Welcome to your first lesson! Every child will love this method because it based on fun and friendship. I strongly encourage parents to find other moms and dads who also want to teach my method because I feel so strongly about group lessons. A group can be even two kids!
First of all, we need tools. Have stickers, LOTS of stickers! This positive reinforcement will take your child's attention away from you being his or her disciplinarian and more on the accomplishment of learning how to play. Next, because this is the Suzuki method, you will need Suzuki Book I and its accompanying CD. Please try to listen to the CD every day- start to finish.
We will be going through the entire Book I with the right hand only. After the melodies are learned and the right hand is passed off, we will go back to the first twinkle and add the left hand. This is a painstaking process but trust me on this. Your child will gain a melodic dominance in his or her right hand this is crucial for more difficult material, and the best part is that it will become second nature.
Please try to read the entire lesson before attempting to teach your child. Even if you have no musical background, you can do it! Just be sure to listen to the CD and follow my method - your ear will become trained just like your child's. Please feel free to ask questions in the comment portion of this web site - I will be checking them daily.
Here is your lesson template. Based on the lesson, you will hand write the four skills we will work on during the half hour.
We will be working on four things today:
- Posture
- Hand Positioning and Finger Recognition
- Sticky Staccato and Lazy Legato
- Favorite Note
1. When looking for good posture at the piano we should look for right angles. The feet should be supported to create a right angle at the ankles, again at the knees, hips, and elbows. This can be achieved simply by placing a foot stool under the feet and a large, sturdy book for the child to sit on. One of the most challenging things when teaching a child good posture is keeping his or her back straight. What I do to keep it fun is talk about noodles. When the child's back is curved, I tickle her back from the bottom up and say, "You have a noodle back!" She usually sits right up and she never feels reprimanded. Every time you catch her with good posture, give her a sticker. This should happen once every seven minutes or so.
This way, this child feels his hand has made a good sound - which it probably did. The obvious long term challenge is using his fingers to play a song rather than just one note. Here are some ways that I have found success in getting the hand position I need.
- Make a table with your hand: Put mashed potatoes on the table (top of the child's hand), some turkey, some gravy (for some reason the children really love Thanksgiving food). What happens when we let the table tip over? All the food falls off! We can't have that, make a table that is strong and holds all of our nutritious food.
- Hold a baseball: This simple tactic works almost every time with boys. Also, I found a product I really like. It's called a "Crush Ball" and fits most hand sizes ages 3-7. Put the ball in the child's hand and let him look at it. Next, put his hand up to the keys to see what his hand looks like in the right position. Now have him grab it and pick up some notes.
Picking up notes with the crush Ball
If holding a baseball doesn't work - use fruit. You can use imaginary fruit first. Ask him to hold an apple. Now ask him to hold a watermelon. Which is the best piano hand? If you would like to use real fruit, I would suggest using a small orange. Using fruit is fun but it's drawback is that it can only be used for visualization rather than the crush ball which can be used to pick up notes. Give him a sticker for when he has good hand positioning. But be sparing with them because we have finger recognition as part of "getting to know our hand."
Finger recognition becomes very important for... ever! I still use these skills when trying to find the best way to play difficult scales and chords. Just to be clear, finger number one is your thumb; finger number two is your index finger, finger number three is your middle finger; finger number four is your ring finger; and finger number five is your pinky. I like to introduce finger recognition with a song. This song is set to the tune Frera Jacues:
Starting with the thumb (one thumb talking to the other): Number one, number one, how are you, how are you, very well I thank you, very well I thank you, run away, run away (putting your hands behind your back when the finger runs away). Number two, number two, how are you..... etc. etc.
Another great way to instill finger recognition is to put your child's hand up to your own (like a mirror) and show him by tapping your fifth finger and have him repeat it, then your fourth finger, then your first finger and so on.
Music for Little Mozarts has great beginning theory books that offer coloring pages and other games to help reinforce all that your teaching your child!
3. Now that we have control of our bodies (a term I use often) we can now meet some musical friends who live inside the keyboard. My friends live in each and every key on the piano. My first friend's name is sticky staccato. Do you want to meet sticky staccato?
Now let your child play any note she wants but make it sound sticky. Ask her to take her hand away so fast because sometimes sticky likes to hold on to her fingers. Have her play two sticky notes in a row.... now three, now four..... until you get to six. Have her play six sticky notes in a row and give her a sticker for each time she can do this.
Now we get to meet sticky's best friend. His best friend is really different than he is. Do you have any friends who are really different than you? Guess why he's different; instead of being really sticky with lots of energy, he's really lazy. His name is lazy legato. He's so lazy that he likes to hold on to notes for a really long time. Do you want to meet lazy legato?
Let her really experiment with these two very different sounds. When she plays them well, give her a sticker. When you teach the first scale (scale in c major) you can say that lazy really loves the song because the notes are long. Or, when you teach the first twinkle you can tell her how sticky loves the song because the notes are so short and sticky.
4. I instituted the favorite note because children weren't learning things like middle c in the first few lessons. I use the term favorite note because this is the note most of our beginning songs start on. This note is an octave above middle c. Every time your child can find it, he should get a sticker. I have many way of finding the favorite note but try to just get your child to find it without any learning tools at first.
(C is off to the left of the two black notes.... he has a nose)
Make sure that you practice all these skills enough during the lesson to fill up the entire sticker portion of the lesson template. Save these templates in a three ring binder - the kids love to see the pages one after the other.
Practicing assignments:
- Sticky/Lazy
- Control of our body (Posture and Hand positioning)
- Favorite note.
Give stickers for adequate practicing - each practice session should be about 10-15 minutes this week.
Take a bow - slow and steady. Good Job!
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