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Van Cliburn's early training was quite strict. And came from his mother. Poor fellow. Think of the baggage in later life. He could have started with folk dancing and Kodaly singing. Actually I heard in an interview that his mother had him sing everything that he was learning on the piano. I didn't mean to hijack this thread with the Van Cliburn comment...
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[quote=Morodiene
I think the key for MK here is to concentrate more on music-making and creativity with music games, singing, dancing, etc. rather than a strict regimin at the piano at this stage in the child's development. [/quote]
Yes.. This is what I was trying to say.
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I didn't mean to hijack this thread with the Van Cliburn comment... Actually, VC is very important to this discussion. Every 2 to 3 months, a parent comes into the forum telling us "I'm going to teach my child piano. Tell me how to do it. And, oh, BTW, don't tell me not to." Even good teachers, excellent musicians, such as Mrs. Cliburn, are not necessarily the best teacher for their own child. That's not to say you cannot be successful, as obviously, history is replete with success stories of home schooling (Lincoln comes to mind) successes. Obviously, Mrs. Cliburn brought Van to a level of pianism few others achieve, but he still needed years at Juilliard to become a top artist. It's entirely possible that many other teachers where he grew up, could have achieved a similar level of excellence, and perhaps with his mother supervising his home practice, having an outside teacher could have been even more effective and also not imparted some of the baggage he carried through life. I'm fully supportive of home schoolers. In fact, many of my best students have come from that environment. One major difference though is that you're teaching general knowledge and skills and in the other, you're teaching highly specific, detailed skill and knowledge. A second difference is that in teaching an instrument, it takes more than book learning - not only actual skill is important, but it takes time to learn effecting teaching techniques. Some of us learn "how to teach" faster than others, but most of us, if we're being honest and candid, would admit that our first 10 years of teaching probably weren't our finest!
"Those who dare to teach must never cease to learn." -- Richard Henry Dann Full-time Private Piano Teacher offering Piano Lessons in Olympia, WA. www.mypianoteacher.com Certified by the American College of Musicians; member NGPT, MTNA, WSMTA, OMTA
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Thanks for all of the comments folks!
I don't have any delusions that I'm raising a Mozart here.
My child doesn't dread lessons; he looks forward to the time we spend together each evening in front of the piano.
He has friends, he takes dance lessons (enjoys those too), is on a tee-ball team, and I take him swimming every weekend, and we do nature hikes in the park behind our house.
Basically, we have a pretty normal father/son relationship, and he often goes up and plays the piano outside of lessons, and is always quick to show off his playing to other folks at church, or the grand-parents house. Hope we can stop the talk about this now.
Thanks for suggesting the other set of Faber books, I wish I had gone into those from the start. I feel like I'm already pretty invested in the Primer set, and I'm relatively happy with the results I'm getting here. I'm also elated to hear that the flat-finger thing isn't a huge worry. I'm a bit dubious about the claims that his fingers aren't getting enough rest, or that his eyes are being unduly strained. He has an optometrist, and his vision is fine, and the notes in the Primer are pretty big.
I realize that that horizontal note tracking probably just takes practice, so I wont worry too much about that either. I find that if I cover his hands with a book while he's playing, he does much better at reading the notes and not making mistakes. I think it's just a matter of getting him used to reading with his eyes and translating that to the fingers. I just don't want him to develop a consistent habit of relying on (faulty) memory to play the melodies.
Someone also commented that our daily lessons are probably more like "practice sessions." That's correct. I usually spend the time introducing the new concepts that come with the new song, and talking about them, then listening to him play the song, finding the tougher parts, isolating them, and giving him the tools he needs to overcome the problem, and repeating the phrase until he can play it confidently. Then we put it back in the context of the song, and play it fluidly. I LOVE the teacher accompaniments!
The last 10 minutes of the lesson (his favorite part) are when we "review." Review is going back and playing many of the old songs he already knows, and can play easily... his favorites right now are Hot Cross Buns, Train Song, Men From Mars, Banana Split, and Rodeo.
He's a pretty happy kid, and I'm a pretty happy dad. Thanks for the advice, and if anyone has more, I could use it.
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Hi: I am going to give you a resource that is not really related to what you post, but will benefit your young child overall in the journey of learning music. Check out this link: TeachBabyMusicAtHome As a piano teacher, I have a copy of this software about teaching music to your baby, and I have to say that I am amaze about their quality, content and method! Give your baby a gift of perfect pitch! Yes it is possible, read link 1 and link 2 Why start to teach your baby reading, math, and music so early? Because...... 50% of a person's ability to learn is developed in the first four years of life. Another 30% is developed by the eighth birthday. Those vital years lay down the pathways on which all future learning is based. After age ten, the branches that haven't made connections die off. Youngsters are their own best educators, parents their best first teachers. This 5-point checklist comes from the introductory page of chapter 7, entitled The vital years, from the world's best-selling book of 1999, The Learning Revolution, by Gordon Dryden and Dr. Jeannette Vos.
Last edited by ezpiano.org; 03/05/13 04:27 PM.
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Why start to teach your baby reading, math, and music so early?
Because......
50% of a person's ability to learn is developed in the first four years of life.
Another 30% is developed by the eighth birthday..
A commercial product is not a good resource for giving information on learning. The statistics are set out in a way to give misleading impressions to an uninformed public. Children go through developmental stages, including how their minds develop and this is discounted. It is disturbing to even see this advertisement here, quoted as information on learning. I cannot speak about the product on music. It may be perfectly fine, and EZpiano may be a judge to that if s/he has tested it.
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Thanks for all of the comments folks!
I don't have any delusions that I'm raising a Mozart here.
My child doesn't dread lessons; he looks forward to the time we spend together each evening in front of the piano.
He has friends, he takes dance lessons (enjoys those too), is on a tee-ball team, and I take him swimming every weekend, and we do nature hikes in the park behind our house.
Basically, we have a pretty normal father/son relationship, and he often goes up and plays the piano outside of lessons, and is always quick to show off his playing to other folks at church, or the grand-parents house. Hope we can stop the talk about this now.
Thanks for suggesting the other set of Faber books, I wish I had gone into those from the start. I feel like I'm already pretty invested in the Primer set, and I'm relatively happy with the results I'm getting here. I'm also elated to hear that the flat-finger thing isn't a huge worry. I'm a bit dubious about the claims that his fingers aren't getting enough rest, or that his eyes are being unduly strained. He has an optometrist, and his vision is fine, and the notes in the Primer are pretty big.
I realize that that horizontal note tracking probably just takes practice, so I wont worry too much about that either. I find that if I cover his hands with a book while he's playing, he does much better at reading the notes and not making mistakes. I think it's just a matter of getting him used to reading with his eyes and translating that to the fingers. I just don't want him to develop a consistent habit of relying on (faulty) memory to play the melodies.
Someone also commented that our daily lessons are probably more like "practice sessions." That's correct. I usually spend the time introducing the new concepts that come with the new song, and talking about them, then listening to him play the song, finding the tougher parts, isolating them, and giving him the tools he needs to overcome the problem, and repeating the phrase until he can play it confidently. Then we put it back in the context of the song, and play it fluidly. I LOVE the teacher accompaniments!
The last 10 minutes of the lesson (his favorite part) are when we "review." Review is going back and playing many of the old songs he already knows, and can play easily... his favorites right now are Hot Cross Buns, Train Song, Men From Mars, Banana Split, and Rodeo.
He's a pretty happy kid, and I'm a pretty happy dad. Thanks for the advice, and if anyone has more, I could use it. This sounds pretty healthy to me at this point. Perhaps in the future he will be able to take lessons, but I think this is great father/son time and you appear to be keeping it fun for him. You can certainly do some of the types of things found in My First Piano Adventures without investing them. There are numerous websites out there and you can search this forum as well for games to do with preschoolers. I find with the young ones you can never have too many activities in your back pocket  .
private piano/voice teacher FT ![[Linked Image]](https://www.pianoworld.com/forum/gallery/42/thumbs/2529.jpg) ![[Linked Image]](https://forum.pianoworld.com//gallery/42/medium/9342.png)
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Here is another commercial resource if you want to teach your kid play scales. Hope you will not feel too disturbing when I share resources here, or I can be selfish just keep the good things to myself. If moderator think this is an advertisement, he is welcome to take this down.
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Ez, my problem was not that it was a commercial product (advertisement) but that it was twisting facts for the sake of advertisement, and thus giving misinformation on learning. There are developmental stages in learning. Earlier is not necessarily better for some things, because of these stages.
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Ez, my problem was not that it was a commercial product (advertisement) but that it was twisting facts for the sake of advertisement, and thus giving misinformation on learning. There are developmental stages in learning. Earlier is not necessarily better for some things, because of these stages. Okay, no problem. I believe earlier is better.
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Can’t resist one more crack at the OP who comes clean with ... the following lumpy treatise ...
“I don't have any delusions that I'm raising a Mozart here.â€
(what a relief!)
“My child doesn't dread lessonsâ€
(more relief!);
“he looks forward to the time we spend together
each evening in front of the piano.â€
(but why not instead, read him the story of Treasure Island?)
“He has friends,â€
(Nice to know that the tike has friends ...
how many friends came to his 4th birthday party?)
“he takes dance lessonsâ€
(not necessary ... kicking up heels comes nachurly)
“is on a tee-ball team,â€
(presumably for co-ordination)
“and I take him swimming every weekend,â€
(boys should learn how to swim at an early age)
“and we do nature hikes in the park behind our house.â€
(not too quick ... remember small legs)
PS Wouldn’t it be nice if the boy had a brother?
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Here is another commercial resource if you want to teach your kid play scales. You use this? Seriously??? You might as well buy your students keyboards with keys that light up.
Private Piano Teacher and MTAC Member
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Can’t resist one more crack at the OP who comes clean with ... the following lumpy treatise ...
“he looks forward to the time we spend together
each evening in front of the piano.â€
(but why not instead, read him the story of Treasure Island?)
PS Wouldn’t it be nice if the boy had a brother?
Have you even read TI? I'm 38, read it a year ago, and found it even moderately difficult to parse as an adult. He has a hard time keeping up with Uncle Wiggily as it is. He does however have a two-year old brother who's already rockin' HCB: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnU8d10MOhY
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Here is another commercial resource if you want to teach your kid play scales. You use this? Seriously??? You might as well buy your students keyboards with keys that light up. Of course with many other resources (ops, can't share anymore because disappointed with people in the forum) to make it successful.
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Here is another commercial resource if you want to teach your kid play scales. You use this? Seriously??? You might as well buy your students keyboards with keys that light up. Of course with many other resources (ops, can't share anymore because disappointed with people in the forum) to make it successful. I am still baffled by the need for such a device. What does it actually do? It doesn't "teach" scales. It merely lays out finger numbers on some random keys that just happen to make up a scale.
Private Piano Teacher and MTAC Member
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You might be interested to know that this device was created by a student because he found it helpful to think if scale fingerings this way. Student-led learning!
Some students are more visual, some more kinesthetic, some aural. If this device works for a student, why not?
I wouldn't use it for every student, but surely it helps some. It's not to teach the scale itself, but the coordination of the fingering.
B.A., Piano, Piano Pegagogy, Music Ed.
M.M., Piano
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Hey, they kid is really cute!
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Any boy of 4 can get the gist of these opening lines
of "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson
"I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow--a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cover and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards:
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and broken at the capstan bars. Then he rapped on the door with a bit of stick like a handspike that he carried, and when my father appeared, called roughly for a glass of rum. This, when it was brought to him, he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste and still looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard.
"This is a handy cove," says he at length; "and a pleasant sittyated grog-shop. Much company, mate?"
My father told him no, very little company, the more was the pity.
"Well, then," said he, "this is the berth for me. Here you, matey," he cried to the man who trundled the barrow; "bring up alongside and help up my chest. I'll stay here a bit," he continued. "I'm a plain man; rum and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch ships off. What you mought call me? You mought call me captain. Oh, I see what you're at-- there"; and he threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold. "You can tell me when I've worked through that," says he, looking as fierce as a commander."
"Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
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LOL, not any 4 year old, but one who has the attention span to be on a tball team, swim, piano, and take group instruction dance lessons all within a week can surely follow the story!
There are also abridged copies (some controversy exists with these).
I will say for a deeper understanding, my daughter enjoyed Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer much more at 10 than she would have at 4.
Last edited by MaggieGirl; 03/07/13 11:10 AM.
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Just a comment, but it does seem like a lot of activities. Does he have free play/down time at all? I ask because many of the students I encounter these days are overbooked and stressed out. Having unstructured time is very important for the creative process at any age, but especially in these young developing minds. Relaxing is a learned behavior.
private piano/voice teacher FT
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