Mikes Music Room – Music Articles

Let’s assume that you have the requisite musical education, regardless of your age, to teach a child the basics of the piano.

With that requirement in hand, no small accomplishment itself, you are ready perhaps to embark on a career of piano teaching.

“But wait,” you say! “Won’t I need a few other things to become a piano teacher?”

That is true, you’ll need a car and a studio, a piano or perhaps two.

But we’re not here to consider the physical nuts and bolts of piano teaching. We’re here to consider the psychological requirements for sitting with one child, a half hour at a time, again and again, day after day, showing them how to play the piano.

If you’ve guessed some of the qualities already, let me enumerate the most important:

1. Don’t even think about being a piano teacher if you don’t really love kids. I mean “love kids” on those days when they’re tired and hot and sticky and in a bad mood and don’t want any more education right now, thank you. That’s when you’ll really be tested. So unless you have an affection for kids and an understanding of how hard it is to grow up, don’t bother to become a piano teacher. The children will know who you are the moment you walk through the door, and they better like you a lot.

2. You will require the patience of a block of stone. If you’ve ever herded cats, you’ll have an idea of how difficult it can be to grab and hold a child’s attention, even with a great big noisy piano at your disposal. I’ve witnessed kids who took years, literally, to figure out the basics of the piano such as fingering and reading music, but if you wait long enough and keep trying, you can do this with any child. The key is to let them set the pace, at least on the surface. By this I mean that if they need to fool around for a few moments, it may be more productive to go along with it, even encourage it, so that they are able to blow off a little steam. Then they are ready to work because they know you will let up when the pressure is too much. It’s simple child psychology.

3. A sense of humor will get you 10,000 times more results than a gruff attitude. Gruffness and disapproval are two qualities that I utterly banish from my manner while with a child. It’s THEIR piano lesson and I need to go at their pace, aware of their mood, always on the lookout for that momentary opportunity to press their musical knowledge forward. You will get a lot more done by using the little spaces in between the fun. Let them be happy, sing, make up songs, then when the moment is right, they’ll be ready for your next point.

4. You had better love repetition and have an almost biblical ability to disguise a simple task in a thousand and one different ways. No child accepts blind repetition gladly. If you disguise it as a game, they will adopt it wholeheartedly. Let me give you an example. Recently I instituted a game using a pair of dice, or a single one. Kids call it PIANO DICE. I teach the child six songs, like Jingle Bells and Star Wars, etc, and then number the songs from 1-6, writing this list down on a post-it which I put on the piano. The child rolls the dice and then has to try to play the piece with the number on the dice. Not play it perfectly, but as well as they can. It’s an excellent opportunity to point out a fingering idea, a wrong note, a pattern in the keys that might help them. And the kids respond, because we go on to the next roll of the dice right away, not dwelling on the piece but trying to get the entire list more clear in their minds. That is an example of disguising repetition as a game.

In closing, let me give you the image in my mind that allows me to start each piano lesson with a child and make them happy about it: I imagine the child before I arrive, having their own happy day. And then magically I appear. I say to myself that whatever has happened to ME that day is irrelevant, and all that matters is how that child feels about THEIR lesson on THIS day.

And I resolve that no matter what, that child is going to feel GOOD about playing the piano on that day. It doesn’t matter if they have practiced or not, if they are in a good mood, or if they make great progress. It matters only that they sat at the piano, gave it their best try, enjoyed it, and were praised for their honest efforts.

It’s my job to make their musical education a happy one by accurately gaging their mood and acting appropriately. It works every single time.

By John Aschenbrenner Copyright 2000 Walden Pond Press. Visit http://www.pianoiseasy.com and 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.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Aschenbrenner

Tags: how to play the piano, musical education, piano teacher, reading music

Let’s assume you’re an adult who has always wanted to play piano but has never gotten around to it. Don’t be shy, you are in good company. A recent survey says that 8 out of 10 people wish they had learned the piano.

Many of you perhaps had piano lessons as a child, but you didn’t have the time to play much as an adult. Now, you have the time and have decided to try again. Good. I’m here to help you find what might be the right strategy for YOUR musical education.

And that’s the key: strategy. You have to have a plan, implement it and then refine what you found.

For example, don’t try just one piano teacher and then stick with them, out of loyalty, perhaps. Try several, just to see what their approach is. It will cost you the same, and you will probably learn more from multiple approaches than one.

But here’s one thing you may find as well: the perfect teacher, and that’s the first essential for success at the piano. Even if that teacher must be you yourself.

So, if you are in a position to look for teachers, visit several.

Be careful to explain to the teacher what YOU want to learn, or they will simply start you into their program, which may or may not be what you want.

Here are some things to ask yourself:

1. What kind of music do I want to play? If you want to play jazz piano, perhaps a disciplined classical teacher of the old school is not for you.
2. Do you want to read music, or play by ear, by number, memorize? What method do you feel comfortable with. Ask for a demonstration of the options.
3. What kind of teacher do I want? A disciplinarian? A friendly mentor?

Next, be honest with yourself in determining how much time you can devote to learning the piano. I can offer you the advice that my father gave me: 5 minutes a day is better than 35 minutes once a week.

That’s the best advice I ever got about learning the piano. In my own teaching practice, the adults who learn fastest and stay with it the longest are casual about it, but try to play even a few minutes a day.

A very destructive cycle is started when you say, “Oh, I could only play five minutes today, so I might just as well skip it.” But that’s so wrong: just sit down and play the 5 minutes, or tomorrow you will say, “I didn’t play yesterday, so what’s the point today?” Then you have already quit.

Next, if it’s possible, use a piano teacher who will come to your home. In my experience, half of all piano lessons that YOU have to travel to will be cancelled by you. The convenience of an in-home piano teacher outweighs the cost, and if you want to stick with your piano learning program, you’ll want to stick with it as long as you can.

Regardless of the piano teacher you select, here are several tips for success at learning the piano:

1. Play hands separately for a while. Don’t immediately try a piece with both hands and expect less than chaos. Your brain requires repetition to get the idea of where your fingers go, and two hands at once is too much at first.
2. Play slowly. Most beginners assume that they are supposed to play the piece as fast as it traditionally goes. Play slowly, even painfully slowly.
3. Break the piece up into very small sections and resolve to conquer that one small area. It’s too daunting to look at a page full of notes and think, “I have to play all this?”
4. Repeat more than you think necessary, as much as you can stand. This is the hard part. You have to be persistent.
5. Balance repetition with variety: play a piece you like until you are a little tired of it, and then go on to some other piece. Come back to the first piece when you are refreshed and not tired of it.

Now go out and find a teacher, but a book about piano, just make an attempt to get started.

If you can find a sympathetic, special piano teacher, you will learn very quickly.

Remember, just 5 minutes a day.

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.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Aschenbrenner

Tags: jazz piano, learning piano, musical education, piano lessons, piano teacher, play piano, read music

There are many factors you should consider as you design a musical education for your children or yourself.

The major question to answer is the location of the lesson. Will your kids be taught at home by a traveling instructor or will you travel to the piano teacher’s studio?

LESSONS AT HOME

If you want to find a traveling instructor in your local area, try the local paper or local print media ads. Many piano teachers advertise in newspapers as well as online. Most piano teachers do not travel because of the major added expenditure on transport.

It is more convenient for the piano teacher to teach at their studio, but it is more convenient for the piano student to be taught at home. In the end, the decision may be left up to which types of teachers are available in your area. If you are in a very remote area, your only choice may be to purchase a piano method via mail and the internet.

There are many benefits to hiring a traveling instructor and having your lessons at home. First of, having lessons at home is far more convenient, as well as being conducive to learning because the child is in a comfortable, familiar environment.

Next, you will be able to see the lesson and observe how the teacher teaches and how your child will react. You can bet that the teacher is eager to do a good job because you are present, if not in the same room, at least in the house and able to monitor your child’s experience from afar.

Kids feel more comfortable at the home piano, and can glide from their own activities to the lesson and back again, all in the comfort of home.

Piano teachers who come to your home are more expensive, necessarily, but in my opinion, assuming you have a good teacher, you get what you pay for. That is, home lessons are a better buy because the learning environment is better and more secure. You may also want to make the point that many families want to have their children playing music in the home as a cultural value they support.

Having the lessons at home set that example for the children, but perhaps even more valuable is the fact that you may show praise for their efforts, however humble, more easily in your home.

LESSONS AT THE TEACHER’S STUDIO

Perhaps the prime virtue is that they are cheaper, and since most piano instructors teach only out of their home, there is a greater selection.

Some teach in their own home, or a studio attached to it. Others teach at music schools, exalted and famous, or in a storefront type of operation. In any case, you’ll need to travel to the piano lesson and then either sit in on the lesson, or spend a half hour or so doing something else. And if you have other children to attend to, this can become difficult to organize and pull off happily.

One virtue of the studio teacher is that they usually have a larger library of music than a traveling piano teacher would ordinarily carry with them. This probably would not make a difference to the average child starting out, as they would usually have a single text assigned to them at first. But for an adult or more accomplished child, it could be a benefit.

As a general rule, I would try not to sit in on the lesson at a teacher’s studio too often, as long as you feel comfortable with the teacher and child. The reason for this is simply concentration: your child will concentrate better if they are not trying to please you at the same time as following the piano instructor’s directions.

At home it is different. There you can hear the progress of the piano lesson all through your home, at your leisure.

But your choice of piano instruction may come down to what is available in your area.

In other cases, such as a rural location, you may not be able to find a teacher at all, or a teacher may prove too expensive.

In this case, I would suggest trying to find what I would call a “starter method,” that is, a method that is organized simply enough that you can do it yourself at home. There are many available, from large manufacturers to individuals who market their products online.

I would suggest that you compare all the piano products, and ask for samples if necessary. Some piano methods allow you to try them out online, using a virtual piano that uses your computer’s mouse so you can get the idea of how that piano method works.

Regardless of which piano method you use, exploration of the piano whether in lessons or on your own can be a rewarding experience. Go very slowly and this is most important, learn at your own pace.

The piano is truly the grandest of all musical instruments and the benefits are life-long.

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.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Aschenbrenner

Tags: children music, home piano, musical education, online piano, piano method, piano student, piano teachers, playing music, studio lessons, teacher lessons