Piano Lessons

There are a variety of approaches to teaching children how to play the piano. Many of us will have heard stories, or even remember the piano lessons where only scales were taught, or we just didn’t get it. Most people that tell those tales also generally did not persevere with their music, and many wish that they had “stuck with it”.

There is no denying that if you wish to be a professional musician then you will need to dedicate a considerable proportion of time to learning rudiments and theory. However the most important thing is that it needs to be fun for the child.

This is further supported by looking at the number of legendary musicians who are entirely self taught. These musicians tend to exist more in the jazz, reggae, rock and other contemporary genres. These musicians also tend to be the sort that get your toes tapping and your hips swinging and have what is described in the business as “feel”.

If you are reading this article and you are genuinely intending to teach the piano then you must already have the technical ability, and as such know all the rudiments and scales you will need ultimately to teach.

Therefore, on this basis my tips for teaching kids to play effectively are:

* Find out why the child wants to learn

* Find out what the child’s musical tastes are

* Make sure you spend some time listening to great musicians and musicians that inspire your pupils

* Try and build in regular time to improvise, to develop the creative musical ear

* Build in lots of opportunities to communicate musically – In the beginning this may just be related to emotions (such as play me an angry sound), but it can develop into call and response type phrases and improvisations.

My final tip is that if the child isn’t practicing then they probably aren’t inspired and you need to find out why and try and engage them through music they want to learn.

Learn more about this author, Louise Anderson.
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