I am okay with that once it is necessary for fingering. Otherwise kids tend to look at the finger numbers rather than learning the notes. Unfortunately there are very few books available that met this requirment for me. The ones we use have a few finger markings (maybe one or two per song), but they were the best I could find.

 

This is what has worked for us thus far...

 

I started my oldest when she was about 4 1/2 with The Music Tree: Time to Begin. I love how gently this program introduces the idea of reading notes. It was the perfect level for a Pre-K student. The Theory book is set up more like a Pre-K workbook than most theory books I have seen. Every song has duet part for the teacher, my Dd6 absolutely loved playing her song with mom (yours may or may not like that). After the Time to Begin level I switched to a combination of Step by Step: Book One by Edna Mae Burnam and Bastien Piano Basics for the younger beginner. I like how large the print is in Bastien books, this makes it a lot easier to read the notes for little ones. I also like that it has colorful pictures because what kid doesn't love colorful pictures. In fact I remember when I was little being really excited to get to a certian song just because of the picture. The one thing I personally Do Not like about Bastien is the way they introduce the notes. They introduce about 3 notes at a time. I want my kids to learn one note at a time so they can really learn them well. I do not want them trying to guess which note is which, and struggle with note reading. This is were Step by Step comes in. Step by Step introduces one note at a time. The print in these books is smaller than Bastien, but not unreadable. The pictures are also black and white line drawings, but at least they still have pictures. What I did is in a Word Doc. I made a table and entered in the lessons in the order I would wanted them to go. I wanted Step by Step to be my spine, in other words I wanted most of the introduction of notes and theory concepts to come from step by step. After all of the necessary concepts were covered needed to play a Bastien song I would then assign the appropraite Bastien songs as "fun" songs. So for example I assigned pages 5-23 in step by step (that covers learning RH Middle C,D,E and LH Middle C, B, A). I would then assign Bastien pages 28-37 as "fun" colorful review songs. This gave my daughter plenty of Review time and opportunity to really get down those 6 notes. (Just as a note I skip over all of the songs that use the black keys in Bastiens book for younger beginner, that means I skipped pages 8-27)

 

I am probably way over complicating things for myself, I tend to do that. If I had to just pick one of those books it would probably be Step by Step book one and two and then I would probably after those two books move just to Bastien. For theory I am using the Bastien Theory book.

 

One of the most important things I remember contributing to my personal love of playing the piano was my teacher allowed me to pick ANY song (in addition to my other books) when I got to the appropraite skill level. So if I wanted to learn the Harry Potter theme she would have let me do that. Big Note Piano songs are great for this once they learn how to read notes well. Doing this also motivated me to push my skill level up a notch because it was necessary in order to learn the new song. I also plan on adding in better exercise books like Hanon-Schaum for Piano when they get to that level, but that is years down the road.

 

In addition to all of that I am also adding a bit of Suzuki piano as well.

 

The one thing I would suggest is to make sure that you are teaching them proper form and posture. Those will be the hardest habits to break if they get into a bad habit. I had already learned all of the "proper" ways to play the piano but a nice refresher course for me was in a this great book. Suzuki method highly stresses proper form and posture. You don't have to get that particular book, there are probably other helpful resources out there I just haven't looked. Sorry my post was complicated and long. But hopefully I was able to help a little.

[nikkid]

I agree with several things said above. I currently teach piano. Tried to teach my very headstrong, independent, strong-willed, likes-to-learn-everything-herself oldest child. Did not go well. She always interrupts me no matter what I'm teaching and likes to tell me about how she thinks it should be done or how it reminds her of this other story or song or "look I can make up my own song that starts just like it!"... Has a hard time respecting my authority due to other issues I think. Needless to say, the last lesson I taught her I ended up giving her the method book for now and said "you're smart. you know all the main notes now. finish the book yourself and ask me if you have questions." Not ideal at all...but I just don't think at this point that she's willing to learn from me. She's also a perfectionist, and wants to be able to play like me without putting in the years of work. So I have not found a good way to teach my own child who is like this. My little guy though, loves to have quick lessons with me and he is teachable. So I think it depends on the child. We also do not have money right now to put my daughter in lessons with another teacher. But I have been pondering on trading services with someone to get her in lessons though. (Like I'll babysit for free for you during a few lessons in return for free piano lessons for my daughter.) I have piano students who are similar to my daughter in personality who are wonderful students for me but would be the same with their parents...

 

If you think it will work for you to teach your own, my favorite method for gently guiding you through and providing a great foundation in case the child wants to go somewhere with it is Piano Adventures. I REALLY like the My First Piano Adventures for ages 5-7. There is a CD that walks you through the songs and they're really fun. It's larger print with fun characters and teaches some composer study as a part of the series. There is some finger numbering at the beginning but this is because they want to start ear training and reading directionally (up, down, stay the same) but since the finger numbers don't always stay on C the brain doesn't get stuck in thinking your thumb is always C. There are cute songs to teach you the lines and spaces without having to use the long sentences.

 

For an older student (10+), I like using the lesson and theory book for Piano Adventures Older Beginner then supplementing with online songs (like popular stuff on musicnotes.com). Finger exercises I end up teaching by rote: 5-note scales at first, then eventually full scales after all the 5-note majors and minors are learned.

 

Whatever you do, if you're teaching your own child, I would limit lessons at the beginning to 15-20 minutes tops, then just let them explore or play on the piano by themselves for a few minutes. Inevitably, my daughter and I would end up getting frustrated with each other in that last 10-15 minutes and usually because I was so thrilled with how quickly she caught on that I wanted to have her just do one more thing... Much better to teach two 15-minute lessons a week than one 30-minute lesson where you get mad at each other.

 

A wonderful resource for piano teachers is http://pianoadventures.com/guide/index.html. Complete videos showing teachers how to teach the primer level. You might even be able to watch these with your child to let Nancy Faber teach them. I haven't watched enough yet to know, but I've wondered this.

 

I feel your pain! Good luck!

[duckens]

The thing with young kids is that hiring a piano teacher may not be the best use of money if the parent has had entensive training, like yourself. Kids ought to practice every day with someone who can kind of be there to help guide them. I don't think once per week with a teacher is enough. So, I've had years of piano training, and do teach DD.

 

I experimented with a teacher, and still ended up sitting with Dd every day. I did all the work during the week, and the teacher, well, did exactly what I would have done during that one lesson, so it wasn't worth the money. However, I happen to have a Dd who does listen to me when I teach her.

 

When she is ready for composition or advanced theory, I would then send her to a music school.

 

This is us exactly....except I do not have "extensive piano training."

 

But I know enough to teach a 5yo.

 

Eventually dd will outgrow me as a teacher, and then I will find the money, or she will switch to a different instrument (outgrowing me), or she will drop it for other activities because of time.