Piano Lesson suggestions for beginner??

[Guest Xapis10]

I'm definitely confirming that being a decent musician does not automatically make you a great piano teacher!

DS and I have been rather struggling through piano for a few months now. I finally figured out that he is confused about "up" and "down," since the directions on the piano are horizontal, while the directions on the music staff are vertical. So he deduces that the note at the end of the one-line song is the "highest" note in the song. Who knew this could be a problem?! It's a bit fascinating, and I'm glad I discovered his issue, but now, how do I make it easy for him?

I'm using Bastien primer level, and I'm sure there are better series out there. I don't like starting the first several exercises without any staff at all, so I didn't have him play those. I also almost feel like the music could be even bigger for him to see more easily the difference between notes that are one step up or down from each other.

Thoughts??

[Wildiris]

Invest in a good music teacher. Learning to read music is like learning to read another language. The symbols need to be associated with the sounds. My kids used the Alfred series.

 

They started with the prep level at age 5.

[Guest Xapis10]

I'm still planning to be the piano teacher (I'm just realistic about not having all the answers to everything, just as in the other subjects ; )

Hoping someone may have run across this before and has a good exercise that makes the correlations make sense!

[lanabug]

Could you use a staircase as an example? Pretend your fingers are "walking" up the stairs (each piano key is a step) and notice how the sounds get higher. Start in the "basement" and walk all the way to the "attic" then walk your fingers back down the stairs.

 

I've also heard Faber's Piano Adventures is widely recommended for the younger ages, but I don't know if it would make much difference.

 

Good luck! My 6 year old starts piano this week!

 

Lana

[Sara in AZ]

I would rethink those beginning off staff lessons, especially with a five year old. It is so hard for them to assimilate everything all at once when they have to adjust to the keyboard topography, deal with learning rhythm, and learn the notes on the staff all at once. Faber Piano adventures has great book for 5/6 year olds that comes before the primer level. I'm starting it with my four year old and it is very gentle.

[Forget-Me-Not]

He's 5? I'd take a break for now and give it another try in 6-12 months.

[Sara in AZ]

I'm using Bastien primer level, and I'm sure there are better series out there. I don't like starting the first several exercises without any staff at all, so I didn't have him play those. I also almost feel like the music could be even bigger for him to see more easily the difference between notes that are one step up or down from each other.

Thoughts??

 

I'm rereading this, and I have to say that part of the function of those pre-reading exercises that you skipped is to help the child see the shape of a melodic line, to see that notes go higher on the page and lower on the page without having to worry about what the notes are on the staff. It sounds like that's where your son has a disconnect. With my students, I do a lot of connecting the dots (note heads) so we can see the line going up and down.

 

This website could be really helpful:

 

http://pianoadventures.com/forum/

[Tranquility7]

Hmmmm! Very interesting. We are a Suzuki family (which means we started out learning by ear when DS was a young 4 yr old - he is 6 now), but DS has learned a little music reading too (I have taught him, since we sing out of the hymnal at church and he wanted to understand it more). DS actually had a very similar confusion about the “up/down†terminology – we go “up†in pitch, but it means we go to the right on the keyboard… and “down†is to the left on the keyboard… and the left-right orientation of the musical staff isn’t the same as the left-right orientation of the keyboard… Furthermore, he was *very* tone deaf when we began piano lessons! For this reason we have really had to break stuff down increntally as much as possible for him.

 

How about trying something like this:

 

The first idea to teach (or confirm) is that “up†in pitch means moving to the right on the keyboard, and “down†means moving to the left.

 

1. Sing a familiar song with him (something with a simple melody line and words, like the Suzuki fave, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star). As you sing, hold your hand out with palm down. If the next note is up, move your hand up. When the note goes down, move your hand down. Your hand goes up and down as the simple melody line goes up and down. Once he gets the idea, have him tell you with each note whether the pitch went up or down, and if he can do that, then have him move his own hand with you as you sing the song together.
   
2. Once he can sing and move his hand up and down with the melody line, move to the piano. You play a note, then play a second note. Ask him if the second note moved up, moved down, or stayed the same.
   
3. Once he is good at telling you which direction the note moved, have him figure out the same melody from earlier *by ear* on the piano (give him the first note so he starts in the right key). To figure it out, he will have to recognize that when the note needs to go up, he needs to try notes to the right of where he is to find the right note.
   

The second idea is that a music staff is read from left to right, just like words are read. The left-right of the staff does not represent pitch (like left-right on the keyboard does); instead, it represents *time*

 

 

1. First show him rhythm using just one note. Don’t vary pitch, just use quarter notes and quarter rests, showing that the music tells you *when* to play the note.
   
2. Show him that you can play a chord – say, a C major chord, which is playing more than one note at a single point in time. Show him what this looks like on the staff – all the notes are stacked up. (harmonic)
   
3. Show him that you can play a chord one note after the other instead of all notes at the same time. Show him what this looks like on the staff. (melodic)
   
4. Write out some sets of two notes – some stacked, some one after the other – and have him tell you whether the two notes should be played at the same time, or one after the other. If one after the other, have him tell you which one would be played first and which would be played second.
   
5. Write out on a staff the musical notes for the melody you used earlier (and which he figured out by ear). Underneath the proper notes, write the words as they fit. Sing the song together, showing 1)that the notes progress in time along the musical staff just as the words do, and 2) that the notes go up or down on the staff just as our hand moved up or down in the earlier exercise.
   
6. Another similar idea – download Finale Notepad (the free version). Create the melody line in Finale, and then play it back in Finale – as it plays the melody back to you, Finale runs a moving line along the staff showing which note it is playing. This is a really good demonstration of how the left-right of the staff is like reading a line of text left to right.
   

All that being said, I LOVE LOVE LOVE what DS has been able to accomplish using the Suzuki method, and with young kids I really do think learning by ear is the way to go. DS truly was tone deaf when he started. He is by no means a prodigy now, but we have been more than thrilled with his progress, and whenever people hear him play they always comment on how “talented†he is – I always laugh, because I know that he truly had NO talent! But he has learned! :D

 

If you decide you want to know more about trying to teach him Suzuki yourself, I’d be happy to tell you the progression our teacher did with DS. She used the Suzuki books and method, but she has approached things in a little bit of a different order than presented in the book, and different even from this book or this one. It has been SO effective for DS (with LOTS of hard work, of course!).

[EthiopianFood]

Hmmmm! Very interesting. We are a Suzuki family (which means we started out learning by ear when DS was a young 4 yr old - he is 6 now), but DS has learned a little music reading too (I have taught him, since we sing out of the hymnal at church and he wanted to understand it more). DS actually had a very similar confusion about the “up/down†terminology – we go “up†in pitch, but it means we go to the right on the keyboard… and “down†is to the left on the keyboard… and the left-right orientation of the musical staff isn’t the same as the left-right orientation of the keyboard… Furthermore, he was *very* tone deaf when we began piano lessons! For this reason we have really had to break stuff down increntally as much as possible for him.

 

How about trying something like this:

 

The first idea to teach (or confirm) is that “up†in pitch means moving to the right on the keyboard, and “down†means moving to the left.

 

1. Sing a familiar song with him (something with a simple melody line and words, like the Suzuki fave, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star). As you sing, hold your hand out with palm down. If the next note is up, move your hand up. When the note goes down, move your hand down. Your hand goes up and down as the simple melody line goes up and down. Once he gets the idea, have him tell you with each note whether the pitch went up or down, and if he can do that, then have him move his own hand with you as you sing the song together.
   
2. Once he can sing and move his hand up and down with the melody line, move to the piano. You play a note, then play a second note. Ask him if the second note moved up, moved down, or stayed the same.
   
3. Once he is good at telling you which direction the note moved, have him figure out the same melody from earlier *by ear* on the piano (give him the first note so he starts in the right key). To figure it out, he will have to recognize that when the note needs to go up, he needs to try notes to the right of where he is to find the right note.
   

The second idea is that a music staff is read from left to right, just like words are read. The left-right of the staff does not represent pitch (like left-right on the keyboard does); instead, it represents *time*

 

 

1. First show him rhythm using just one note. Don’t vary pitch, just use quarter notes and quarter rests, showing that the music tells you *when* to play the note.
   
2. Show him that you can play a chord – say, a C major chord, which is playing more than one note at a single point in time. Show him what this looks like on the staff – all the notes are stacked up. (harmonic)
   
3. Show him that you can play a chord one note after the other instead of all notes at the same time. Show him what this looks like on the staff. (melodic)
   
4. Write out some sets of two notes – some stacked, some one after the other – and have him tell you whether the two notes should be played at the same time, or one after the other. If one after the other, have him tell you which one would be played first and which would be played second.
   
5. Write out on a staff the musical notes for the melody you used earlier (and which he figured out by ear). Underneath the proper notes, write the words as they fit. Sing the song together, showing 1)that the notes progress in time along the musical staff just as the words do, and 2) that the notes go up or down on the staff just as our hand moved up or down in the earlier exercise.
   
6. Another similar idea – download Finale Notepad (the free version). Create the melody line in Finale, and then play it back in Finale – as it plays the melody back to you, Finale runs a moving line along the staff showing which note it is playing. This is a really good demonstration of how the left-right of the staff is like reading a line of text left to right.
   

All that being said, I LOVE LOVE LOVE what DS has been able to accomplish using the Suzuki method, and with young kids I really do think learning by ear is the way to go. DS truly was tone deaf when he started. He is by no means a prodigy now, but we have been more than thrilled with his progress, and whenever people hear him play they always comment on how “talented†he is – I always laugh, because I know that he truly had NO talent! But he has learned! :D

 

If you decide you want to know more about trying to teach him Suzuki yourself, I’d be happy to tell you the progression our teacher did with DS. She used the Suzuki books and method, but she has approached things in a little bit of a different order than presented in the book, and different even from this book or this one. It has been SO effective for DS (with LOTS of hard work, of course!).

 

I would just love to hear about it!! I want to do Suzuki piano with dd, but it's not at all in our budget right now. If there are things I can do to get her started, that would be awesome!