Why Piano Teachers Should Go Slowly

01Sep08

Why Piano Teachers Should Go Slowly
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=John_Aschenbrenner]John Aschenbrenner

Many piano teachers forget how difficult it can be for the average child to learn the basic skills of beginning piano. You have to look at it from the child’s point of view.

Children don’t have the faintest idea why a piano teacher is presenting the concepts of piano skills in a particular order. They only know that they feel a certain way on that day. If they feel bad, you can have the most brilliant lecture on fingering planned, but it will fall on deaf ears.

Thus a teacher must choose the right moment to introduce or refine a skill. And have the wisdom to know when to disguise a skill as a game, and when to not introduce any idea at all.

One thing that piano teachers often forget is the difference between playing music by ear and reading music. They are not the same to a child.

As a musician, there is a world of difference between playing a song because you love it, and working intensively on that same song to refine a small section of its fabric. It is a completely different mindset and emotional space.

It is the same for kids. Playing simple counting or even fingering games that have nothing to do with the printed page will engage a part of the child’s mind that is far more imaginative than the part of their brain that struggles to read those confusing symbols in musical notation.

A healthy diet at the piano consists of both food groups, improvised and graphic, played and read. Serve a child a meal of only reading music and they will soon grow tired of that food.

Find a way to give them proper musical nutrition using a mixture of work and play. Lean more to the side of play, and believe it or not they will learn piano faster and retain it longer.

That’s how children’s minds work at the piano.

Visit http://www.americanpianoschool.com and Learn to Teach Kids Piano with our Free Online Course. John Aschenbrenner is an Emmy Award Winning Composer and a leading children’s music educator, book publisher, and the author of numerous fun piano method books in the series PIANO BY NUMBER for kids. You can see the PIANO BY NUMBER series at http://www.pianoiseasy2.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Aschenbrenner http://EzineArticles.com/?Why-Piano-Teachers-Should-Go-Slowly&id=1426587

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