Why Kid’s Piano Teachers Go From Page To Page

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Why do most kid’s piano teachers go from page to page in the standard texts?

Because they are lazy and uncreative. It takes a lot of energy to follow the child like a sheep dog, constantly trying to find out what will excite that individual child and engage their interest with the piano.

It is far easier to open the book, work on a page, and then assign the child the task of mastering that page. The teacher’s motive is to fill the half hour by the easiest means (for them) possible.

The problem is that this method does nothing to make the child interested. The only result is that the piano teacher has discharged their obligation to “teach,” and is entitled to collect their fee from the parent. And almost all parents fall for this scam.

What these teachers do is use the book’s “curriculum” to fill the child’s mind, when the opposite should be true: a good piano teacher bases their curriculum on what is in the child’s brain, not on a book they buy from Amazon.

The result of these shoddy teaching practices are a child that loses interest quickly in the piano.

It is far harder to engage each individual child and try to discover what will make them want to play. I can guarantee you that the content of the average piano book will not do the job.

A standard piano book is only one of many tools that a piano teacher should use. You need games, improvisation, visual and physical training and a lot of personal attention, none of which is present in the average piano teaching book.

But they go on and on, from one boring page to the next, never realizing that they are destroying the child’s desire to play the piano.

Far harder to make the method up as you go, using the child’s reaction as their guide.

But such piano teachers are utterly lost without the crutch of “the book,” the be-all and end-all of their “piano method.”

Here’s a piano method that meets kids head on, and starts with material they can handle with enthusiasm:

Avoid Purist Piano Teachers for Kids

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A purist piano teacher is one who believes the following:

1. There is only one way for kids to play the piano: first learn to read music, and if you survive that, you will be allowed to play real music. All piano teaching derives from 1830 and the work of Carl Czerny.

2. Until kids have mastered reading music, their diet will consist of exercise pieces, which are entirely academic. Kids will never play a piece of music they have heard unless they can read it at the piano.

3. A child’s nature is entirely irrelevant.  There will be no talking, no laughing, no slouching, no childish behavior of any kind. Piano lessons are a serious business that proceeds the same regardless of the personality of the child.

4. The piano teacher does not engage the child. The child must latch on to what the piano teacher wants or leave.

5. The piano method can never bend to the child. The child must always submit to the piano method.

A progressive piano teacher believes the following:

1. Every child is unique. There is only one way to teach an individual child the piano, and it is the teacher’s job to discover that way. If it includes the 1830s and Carl Czerny, we will use it if it benefits the child. If the child does not thrive with Carl Czerny, we will find another way.

2. A child should learn to read music at a pace they find comfortable. Reading music may not be the best starting platform for every child. The first goal is to interest the child in the piano, not indoctrinate them with the minutiae of musical notation as dictated by the 1830s.

3. A child should be allowed to be themselves during a lesson. They may converse with the teacher as if with a friend. The best relationship for teacher-child is one of collegial exploration rather than master-slave.

4. A children’s piano teacher should engage their mind from the first second of every lesson. If that engagement cannot be achieved with reading music, there are many other ways to interest the child in the piano.

5, Any piano method or tool that the child cannot understand and easily grasp is useless. Learn how to recognize the failure of your teaching and resolve to find a better way to engage each individual child.

Here’s a piano method that purists hate and progressives love: http://pianoiseasy2.com

Starting Kids Piano Is Easy, Continuing Is Hard

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Anyone can start to learn the piano.

The real question is, who will survive lessons long enough to actually learn how to play with satisfaction?

The point is, you need to imagine the future of your piano playing before you take any steps.

Two factors will affect how long you will take piano lessons.

The first factor is the teacher and method. The second factor is the student’s emotional memory of  childhood piano lessons.

No child will stay with piano for very long if they feel guilty and pressured. Some may stay if they are constantly pressured by parents, but in my experience, kids who are forced to play piano end up hating it by a ratio of 10 to 1.

What’s the point of surviving years of expensive piano lessons if you are taught, in the end, to hate the piano?

A far better scenario is to engage in piano lessons that proceed at a comfortable pace for your individual child. Piano teachers are notorious for one-size-fits-all teaching.

This scenario continues: having found a teacher willing to move at your child’s pace, the teaching carefully allows the child to enjoy the piano, regardless of how well they are absorbing the teacher’s “method.”

After years of such a gentle approach, you will have a child who simply enjoys the piano, and one day will perhaps take a deeper interest. With a harsher approach, you will have a child whose piano experience ends definitively with their childhood lessons.

As proof of this fact, I offer a recent experience I had with a local family that wanted me to teach their children.

The oldest child had seven years of lessons. Though this child  was not afraid of the piano, they were unable to read any unfamiliar music, which means that they managed the old teacher’s “method” by memorizing. Memorizing is not bad as a skill, but as a means of managing sight reading it is a disaster.

Next, these kids were unable to offer me a single song they could readily play without fumbling through the book, stopping and starting and ultimately crashing to a halt.

Seven years? The least a child who has had seven years of lessons should be able to do is to sight read a simple, unfamiliar piece of music, and then be able to play some piece of music as a piece of music, all the way through without crashing and burning.  It can be Chopsticks, but they have to learn to play the game of music, which means all the way through as best you can and no stopping.

Their last teacher was the local disciplinarian, a man famous for turning out kids who had learned “properly” how to play piano.

Too bad he didn’t turn out kids who could survive his teaching.

Here’s a piano method that kids really enjoy starting: http://pianoiseasy2.com

Kids Piano Myths

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The first great piano myth is that kids must be instilled with the habits of a concert pianist from the beginning.

The truth is that this is kid’s piano, so make the piano appeal to a child. On the other hand, if you know of any kids who enjoy iron discipline, endless hours of dull repetition and almost no personal freedom, by all means refer them to the nearest conservatory.

The second great piano myth is that if kids form bad habits at the piano, these habits can never be undone.

The truth is that the only bad habit a kid can have at the piano is to not want to be seated in front of one. If you harass a child into all the proper positions and then manage to get a note or two out of them, don’t expect them to ask to play piano unless there is a threat present. Guilt never produced anything in a child other than a desire to be relieved of said guilt.

The third great piano myth is that kids are supposed to learn to read music first, and then, if your child somehow survives that decade-long process, they will magically start enjoying music and derive great pleasure from playing the piano.

The truth is that the only kids who enjoy playing the piano as adults are those that were allowed to enjoy the piano as children. You have to let kids be kids and enjoy the piano on their own level.

The fourth great myth is that your kids have to practice the piano on a daily basis, and that the child’s reaction to these practice sessions is entirely irrelevant. The conventional piano teacher’s view is that if a child does not like to practice what they are given, they are either stupid or lazy.

The truth is that kids are almost never shown how to practice, a complex process that requires professional guidance. You can’t just throw a child in a room with a Bastien piano book and then say, “Go learn it.” You have to show them exactly how to do it, and make it fun and interesting into the bargain. That’s a tall order if you’ve ever played a Bastien piano book with a child.

Kids nowadays are given the most boring exercise pieces in the beginning in the mistaken belief that endless repetition of these pieces will produce not only skill, but a desire to play music. It will do neither.

A far better method is to find the things about the piano that excite and interest the child, and only after the child has learned to enjoy the piano in some humble manner are they gently and gradually informed that they have a Himalayan Marathon of things to learn.

Show a child pianist that force will be used to instill skill, and that child may willingly play the piano once or twice.

Show a child what there is to enjoy about the piano, in terms of music making, and they will play the piano for their entire life.

Here’s a link to a piano method kids really enjoy starting: http://www.pianoiseasy2.com

Copyright 2013 John Aschenbrenner All Rights Reserved.

Kid’s Brains, Software, and the Magic of the Piano Keyboard

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When a child plays a computer game, they are limited by the software designer’s intent. It is not possible to make a move that has not been thought out by the software designer.

But when a child plays the piano, they are actually writing the “software” at the moment they play. The child’s experience at the piano is entirely original to the moment they play it. Yes, the composer wrote the song, but the child’s  attempt to play it resides in their brain alone. This takes far more mental skill than merely operating a game controller.

That is why playing the piano is, for kids, far more valuable than trudging through the well worn ruts that Nintendo has laid out for them, regardless of how colorful the sickly-sweet computer images and experiences are. Computer software is second hand garbage for a child’s brain compared to the fresh experience of trying to play the piano, however awkwardly.

I urge kids to play the piano slowly at first, in my attempt to convince them that they are burning a set of synapses in their brain, and the slower they go, the more accurate the “software” will be.

What would you prefer, to have your child realize the ignoble design of a Nintendo employee, created entirely with the goal of grabbing your dollar, or to have the kid’s brain attempt to create flesh and blood software out of the magic of Beethoven’s music?

Nintendo has great commerciality, whereas Beethoven is pure humanity. Yet America is the leader in supplying this automated garbage, built to numb your child’s mind.

It is only because Nintendo is easily available mind candy that children become involved with it. And the software is about as valuable as candied breakfast cereal.

The piano keyboard has a magic to it that has survived 700 years, and it has survived because the piano keyboard is one of the greatest human inventions, ever. Computers, on the other hand, are glorified doorbells, signifying nothing and robbing children of the ability to think for themselves.

I long for an America, a world, where as many kids play the piano as play the computer. What a better world it would be! My motive in writing these books was to find a way for every child to enjoy the piano as much as I did when I was a child.

The only way every child in America will take up the piano is if you use a simplified language like Piano by Number. Piano by Number is the only way to level the playing field with the computer and give music a chance to become part of our children’s lives.

Musical notation as a child’s first musical language has proved to be an utter failure with modern children, an impossible stumbling block that educators unwittingly put in the child’s way.

Piano by Number should be a fun part of every preschool and kindergarten  in America, and should be as ubiquitous as the pencil.  Developing an early appetite for the piano has benefits not only for the child, but the larger musical community as well, for more enthusiastic piano cadets means more sheet music sold, more pianos sold, more music teachers employed.

Pianos teach your child to be human, to play with a machine that has survived every disaster humanity can throw at it.

You can’t take away computers. They have their place, but so does the piano.

Balance computers with the grand design of the piano keyboard.

Go here to try Piano by Number with your child:

http://pianoiseasy2.com/keyboardmain.html

Copyright 2013 John Aschenbrenner All Rights Reserved

Using Piano By Number to Teach Fingering to Kids

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It is very difficult for kids to learn to read music, especially if you are trying to multi-task all the other skills deemed “necessary” to play the piano.

In other words, learning piano actually involves many skills in addition to deciphering the notes on the page and finding their place on the piano keyboard.

Fingering, rhythm, hand position, posture and playing with both hands are only a few of the skills that kid’s piano teachers feel necessary to teach, usually right at the beginning.

The truth is that there is one skill that is more important than all the others, and that is fingering.

Until you learn to treat your five fingers as a team, you will be utterly confused by the demands of the piano, especially if you are a child.

If you add even one skill to this fingering burden, namely, reading music, you have set up a curriculum that will confuse and eventually frustrate almost all children.

The idea of fingering is central to the physical sense of the piano, and, isolated by itself,  fingering is actually quite easy for a child to grasp.

Remember that fingering is the art of choosing the most efficient group of fingers for a particular group of notes.

What I have discovered is that Piano by Number is the best introduction to fingering, and here’s why:

If you start a child playing a song using numbers, they will know the song in five to ten minutes. At that point, when they are secure and proud of the tune they can play, it is quite easy to play games and say, “Hey, look, we could use three fingers in a row for this part!” or, “Look, this part has five notes in a row, let’s use all five fingers in that part.”

Since they are not suffering through reading music, they will respond to the games immediately, and are soon happily launched into the world of playing the piano physically.

Only when a child has mastered fingering do I start them at the task of reading music, and it is much easier to start reading music  with a child who has a physical sense of how the piano is played, namely, with groups of fingers.

Remember “Cat’s Cradle” and “Here Is The Church, Here Is The Steeple,” and “This Little Piggy?”  Kids have good dexterity, and like to play games with their fingers, outside of the piano.

And what is a video game controller but a massive lesson in how to move your fingers efficiently, if only the thumbs?

So let your students get a physical sense of the piano using fingering games before you saddle them with the rigors of reading music.

You’ll both be glad you did.

Here’s a link to Piano by Number, where your child can begin to enjoy the piano before they try reading music. http://www.pianoiseasy2.com

Copyright 2013 by John Aschenbrenner All Rights Reserved

Kids, Piano and the iPhone/Tablet Paradigm

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The most destructive force I see in young kids is the introduction of smartphones and tablet computers.

A perfect example is the brother of a nine year old I teach. He is six, and when I met him was a bubbly, communicative, rather normally hyperactive child. He always stayed in the room for the lesson, offering funny observations and jumping on the sofa.

The parents are never home, and I teach them at 7pm, so I think there is neglect at work here. Granted, they must have a huge mortgage and need to work to pay it, but still, there is not enough parenting that I can see in action.

A month ago, the parents got the boy a tablet computer. Within a week, he stopped smiling, talking and jumping on the sofa. He’s on the sofa with his tablet, endlessly poking away, silently lost in a world pre-arranged by some software designer.

Whereas before he wanted to participate in the lessons, now he is totally isolated, speaking to no one, never looking up from the tablet.

What most disturbs me is the change in his demeanor. Sullen, quiet, lost and dead-eyed now, he has lost the spark of childhood.

I think computers do that, dulling down, to all of us, but the effect on a child is devastating.

This child will never take up the piano.

He’s too busy with his tablet and iphone for stupid activities like making music.

Here’s a link to a piano method that may excite your child because it uses numbers instead of notes to get them immediately involved, if their head is not stuck inside their iphone.  http://www.pianoiseasy2.com Copyright 2013 John Aschenbrenner All Rights Reserved

Piano For The Very Young

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I get correspondence from many people who want to start their child at the piano at the age of two or three.

I think that there is no age too young to start piano, in the sense that alphabet training, and “This Little Piggy” are appropriate for any age, and represent the beginnings of reading and math.

But the approach must be completely different, and with completely different expectations.

If you teach a three year old and have even five year old expectations, you are in for a rude awakening. True, there are amazing talents even at three, but 99.9999999999% of three year olds are very delicate creatures.

Examine first your motives. If you want the child to be a concert pianist, you are close to engaging in child abuse, for the life of a musician is slavery, and it is unthinkable to condemn a child to that without their mature assent.

If, however, your motivation is to simply awaken music within the child by means of the piano, you have selected an easily attainable goal. Let the child’s reaction guide you as to how much further to go past awakening a sense of enjoyment.

FINGERING

Pretend it doesn’t exist. The index finger is fine.

RHYTHM

It exists in the simplest form: you produce it, and they feel it. Don’t expect a three year old to understand it the way even a six year old does.

CHORDS

They exist mostly if YOU play them, but you can try to introduce two note chords, just to get them to use two fingers, and to plan for the future. Don’t expect much on their part, but they usually can participate in ear training: is it happy or sad?

BLACK KEYS

They don’t exist at first. Later they might, but they confuse the very young, who can’t understand an extra set of keys on another plane. Stick with white piano keys at first.

COUNTING

Easy and natural to do, just don’t make it complex.

HAND POSITION

It doesn’t exist. You can play an exploratory game with a quarter on the back of their hand, but you’ll be lucky to get them playing with two index fingers, much less a flat hand position. It is meaningless to a child.

SITTING PROPERLY

It’s irrelevant unless they’re not even on the bench. Avoid bringing up issues they can barely control.

PRACTICING

Are you kidding? Find a song they LOVE and see if you can interest them in it. Insist on nothing, expect nothing, and you may be pleasantly surprised.

ATTENTION SPAN

Five minutes may be a maximum. You have been warned. When the child says the lesson is over, specifically or implicitly, the lesson is over. Period. Most kids are happy with maybe ten minutes, and very few regularly want twenty-odd minutes. When the moment has passed, it has passed. Your job is to make sure they want another five minutes.

PLAYING WITH BOTH HANDS

Coordination of the brain hemispheres comes much later, but you can try. Children vary wildly in this development, and there is no one rule. I’ve seen 12 year olds who still have issues with it, so be very careful not to frustrate the child. In general, though, very young children have extreme difficulty with anything approaching two-hand coordination in the pianistic sense.

In conclusion, keep it fun, forget pace and curriculum and instead try to find some element that amuses and fascinates them, and then elaborate upon that.

The younger the child, the more you must make a piano lesson seem not a chore.

Think of the piano as this big furry animal, and you have to get the child to like it and want to interact with it again and again.

You can only win the battle of the piano over the long term.

And the battle can be lost forever in a single moment of impatience, anger or guilt.

Visit http://pianoiseasy2.com to read more.

Reverse Psychology and Children’s Piano

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Some children can be guided directly to an appreciation of playing the piano.

Others cannot be approached directly and need to discover it on their own, usually as part of a humorous game.

Here are common situations and reverse responses:

I DON’T WANT TO PLAY

Say, “Neither do I. Let’s not.” The child will be very surprised. Tell them there is a secret device that will explode or emit a terrible smell if they play Middle C, so they won’t want to play that, will they? Block them physically from playing and beg them not to hit the Middle C button. Once they play that, add other keys and claim it’s a secret spy code. Sooner or later they will have played enough notes for a song. Put it all together, and you have a child making music in spite of their stated desire for the opposite.

What they are really saying: “ I don’t mind playing but don’t make it boring, and see if you can engage my mind instead of just my obedience.”

I DON’T LIKE THIS SONG

Say, “Neither do I, it’s a terrible song. What’s a great song you like and would like to play?” Be prepared to play four dozen songs until you find one the child likes. If it turns into “Name That Tune” so be it, but there’s a lot to be learned from a session of Name That Tune. Sometimes, if the book they are reading from is old or discardable, I tear out the page they don’t like, which always startles them. Find a song then child likes and then be clever enough to disguise learning it as a game. If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be teaching kids the piano.

What they are really saying: “I thought music was pleasurable. You deliver drudgery.”

Here are a few further rules or pointers:

1. No matter what happens, it is a cause for amusement. If you are disappointed the child didn’t practice, express it wryly, humorously, in a way the child can understand, and with no tone of guilt. The point is, your anger or sourness isn’t ever going to get them to practice. Finding a way to interest them, on the other hand, will get them to play, perhaps later to practice. Sweet works, sour doesn’t.
2. Always go with their suggestion. For example, if a child idly plays a bit of a song by themselves it means they are interested in it. Drop whatever curriculum you have prepared and work on that song and see where it leads. Often you can find a way to use the song to subtly illustrate your curriculum (fingering, chords).
3. Never leave a lesson with the child feeling guilty or down. A child remembers how the lesson felt emotionally. Leave them feeling that you had a fun time, tried to learn a few things, and wouldn’t mind trying it again. Four dozen piano lessons later, you’ll be glad you did.

Never forget that most children’s secret fear about piano teachers is that the teacher may get mad and humiliate the child. Once you establish that this will NEVER happen, the sky is the limit, and you have a willing candidate who can work at his or her own speed, with occasional gentle prodding.

Children at the piano are expecting drudgery. Reverse psychology demands that, instead, they get absurd, uplifting fun. Train them to expect that, and you have a budding pianist.

Visit http://pianoiseasy2.com for a beginning piano method kids really enjoy!

Copyright 2013 John Aschenbrenner All Rights Reserved

Piano Practice Ideas for Adults (and Children)

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Children rarely master the idea of how to practice, but that is no surprise since kids are just learning how to approach both tasks and their completion. A child’s piano lesson can subtly become practicing, and an experienced  children’s piano teacher knows that lesson/practice may be all the child gets that week.

But adults are used to budgets, routines and constraints, and are actually better candidates for real progress at the piano than children because of their acceptance of self-discipline.

But what discipline? Routine is fine if you’re certain a routine will give the results expected. If you go to a conservatory, you have the skills already to carry out whatever routine they give you. And they give you the routine, exactly. Follow it and you may succeed.

The simplest overview of learning a specific song is this:

1. Notes: learn the notes and their location. Memorize them.
2. Assign fingers to produce the notes more efficiently. Use them consistently.
3. Correct the rhythm.
4. Find the worst places and refine them before endlessly playing the easy parts. Don’t just play what you can play. Play what you can’t play.
5. Join all the parts together, easy and difficult, and repeat #4 until perfect.

But what if you’re a beginner, with no skills and no experience? What if you have no teacher to guide you in every move?

What exactly do you do during each repetition?

What basic ideas are common to practicing as a whole, and which of them can you apply to yourself without a piano teacher? In other words, what was the hypothetical teacher thinking when they devised your routine?

1. Discern two types of playing: either play through a piece for continuity, or stop and start to clean passages. They are entirely different approaches and if you confuse the two you will waste time and effort. Beginners always start at the beginning, play through the piece, and then wonder why it isn’t any better.
2. Find the place in the piece that is most difficult, and play ONLY that part for a while, a day, five minutes, whatever you can stand. Isolate the spot. Do not ignore it like dreaded homework. Face it straight on, persistently, even when no progress appears.
3. Relieve the stress of playing the hard parts by playing the easy parts.
4. Play hands separately on difficult passages until you have some sense of control.
5. Play slower than necessary. Never play faster than you can control without major errors. Most time is wasted playing things too fast and then you learn nothing from that repetition except how to fail at the passage. The answer is always, “Play slowly until you have control.” Make each repetition count.

The most important practice rules are to embrace and play the hard parts, and to play everything slower generally.

All of these ideas apply to adults, and to children of all types as well, provided you simplify the commands and expectations. For example, with children, the “easy” parts are just as difficult, and you’d be well advised to apply these ideas to the easiest passage first before you attempt any higher level of difficulty.

Don’t just start from the beginning every time. Find what’s broken and go and fix it, and it is rarely the beginning of the song.

Here’s a good book to get started with if you’re an adult and you like classical piano:

http://pianoiseasy2.com/easyclassical.html