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