Guide to Help Me Teach DD Piano

[MLinPDX]

I took piano lessons for 12 years, and have a degree in Music. So I figure that is one area where I should actually know what I'm talking about and be qualified to teach my children. Of course irl I have no clue how to go about teaching my 6 year old piano. Are there any books I might find to help me out? Like "Teach Your Kid Piano" or something like that. I'd like to at least get her started myself before taking outside lessons.

--Thanks

[moominmamma]

My piano skills are decent, though violin is my first instrument (viola my preferred choice now), and I'm certainly not a professional pianist. My advanced training as a pianist is minimal, and I never took any pedagogy courses, so I chose to farm my kids out to experts when they wanted to learn piano. We did a few months of mostly child-directed but partly parent-guided messing about with piano skills first, and they went off to get regular lessons when it was clear they were serious about formally studying the instrument.

I'm glad we went that route, because we then had at our disposal an expert who could prioritize various musical skills and goals, and who knew as a result of training and experience which issues could be let to linger and which should be dealt with at the outset. I would never have decided to put as much early priority as she has on, for instance, the pump-handle action she teaches for a baroque detaché articulation, or on singing one polyphonic voice while playing the other. But I can see the musical dividends that these disciplined priorities have paid in my kids. We've also found the structure and accountability of weekly lessons, and the inclusion in the musical community of the teacher's studio, to be extremely helpful. While I'm a confirmed homeschooling / unschooling mom who thinks that far too much about raising and educating kids is outsourced these days, I think music is different from most other areas. It's an artistic discipline, not a set of basic life-skills and bits of knowledge. As such I think it's best guided by experts who have knowledge and experience with the imparting of that discipline.

If you are interested in serving that role with your child there are several primer series available which are far more comprehensive and holistic than the old John Thompson style primer books. There's nothing wrong with JT et al, but those older approaches rely on the teacher to fill in all the gaps in touch, tone, listening, ear training, technique, theory, transposition, improvisation, sight-reading and so on. Many of the more recent primer series cover those bases reasonably well -- if you purchase the supplementary materials.

My particular favourite is the Celebrate Piano series. It doesn't get students stuck in "five finger position" for months, it uses an intervalaic approach to pitch reading, it has students transposing and using black notes from the earliest stages, encourages composition and improvisation, includes a reference CD for listening, and the repertoire is pleasant but not entirely predictable, with challenging harmonies and rhythms thrown in to help broaden musical horizons. There are performance albums, theory flashcards, plus the core lesson books and they work together well. We've used books from at least four different early primer series with my kids (and looked at several more) and this one is definitely my favourite. I did levels 1A/1B/2A with my kids and our teacher now uses this program as well, so they continued with it through to the end of 3A.

Hope that helps!

Miranda

[One_Girl]

We use the Piano Adventures series. There are several books in it but my dd only uses four of them. I bought it because the people at our local music store recommended it as the best series and I was planning on teaching dd piano with it. I found that I didn't feel like devoting any more time to learning anything else beyond the traditional school subjects though. She now takes piano lessons and her teacher uses the same book and says it is his favorite series.

[MLinPDX]

Thank you for the suggestions. I've put Piano Adventures on hold at the library. Celebrate Piano looks pretty interesting too and I'll try to find it at a local music store.
-- ML

[moominmamma]

Just a few words of caution about the Faber & Faber Piano Adventures series. It very much sticks kids in the five-finger positions, where fingers are fixed over the C-G keys for months, then gradually introducing a second five-finger position (in G Major). As a result the compositions are harmonically formulaic and there's an adventurous comfort with the entire keyboard, black notes and all, that doesn't get established at the outset. I've also noticed that the students I know who learned with these books tend to equate notes on the staff with finger numbers, rather than primarily with sounds and notes on the keyboard. The note E is always "3" in their brains, which is of course a very short-sighted connection to make. Once you move out of these primers, E is no more likely to mean "3" than any other finger number. It also introduces pedaling very early on, which is fine for an average-sized 8- or 9-year-old, but unless you're going to purchase a pedal extension box, pedaling will set a smaller child up in very poor position. We've used the level 2 & 3 books for sight-reading practice and some of the harmonic intervals (7ths) are also too large for my fairly petite 7-year-old.

It is a comprehensive program in terms of having audio CDs, theory, reading and musicianship emphasized from the beginning, but I think the pedagogical priorities are a little misguided. JMNSHO!

Miranda

[tankgirl73]

Wow, I have exactly the opposite experience with Piano Adventures. Have you actually used it yourself? Perhaps those students just had 'bad' teachers.

I use PA as my #1 favourite method for most kids precisely BECAUSE it avoids equating a finger number to a note! It very deliberately has students changing fingers on a note, or playing on D-A instead of C-G, right from the beginning. It was DESIGNED as an alternative to the existing middle-c and positional methods.

Yes, it deals with 5-finger patterns, but that's only natural. They're not taught as "positions" (or at least they SHOULDN'T be), but as pentascales. And they are NOT 'stuck' in only those 'positions' as they learn them.

I have found the harmonies to be interesting, not overly formulaic. But at the same time, there is logic in having a certain amount of formulaic harmonizing, so that students can indeed learn what a "normal" chord progression sounds like (so that "unusual" chord progressions are indeed heard as something special). Some methods go too far in trying to make things "interesting" that it loses cohesion for the child's harmonic awareness.

Anyway... I would personally recommend both PA and Celebrate Piano. They both have strengths and weaknesses. I love many many many things about CP, but found there were certain students it just didn't work well with. Like any curriculum, really. My VERY favourite for young beginners was Music Discoveries by Anne Crosby, but it's not in print anymore... it was just brilliant, I hope she reissues it...

But I would also like to caution about teaching your own without knowing how to teach... It's an odd thing to say as a homeschooler But knowing how to play an instrument does NOT equate to knowing how to transfer that knowledge to a young child. What to do first. What to do next. What to do if this problem arises. What to do if they don't understand.

As homeschoolers, we'll buy a math curriculum that's designed for homeschoolers, so it has 'instructions' for the 'teacher'. I'm not aware of anything similar for music -- at least not for piano (there are some for recorder).

As someone who has a BMus and MMus in performance, AND has studied pedagogy and taught for 15+ years, I can definitely say with certainty that teaching beginners is the HARDEST part. Teaching intermediate and senior students without knowing "pedagogy" is easy enough -- you're fine-tuning technical details, you're developing expressive skills. Teaching the BASICS, starting from scratch, requires a completely different approach.

Perhaps just this little debate on the merits and pros/cons of Piano Adventures will show you how complex the issue can be.

If you're dead-set on teaching your daughter some little things before starting outside lessons, I'd actually suggest doing book-less stuff. Don't worry about READING music. Just teach her the geography of the piano itself. Start with the 2-black and 3-black key groups (my daughter mastered that at age 2)... go up and down the keyboard playing just the 2-blacks, then just the 3 blacks, in clusters. From there, try playing them individually.

Then let her improvise. You can play a basic little accompaniment in different styles in G-flat major, and let her improvise on the black keys. You can talk about keeping a steady pulse, trying notes of different lengths (drip drip raiiiinnboowwww), loud and soft, high and low.

Let her play with that for a long time. Then you can start to play with the white keys -- start with D because it's easy to find (between the 2 blacks) and build out from there. But the main point is -- teach her to play around on the piano and have fun, keep a steady beat, eventually name the keys, maybe talk about a good hand position -- but don't worry about reading until you find a (good!!!!) teacher. Just my thoughts.