for all the piano players out here?
Soon, I’ll be teaching a 4 year old the piano. I know she’s young, but she really wants to learn. So I figured I’d give it a shot, maybe start off with simple songs like Happy Birthday.
My question is this. Does anyone have any ideas on how to start with her? Like, song ideas.. scales.. how to teach her notes..
I don’t know if knows how to read, or knows the alphabet, so I don’t want to teach her how to read sheet music. Yet. Not until she’s older.
Has anyone ever taught a young kid how to play? I could use some help or ideas! lol
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Tags: anyone, here, how to read sheet music, piano, piano players, players, song ideas, year
3 Responses to “for all the piano players out here?”
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I’ve been teaching young kids, but I usually do start with a book. I’ve been taught that way.. so know no better.
With small kids I start with John Thompson’s Easiest piano course. (http://www.musicroom.com/se/ID_No/04040/details.html ). It’s fun when you get to teach them first. I mean when they get to go to school and say they know the first letters of the alphabet from their piano teacher…. It made me feel “important”. There’s another struggle with a new kid I’m teaching now who’s almost 5 and still can’t tell the right hand from the left…
If you don’t want to teach her notes, you might just look at the songs in Thompson, and teach her to play by ear. And the first book is really easy, as it goes only with five notes for each hand. You get Old MacDonalds, Yankee Doodle, and even the Theme from the New World by Dvorak (second movt.)
I also heard the Suzuki method is really popular with the Asian kids, and they do start very very early.
I hope this was at least a bit helpful. Let me know if you have more questions.
I recommend this site for you
http://www.gmajormusictheory.org/
Hi…I am a piano teacher and hopefully give you some suggestions on teaching piano to young piano lovers. There is a basic learner book for beginners and young children that you can purchase at any music store that will be good for young children. It has the notes in big bold print that they can easily learn from and some of them have a slip out of the piano keys and names of each key to where they can place on their piano at home. Also there is a beginner scale book for young children that you can purchase that is easy to learn. Now sometimes what I do for very young learners is to purchase some construction paper with assorted colors and with a magic marker and scissors I do cut outs of the names of the notes and place them on the keys to make it more fun (like a game of memory). For example: Yellow for the (C) note, Blue for the (G) note, Red for the (A) note and so on. Use the same colors for the notes since they are too young to learn the octaves yet. Just the fundamentals. Once the student can identify the notes you can start on something a little harder but try to stay simple. If you need further suggestions please ask anytime. I started playing at the age of 5. That was many many moons ago…lol. Good luck with your teaching! Have a great day!