Mikes Music Room – Music Articles

A clever kids piano teacher knows how to disguise the repetition of short passages so that the student is not fatigued by the repetitive effort.

In piano teaching, a short portion of a piano piece is usually called a “passage.” A passages has to be worked on, like tilling a field, until it is smooth and may be recombined with the rest of the piece.

Younger children require more creative effort on the part of the teacher in order to make the repetition of passages palatable to their shorter attention spans.

But first we should ask, why repeat passages at all?

The answer is, of course, continuity. Music is most pleasurable when it is continuous, not broken up by the stumblings of the inexperienced performer. For example, if you listen to a pianist or a band or sing in church, the group doesn’t stop if there is a mistake: that is musical continuity.

And continuity comes from familiarity. If you are familiar with every part of a song, it is reasonable to assume you can play the music continuously, so that we, your listener, can enjoy it.

So the object of repetition is to familiarize your brain with every little wrinkle of the piece. Think of it as driving a thought deep into your subconscious, into the BACK of your brain.

Glenn Gould, famed concert pianist and iconoclast, remarked that sometimes he looked down at his hands and thought he wasn’t playing: the music was so ingrained in his brain that he was not aware of the efforts required to play Bach fugues without really thinking about it!

But that’s what you’re after, a kind of out-of-body experience where you know the piece so well that your fingers almost play it by themselves.

So how do we disguise repetition for the younger kids?

First, teach them the rudiments of six short piano pieces they know outside of piano lessons, like Jingle Bells. It doesn’t have to be a whole song, it can be a passage or fragment. Then, write the names of the songs on a Post-It in a numbered list. Take a pair of dice and let the child throw and see which song they have to play. This takes the tedium out of playing one piece over and over. Besides, the dice make it a game.

Second, bait and switch. Work on a passage a little, then say, “Oh, let’s drop that for a while,” especially when you see the first signs of fatigue. Work on something else for a few moments, and then suddenly come back to the first, abandoned task. It will seem fresher to the child the second time if there has been a break.

Third, make a game of it. Ask them to bet their mom’s sofa that they can’t play that song again perfectly. Make the basis of your bet something utterly ridiculous, like their washing machine, but act very serious. They will play along. As they repeat it, maybe point out a thing or two, a fingering here, add a part there, and work on it a few seconds, then move on.

Take all three of these ideas and combine them, and you have a child-friendly way of “practicing,” repeating short passages over and over without the child feeling exhausted.

Offering a child a piano game in equal measure to hard work is a recipe for a happy student who proceeds at their own, comfortable pace.

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

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

Many parents know that playing piano even a few minutes a day has many benefits for children. Today we want to consider the youngest of the children, the preschoolers.

Among the benefits of piano lessons are better math scores, better handwriting and better handling of tasks in general.

But what age to start this beneficial process?

Research indicates that the younger a child starts piano lessons, the more benefit they derive from it.

In general, most parents look to start between the ages of three and six.

But there are many factors to consider the younger you want to start.

First of all, the child must be old enough to understand symbols, both letters and numbers. Next, they must have at least enough dexterity to be able to move their fingers independently.

Most important is the emotional maturity of the child. Can they be around strangers, even kindly and warm, without needing the constant presence of a parent? Do they have the ability to carry out even a simple task without frustration?

Even if the child exhibits positively all the factors above, to some degree or other, there is one more important factor that will help all the others: the teacher.

A patient, talented and kind teacher who specializes in teaching preschool kids the piano can be the most important element of all.

A good preschool piano teacher will be so patient and fun that the child is allowed to develop all the above skills why they are learning.

Look for a piano teacher that understands that the first victory to be won is to interest the child in the instrument itself. Once you have that, you can proceed in almost any direction. This means playing the piano for the child, so they see what it can do, and all the fun sounds it can make.

Lastly, try to find a teacher that will teach the child as an individual, not in a group. While general play and learning can be carried out successfully in a group, piano lessons require intense one-on-one skills not possible in a group. Children also benefit from the one-on-one attention that piano lessons naturally provide.

Look for a piano teacher specializing in preschool, and who knows how to go slowly enough for your child that they are not frustrated in any way by their first piano lessons.

Look for a fun personality, not a stern task-master.

You know how most people say the piano lessons they had when they were a kid were a nightmare?

I had the opposite experience. But maybe it was the teacher.

People have the strangest impression of what the archetypal piano teacher looks like.

I think they expect somewhere between Miss Hathaway in The Beverly Hillbillies and perhaps a brusque Margaret Thatcher in her severe Prime Minister suit.

I’ve heard all the horror stories about knuckles getting rapped and the towering rages of the insulted master.

I even have a friend, a violin player in a major US Symphony Orchestra, whose early piano virtuoso years were replete with a wooden yoke he had to wear around his neck to prevent him looking at the keys. True story. Very misguided teacher, but that was in the late 1950′s. Kids have rights now.

But I had none of these monsters for a piano teacher.

I had Mr. Blew.

He was a kindly middle-aged gentleman who taught in his home, always wearing a cardigan sweater, sort of like Fred MacMurray.

I don’t remember anything about the piano part of the lessons. I could read music well, but I had never really played difficult piano pieces very much.

All I remember is our discussions of chords and harmony. Mr. Blew taught me figured bass, the language of chords and improvisation in Baroque usage such as Bach. We played Bach chorales endlessly, studying the seemingly tiny but actually significant differences from one beautiful chorale to another.

He taught me how to move four voices pleasingly, looking for what the listener expected, but also looking for what we could add to it ourselves.

My major revelation as an eleven year old was with Chopin, not as music to play, but as music to analyze and find the secret source of its haunting beauty.

I remember looking intensely at a page of a Chopin Polonaise, and, seeing a similarity between two different chord movements of a certain, subtle kind, I cried out, “Did Chopin mean to do that?” It seemed so elegant how the two chords followed one another, yet so well thought-out.

Mr. Blew looked at me with that Cheshire Cat smile somewhere in between an enlightened uncle and Yoda, and said, “Exactly what Chopin wanted to do, my boy. Every note was carefully figured out, and refined endlessly until it fit perfectly like a watch.”

Mr. Blew opened up to me that day the secret world of chords and harmony, which famed German philosopher and novelist Hermann Hesse once called the Three Dimensional Chess Game in his mystic novel Magister Ludi (Master of the Game).

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

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

Frederic Chopin was alone among the great composers in that he made his living almost entirely from teaching piano.

During the period around the 1840′s he was the most famous piano teacher in Paris, largely because he was also one of the most famous and beloved composers in the world.

His roster of students contained many great and good pianists, among them Mikuli, who became the editor of Chopin’s printed piano music.

Chopin taught at home in a lavish, well appointed studio. It contained two pianos: one beautiful Erard grand, on which the student played, and a small cottage upright, at which the master sat and demonstrated.

The master instructed his students to seek out and play only the finest pianos, as he thought playing on inferior instruments ruined a good finger technique. His emphasis at first was on relieving the tension found in many students’ hands.

He began at eight in the morning and taught all day. This was because, as he said, “All those white gloves cost money.” He was a dandy and fastidious dresser, and traveled only in the highest echelons of Paris high society, where he was in constant demand both as pianist and personality.

To the talented student, he was both inspiring and confusing. Giving great advice was his stock in trade, but one student pointed out that, “The master is so confusing. He demonstrates how I should play, but every time he plays a piece, it is completely different!”

To the untalented, he could be cruel. Many of his students were titled young ladies of very high social standing but little talent who took lessons from Chopin because they could afford to and because it conferred social status to study with such a great master.

But his assistant, Mikuli, noted many times when these rich young ladies would be reduced to tears and run away in horror because the master had criticized their playing most harshly.

Rich or poor, at the end of the lesson the student put their payment in gold on the mantelpiece, while the master discreetly turned his back.

Great masters do not tarnish their hands with money.

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

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

All that matters is your child’s experience at the piano. It doesn’t matter what other people think, what others expect, even what the piano teacher thinks is irrelevant.

What matters is that your child has a chance to experience playing the piano, however humbly, and enjoys what they are able to do. Even attempting the piano is a success.

Looking at children at the piano as a group, with statistical expectations that one child will live up to someone’s ideal of a musician, is actually destructive to the child.

No one in their right mind expects their child to play at Carnegie Hall: what we’re looking for is hobbyists and aficionados, not piano virtuosi and superstars.

Let me assure you that if your child has what it takes to play Carnegie Hall, it will be so obvious that no one in the piano business will miss their cue. The number of children that have that in the cards for them are so few, that it is not even a real number.

Take all the wildly talented children, divide by 10,000, and then pick one. That one child has a 1% chance of a successful career as a piano soloist. But all children, properly nurtured, have a 100% chance of playing simple songs at the piano, feeling great about it and adding to their general education and intellectual skills.

It’s more productive to think in terms of your child as an individual. Let’s get that individual child to play as well as they can, without stress, without wildly unrealistic expectations.

In fact, the point of early childhood music education is not expertise, but exposure to the intellectual and abstract concepts inherent in music that will help their minds grow.

To demonstrate the proposition that children’s piano lessons increase mental powers, we need to look at the human brain itself.

The brain, divided into two sides, controls each hand with the opposite side of the brain. The left brain controls the right hand, while the right brain controls the left hand.

The two sides “speak” to each other via a huge superhighway of nerves and ganglia called the “corpus callosum.” The reason the piano is so beneficial for children intellectually is that the piano, in having both hands work together in similar ways, forces the brain to use both halves of the brain simultaneously. There are very few activities on earth that excite the “corpus” like music and piano.

And so piano activity demonstrably produces better handwriting, better math skills, better abstract skills and higher self-esteem, all through having the two sides of the brain talk to each other, over and over until the nerve path is physically thickened.

That’s right, there is a PHYSICAL result in your child’s brain as a result of playing the piano, even attempting the piano. It is a known medical fact that the “corpus callosum” (that nerve path between the brain’s two sides) of musicians is up to 90% larger than that of people who are not musicians. And starting piano at an early age begins those benefits early in life.

So if your child is not destined for Carnegie Hall, they may still be destined to enjoy, appreciate and create music. And have a thicker corpus callosum!

The saddest part of music education today is that piano lessons are, as they always have been, designed to produce candidates for Carnegie Hall, not fully rounded and nurtured individuals who try to play piano to the best of THEIR ability.

Children who, with a little care, could gain all the benefits of a piano education are made to feel like failures because they cannot live up to a curriculum developed hundreds of years ago to produce professionals.

It’s time to let kids be kids and not rob them of the benefits of piano because they don’t fit some misguided teacher’s idea of accomplishment.

Start looking at the piano from the child’s point of view.

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

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