Giving Piano Lessons to Kids

Teaching to kids would be different and you would need exciting resources whether it is teaching a language, some literature or playing an instrument. You need to adopt some different ways to keep the lessons a fun thing for them. The moment it becomes boring and dull, you will find kid to be no more interested in learning. When it comes to teaching piano to kids, teachers would be working with kids of different age. Though you need to understand that teaching piano to a 4 year old pre-school child would be quite different to teaching a teenage child. Teachers would need to adopt interesting and innovative teaching ways for development of this skill in kids. Let’s learn how!

Teaching Piano to Kids:

There are many ways of making kids learn to play piano. You as a parent can do it by yourself too by looking for resources on online that guides you with piano teaching method, you can also make your kid learn by taking lessons of learning to play by year or you can find a professional training teacher. Piano is a beautiful instrument and as you kid will begin to learn it; it will aid in development of his mind.

Some Important Considerations:

When it comes to teaching piano to kids, some key factors must be considered in order to develop good habits within these small beginner pianists:

• For your child beginning to play piano, you must make sure that he is properly positioned. He should be able to reach piano with his hands comfortably without the risk of falling that may cause an injury.
• You should work on maintaining a proper posture of your child’s body throughout the sessions of learning.
• Focus on your child’s music reading and sight-reading ability.

These key factors are most important for child’s development as a pianist. Not only it improves their piano playing skill but would also develop their brain intellect and would make them more creative.

Apart from that you should ensure that child is interested and committed to learn piano. Without proper interest and motivation, it would not be possible to turn your beginner in to a proficient piano player.

Keys: As child begins piano lessons, keys may appear to be confusing for them. Make them remember white keys as normal ones while black keys are accidental notes. You should give them basic knowledge of alphabets from A to G and tell them about accidental keys between them. Keep lessons really simple at the beginning and focus on their positioning of hands and fingers along with a proper body posture. Your child’s hands must be comfortable and natural over piano. Keep their hands parallel with thumb curved slightly inwards.

Scales: Once you have given kids basics of keys, next basic to learn is about scales. Begin with C scale which is the most basic one to begin. Show the position of C which is to the left of two black ones. Now show them how to play white keys with different fingers and thumb and move to a full scale of C.

Development of understanding these two basic elements of piano would give them a strong base and so at the moment you should not be worrying about teaching kids reading sheets or giving them anything complicated but rather focus on simple things. Encourage child to play simple tones that they like for example tone from their favorite cartoon or anything that they can visually stimulate in their minds.

Some Do’s and Don’ts:

When you are teaching piano to kids, you should consider following points during their lessons in order to give them a nurturing environment to learn:

• Don’t give them choices that may negate their learning better make some statements. For example if you ask child that would you like to practice what we learnt? They may simply say no when they are given a choice.
• If you ask them something, always wait for answers. Give them time and choice to answer.
• When you are giving some instructions make sure that they are clear and simple to follow according to the child’s understanding.
• Give them tasks that can turn in to successive challenges meaning that give them challenges that you are sure that they can complete. These small successes will give them sense of accomplishment and would encourage learning.

• Do not rush. Remember that you want them to be motivated and interested for learning. You are not supposed to make them learn everything at once. Motivate them and nurture their excitement for learning.
• Let them experiment. Kids would always be excited about experimenting different sounds. Experiment with them and it would develop their love for learning more.
• Work with activities. If for example you want to introduce a new concept to kid, plan a game or activity for introducing the concept. The concept would then remain in their memory forever in the form of a symbol (activity).
• Don’t plan stretched long sessions for lessons. Kids would do well sitting with a piano learning session of half an hour but you can’t expect them to be sitting for the whole time. You need to let them move. You can even plan some movement activities in order to teach them some concepts of piano playing.
• Reinforcement and practice is crucial. Anything kids learn needs to be practiced and reinforced in order to make them remember it on a long run. If you do not reinforce previous things and make them learn new things every day they are tend to forget the previous learnings with new things introduced. Reinforce the concepts and make them practice lessons in order to refresh learnings.

Conclusion:

Teaching piano to kids may appear to be a daunting task but provided you follow all the basic tips, your students kids would make good progress. Remember that all the kids are different and each one of them may need you to alter your methods of teaching. Understand your student and then customize a teaching method according to his caliber, understanding and interest. A piano teacher can greatly inspire and aid in growth of a child as a pianist by helping him learning right habits and for gaining confidence.