Mikes Music Room - Music Articles

There isn`t a parent who doesn`t want their child to be good at something and one of the more common aspirations is playing piano. There`s something about being able to dance your fingers across the ivory keys that appeals to both parents and children. The big question on every parent`s lips is “When should my child start piano?”

The younger, the better. We`ve all heard about the likes of Mozart and other child prodigies who began playing at very tender ages, 3 or 4. Getting a child into piano that early means they will have the most time possible playing, even if they don`t end up being extremely gifted in the area of music.

Introducing Young Children to Piano

You can start peaking your little one`s interest in music right from the start. Listening to classical piano while in the womb and after birth will give your child an early appreciation for the piano. They will be far more interested in playing than if you simply ignore music all together and then abruptly introduce it as you want them to play.

If you`ve decided to start your very young child in piano, it is very important to find the right teacher. Toddlers can`t and shouldn`t be expected to, focus on one thing for a long period of time. That means lessons will certainly need to be cut into smaller, more manageable bites. Most 3-4 year olds do very well with 15 minute lessons.

You really can`t expect a 3 year old to learn the same way a teen or adult would, so having a piano teacher that understands the age group and knows how to communicate effectively with a small child is vital. Without this, you`ll find that children don`t learn well and will rapidly become frustrated with the instrument. The idea is to keep it fun and enjoyable, particularly at this young age.

With a good base to build on, small children will often go on to play piano for the rest of their lives and this gift of music is definitely something that they will treasure in years to come.

Older Children and the Piano

Of course, not everyone can start their toddler in piano lessons so early. In some cases, parents may not have even considered the possibility until their older child came out and asked for lessons. This is a common scenario, where the child is the one interested in playing.

First, you`ll want to ensure that this isn`t just a passing phase. Most parents do this by requiring their children to take a minimum of one year of piano lessons. This is more than enough time to get a good taste for the music and after a year, a decision can be made, to continue on or to leave it.

Children who instigate the learning process tend to stick with it better than those who are forced into it at an early age, but they may be slower to pick up the concepts behind the music and it can be a bit of a struggle for older children to learn to read music in some cases. However, if the effort is made, it can be an excellent way to learn more about music and no one has ever done poorly because they learned to play the piano.

To make the piano lessons a success, be sure to have a way for your child to practice daily. It`s important they have this opportunity, no matter what their age. While younger is still better, that certainly doesn`t rule out older kids who are interested in learning.

When it comes to playing the piano for contemporary worship, skill is less a matter of being able to play many notes quickly and more a question of choosing the right notes. If you want to improve your skill in playing the piano for the Lord in church, how can you do it? Other than practice your scales and try to learn new songs?

There are three ways to increase your skill in choosing the right notes to play for worship.

1) Learn a complementary style of music.

If you are a classically trained musician, take lessons in jazz piano. Learn a few jazz standards and how to do jazz improvisation. You will then learn how to feel what are the more appropriate notes to use on the piano to get the effect you want.

If you are more of a contemporary/jazz player, learn music notation and study two-part inventions. They will train you to use less notes to imply the chords, instead of banging out everything and crowding out the congregation’s singing, as many others do.

2) Sing and play.

Pay special attention to how the songs interact with the chords and rhythms created. Are the chords and rhythms you’re given the best fit for the song? If you are unable to sing a song comfortably using certain chords or rhythms, those chords and rhythms may not be the best fit for the song.

Singing and playing will also allow you to test out any ideas you may have, to see if they will work for supporting the congregation’s singing of a song.

3) Learn the guitar.

Many church pianists are weak in two areas: their overall sense of rhythm and their choice of notes. Learning the guitar strengthens you in these two areas.

Because the sound of a guitar is thinner than that of a piano, you can strum more actively on a guitar than you can comp on a piano. This allows you to get a feeling of rhythmic intensity, and you can carry over the effect to piano playing when you know what you are looking for.

On the piano, you can pile up the notes to create really thick chords. But these don’t usually work well for contemporary church worship. Guitars give you only six (or often five) notes to work with. You have to choose your notes really well, because you don’t have that many to work with.

Conclusion: These three tips are simple, but not easy. They require you to go out of what many pianists have as their comfort zone, and it’s tempting to rationalize away the need for these methods.

But if you are deadly serious about serving the Lord with the best you can give him, these three methods of increasing your skill as a worship pianist will give you the greatest growth in the shortest amount of time. So are you up to the challenge?

One of the most important aspects of any pianist’s repertoire is the understanding of how to play chords. To play chords, you must learn some simple theory. To make it easier, you’ll mainly be playing the white keys.

Look at the white keys on the keyboard and find a C. If you don’t know how to find a C, then look at the sets of black keys. The black keys are grouped two ways: in a set of two or a set of three. Find a set of two black keys and move to the white key immediately to the left. This is a C. Now that you’ve found a C, learning how to play chords comes easy.

To begin learning how to play chords, start with the C chord. Hold the thumb of your right hand on C. Now skip the next white key and put your middle finger on the white key after that. This is an E. Holding those two fingers in place, skip the next white key and play the white key after that with your pinky. This is G. Play all three of these notes at the same time and you’ll have created a C chord. Learning how to play chords is that simple.

By holding your hand in this position and moving it up and down the white keys, you’ll be able to play chords in the key of C. Just remember the basic pattern: play a white key, skip one, play the next, skip, and play the next key. Move to the right with your fingers in this shape and you’ll be playing D minor, E minor, F, G, A minor and B diminished. A whole world of chord progressions is already at your fingertips. Play chords and hear the differences in each. You may even start to hear songs that you know and love by playing chords in this key.

Another way to learn how to play chords is to number the keys. Starting at C, number the white keys up to seven. C is one, D is two, E is three, etc. When you reach the number seven, start over at one. Now that you have each white key numbered, you understand the relationship between each note. A C chord is numbered 1-3-5. These are called the chord tones. A Cmaj7 is 1-3-5-7, while a C7 is 1-3-5-b7. The flat indicates a black key, at least when you’re playing in the key of C.

To make a minor chord, start at C and play the following tones: 1-b3-5. This will be C, Eb and G. Your thumb is on C; your middle finger is on the black key just to the left of E; and your pinky is on G. Congratulations! You’ve learned how to play the C minor chord.

This is just a basic explanation of how to play chords. There are many more chord shapes to learn that make piano music great, but it’s best to start at the beginning. Even the greats have written entire songs playing chords in the key of C.