I'm a real piano teacher now!
....Crikey!
And I've got two more people who want to sign their kids up for lessons. That gives me FOUR students!
....Crikey!!
Teaching five-year-old girls how to play the piano is really hard when all they want to do is hold down the pedal, bang the keys, and giggle maniacally.
I definitely learned how not to begin teaching a child piano, though. At first, I tried teaching her the notes A, B, C, D, and E. Yeah, that was waaaaay too much. I eventually had her forget all that. We're staying on middle C and working on whole notes, half notes, and quarter notes. Middle C. Only middle C.
Kwang-sook or whatever her name is... I'll call her Kelly... Anyway, she learned very quickly. She ripped through over a third of her piano book, but she didn't know the names of the notes she was playing. She knew middle C, but if I pointed to E and said "What's that note?" she couldn't tell me without working her way up. So I pulled out pencil and paper, drew a grand staff and said "Okay, draw E. Now C. Now D. Now F. Now A." She caught on pretty quick once we started working on it.
Man... I'm a teacher! ....Crikey!
3 comments:
My Mom has taught piano for over 30 years. If you are interested in a few ideas, keep reading... if not, stop now. :)
She teaches them "directions" on the piano: Where is the top and the bottom of the keyboard? Where is up and down on the keyboard? Where is high and low on the keyboard? Obviously, top, up, and high are the same. Bottom, down and low are the same.
She has them place their hands together and learn finger numbers one through five. Thumb is one, pinky is 5. This is something they can practice for weeks. You call out a finger number, they wiggle those two fingers on each hand (while holding them together). You start out doing them in order... as they learn them, you skip around and get faster and faster.
Learning notes:
Teach them to recognize groups of two black keys on the piano, and groups of three black keys on the piano.
Then, you can start teaching them the notes. It is definitely easier if they know the alphabet - because you can just explain that the piano alphabet ends with "G" and then starts over.
But when you teach them "C" on the piano - you can remind them that it is at the bottom of the two black notes (which they already learned). Have them find ALL the Cs on the piano. Over and over again. Use the following to teach them the other notes (just do one or two notes a week)- and give them LOTS of practice finding all of the As, Bs, Cs, etc on the piano.
"F" is at the bottom of the three black notes.
"E" is at the top of the two black notes.
"B" is at the top of the three black notes.
(Do you see why it's helpful to have them learn top/bottom now?)
"D" is in the middle of the two black notes.
By the time they get to G and A, they pretty much have got it figured out.
For when they start reading music, first things first: introduce them to the staff. The treble clef or the "G" staff because it CIRCLES the "g" line. The bass clef or the "F" clef, because the two dots surround "F". And of course, Middle C is an easy one to recognize (most of the time).
Once they can find that starting point (G, C or F) - the up/down direction thing helps them a lot because they can count how many notes they need to go UP or DOWN to find the right note to play. Just make sure you show them which way is UP on the staff, and which way is down.
Hope some of this is helpful to you!
I am very proud! :D YAY! Cathryn the teacher!!! :D!!!
If you remember, I took a crayon and wrote the names of the notes on the keys themselves. The crayon rubbed off soon enough.
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