Learning Piano Books

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=John_Aschenbrenner]John Aschenbrenner

I have sorry statistics for you that your local piano teacher doesn’t really want you to know: 90% of kids who start piano today will quit within three months. Why, you ask? Read on.

Most piano teachers are honest people, but the piano is simply difficult to master, as any musical instrument is. And statistically, perhaps some large percentage of those 90% who quit were perhaps never destined to play very well in the first place.

Still, there has to be a reason why piano lessons turn out to be less fun than perhaps the child was expecting.

In fact, the reason the kids quit is the piano teachers themselves.

The sad truth is that most piano teachers don’t try to get their students fired up about piano: they simply go from page to page in a standard text and see if the child can stand it.

And believe me, it is boring to have to play these exercise pieces again and again.

Of course, going from page to page in a text is very easy for the TEACHER: there is little creativity required on the teacher’s part. And as all parents know, you’ll have to be creative if you want to hold the attention of your six-year old. But most piano teachers don’t really even try, because they apply the same methods to the average child’s humble musical gifts as they would apply to someone clearly destined for Carnegie Hall.

These piano teachers acknowledge no difference between a budding professional and a potential hobbyist, and hold your child, struggling to maintain an interest in this rather difficult art, to the same standards as those used to train professional musicians.

A creative, intelligent teacher takes a good look at each individual student, and takes the time to find what factors will affect the piano study progress:

Is the child happy?

Do they have motor skills, such as finger coordination? Hand movement?

Can they distinguish left from right?

What is the child’s personality? Quiet? Exuberant? Belligerent?

Do they know how to complete a simple task?

Can they memorize?

The list of things to look out for at the beginning goes on and on. Each one of these factors affects how an intelligent piano teacher will approach that student, as an individual.

The first barrier to cross is expectation: what is the child expecting? Did they hear stories from Mom and Dad about old Mrs. Perkins, who rapped their fingers when they made a mistake? Or did they hear how wonderful piano lessons would be?

In any case, this piano lesson is THEIR piano lesson, not yours, and you had better find out how to communicate with this child as an individual in the first five minutes or it’s over.

One approach that works wonders is humor. And playing. Make a joke and play a song for them. If you do that first, you answer two childish questions that the child will inevitably be asking themselves:

Is this teacher a mean person?
Will playing the piano be fun?

The answer to those last two questions had better be, “yes.” Otherwise, you have already created a barrier between yourself and the child.

And I have to tell parents, unhappily, that most piano teachers are NOT avid players, comedians or game show hosts.

Many are either very young and inexperienced, or old and tired of the business. It’s rare to have a good player as a teacher, but the rewards are endless: the hardest obstacle to hurdle at first is to instill the idea that piano can be lots of fun, and a good pianist vaults that barrier instantly.

Kids love to hear a tune, a funny song, something they know from TV or outside the lesson. The older they are, the more important this becomes.

Avoid the following kinds of piano teachers if you have a young child:

Disciplinarians: there is always time for discipline if you can get them to love it first.

Gruffness: you need someone who knows how to handle a child, and gruffness NEVER works.
Gruffness is the last resort of the impatient.

Impatient: the first mark of a real piano teacher is the patience of a block of stone. Learning the piano requires repetition, which a clever teacher will disguise or make illuminating.

It is not easy to be a good piano teacher. Many factors will work against you:

Repetition is not inherently fun unless it is something that interests you.

Mood: kids are people, too. They have good days and bad days. Have the sense to find out which it is. Modify your teaching pace accordingly.

Time of lesson: is it right after school? Does the child need rest or food?

Overloaded schedules: all kids have too many activities and to them, you are just one more. Don’t make it difficult and dull.

Do THEY want lessons, or are they doing it to please Mom and Dad?

In closing, you can only lose the battle of the piano once. Once the child sense that this is a negative experience, the battle is lost, and it is the teacher’s fault, not the child’s.

It is up to the teacher to give the child a sense of victory during each lesson, no matter how small or undeserved that victory is.

Often what is required is to lower the bar so far that the child succeeds at something, no matter how small. Which would you prefer as a teacher, a tiny victory at some aspect of piano, or a profound sense of defeat over a task that only YOU deem necessary to master?

The point is that the piano and music is such a vast endeavor that there is always SOME small area that can be worked on if the child isn’t following your curriculum well. Here are some examples what you can do during a “bad” lesson.

Start playing. Move the child over, get them a chair, but start playing that piano and show them why they came in the first place.

Play ear training games. Listening games. Counting games.

Talk about the famous composers, play a piece by them, talk about the composer’s life. There isn’t a child alive that doesn’t want to hear of the adventure of the rivalry between Mozart and Salieri, and if they’re old enough, tell them the theory that Salieri murdered Mozart. Make it up if you have to, but hold their interest.

Stop concentrating on reading music. Play by ear. Memorize. Play by number.

Children that have been taught with this benevolent, fun approach, will reward you with a love of the instrument that may lead to unearthing some of the talent that lies with them. It’s your job as a teacher to find and nurture that talent, and it may not be the kind of talent you’re expecting.

For example, kids may have an interest in pop or rock music, and if you can play a tune on the piano that interest them, the battle is halfway won. It doesn’t matter what STYLE the music is, it matters that the music itself interests them.

Some kids don’t know Mozart from a hole in the ground, and you may have to play music from TV and the movies to reach them.

I’ve never met a kid who wasn’t interested in playing a tune on the piano if you make it easy enough to be pleasurable.

By John Aschenbrenner Copyright 2000 Walden Pond Press. Visit http://www.pianoiseasy.com to see the PIANO BY NUMBER method.

John Aschenbrenner is a leading children’s music educator and book publisher, and the author of numerous piano method books in the series PIANO BY NUMBER.

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=John_Aschenbrenner]John Aschenbrenner

The age to start your child depends entirely on whether you intend to use the conventional methods that employ only sheet music. If you intend to use the conventional methods, then don’t even think of starting before the age of six.

The reason for this is that preschoolers are just too young for the standard sheet music methods that exist. Many have difficulty understanding the tasks asked of them in a conventional piano lesson outside the home, and have great difficulty with the abstract concepts and symbols necessary to read sheet music.

If you intend to use a friendly method such as piano by number, there is no age limit: any child that can identify the numbers 1-12 is a perfect candidate to begin enjoying and learning music at the piano.

In terms of maturity, I would suggest the age of four or five as a good age to start with piano by number, and soon after perhaps begin to slowly introduce the concepts of sheet music as presented in our book, I CAN READ MUSIC.

If you encounter any difficulties with sheet music, back off and continue with piano by number.
A child should easily grasp the concepts presented in I CAN READ MUSIC, and if they don’t they are too young for sheet music and should be allowed to continue enjoying piano by number until they are old enough to make the transition with ease.

Better to wait than to frustrate.

PRESCHOOL: I recommend starting children of preschool age playing piano by number. Preschoolers are just getting used to numbers and letters. Many teachers have found that having children identify numbers via the piano keyboard is a fun activity that builds confidence with numbers.

The most important aspect of using piano by number for preschoolers is to first recognize the capabilities of the child: can the child identify numbers if the graphic representation of those numbers (on a page) is presented to them?

It is one thing for a child to recite vocally numbers as high as they can, but quite another to recognize the symbols for each number. Many preschool children can play any numbered piano key you say to them, but have difficulty playing numbers (or any symbols, for that matter) that they find on the page.

Piano by number slowly builds the abstract skills necessary to decipher musical symbols later, and promotes children’s sense of security in successfully deciphering them.

For children who cannot yet identify the symbols for numbers, the piano keyboard is an ideal place to build confidence with those symbols, with the added attraction that music itself produces a “good-mood” effect that is conducive to learning more complex skills.

Seeing the first twelve numbers, 1-12, spread out on a piano helps children to imagine numbers as a sequential ordering device.

Probably the biggest secret of teaching music to children this age is to allow kids to be kids while they learn. If you do this, and it requires unbelievable patience and creativity, they will reward you with constant effort, and humor!

The younger the child, the less I expect. If they only learn that the piano is a fun place to be, you’ve had a major victory as a teacher and a parent.

KINDERGARTEN: I recommend starting kindergarten kids with piano by number, and then making limited attempts at sheet music depending on the child’s sense of security with the piano. Usually, this is no problem. Kindergarten kids are very ready for games of any kind, and begin to have the skills necessary to put several hand movements together into a group of movements.

Children of this age still are most comfortable with numbers, but will tolerate more games preparing the way for reading sheet music. But you must make games out of everything. And back off from teaching sheet music as soon as you see their eyes start to show exhaustion, perhaps 5 minutes at most. Sheet music is fascinating but very tiring for kids this age. Better to expose them 5 minutes at a time than risk exhausting them and making them feel like failures.

With this age you may be able to teach them chords (three piano keys played with the left hand) but usually I allow them to play 2 note chords (two piano keys with the left hand) until it becomes obvious that 2 note chords are too easy.

I don’t insist that children play with both hands at this point, that is, chords with left hand and melody (numbers) with the right hand. It is enough that they can make their way through a few moments of a song that I show them, always carefully chosen to allow them to master a simple-enough task.

For example, a child this age should begin to easily have knowledge of the first three chords (three piano keys for the left hand) known as C, F and G. Any child can do this with enough focused, fun repetition.

If a child does begin to read sheet music, be careful to gain complete mastery of the notes of the right hand, say the first 5 keys above Middle C, before attempting to introduce the left hand.
It is my feeling that merely introducing the idea of “lines and spaces” (sheet music) is more than a victory at this stage.

The reason for this is that sheet music is much more of an abstraction than numbers for children of this age. Children gravitate to what is most comfortable for them, and you can bet at this age that it will be “piano by numbers,” because it is less abstract than sheet music.

Children who are allowed the room to succeed at “piano by number” no matter how glacial their pace, are perfect candidates for reading sheet music, because they are properly prepared.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: FIRST GRADE: At this age, you can start with piano by number to build confidence, and readily move on to sheet music a little bit at a time within a few months.

First graders seem magically wired to try the piano! All the physical perceptions necessary are in place; numbers are no problem, playing with two hands is no problem.

But if a child has difficulty with playing two hands simultaneously, do not insist, as most kids this age have great difficulty with two handed maneuvers. It is enough to expose them to the idea that two hands are involved, eventually simultaneously.

With piano by numbers and chords (two or three piano keys played with the left hand) under their belt, first graders are ready to conquer the right hand of sheet music, and engage in a study of chords.

At this age kids are emotionally ready to play the game called “happy and sad” wherein the teacher plays chords and has the child try to guess their (the chords) emotional or dramatic quality, happy or sad.

Kids love this silly game, almost like a game show, and never tire of trying to listen and assess the emotional quality of the chord. Earlier than this age, many children seem to have difficulty grasping the idea of a sound (the piano chord) having a certain emotional quality (happy or sad.)
At this point it also becomes possible to introduce “finger games,” that is, games that teach a child to move beyond using the index finger. I always allow kids to start with the index finger, if that’s what comfortable.

It may take a long time to get a child to use all the ten fingers properly, but it is worth waiting for, especially if in the meantime you are teaching them other valuable things.
Believe it or not, kids will let you know when they are ready to use all five fingers.

I’ll tell you the formula for success. It has three stages:

Teach the notes, the numbers, get the kids to decipher the commands and play the correct keys as best they can, with whatever finger comes to their mind.

Introduce the idea of five fingers, slowly, as a game, as a joke. I always say, when they play with only their index finger, “Oh, you were born with only one finger on each hand! Wait! I see other fingers under there, all curled up!” Try that 50 times and they will start using more fingers all by themselves, I guarantee it.

Rhythm is best left to last. The only thing I do at this point is to play rhythm games. I never, ever insist on rhythm in a piece of printed music, numbers or sheet. Don’t even think of rhythm in the usual sense for first graders. Better to try simple rhythm games like “fours” that give children the idea of regularity, of pattern, of repetition.

To start the process of learning fingering, I begin with a game called “threesies,” in which they play, starting from Middle C; 123, 234, 345 456, etc using the right hand thumb, index and third finger in ascending order. Kids love the complexity of this, but if it is too difficult after several tries, then try something else for a while.

Two more “rules:”

Keep coming back to ideas, again and again.

Never acknowledge a child’s failure to grasp these ideas, just show comic surprise and move on.
Children at the piano have an uncanny knack of showing you an honest effort if the task is not incomprehensibly difficult.

Break down complex motions into easily grasped bits.

by John Aschenbrenner Copyright 2000 Walden Pond Press Visit http://www.pianoiseasy.com to see the PIANO BY NUMBER method.

John Aschenbrenner is a leading children’s music educator and book publisher, and the author of numerous piano method books in the series PIANO BY NUMBER.