I have been playing the piano for 4 years or so and recently became interested in my 5 year old cousin learning the piano. the thing is, her parents will not pay for lessons and I was started to play with the idea of teaching her myself. One problem, I have no idea where to begin. She is a very bright girl and I have access to a wide variety of music but I just don't know how to go about teaching. Does anyone have a very basic skeleton type plan that would help me teach a young beginner? Are there books or websites that give you the basic idea of how to teach the piano? I was trying to think of when I first started to play but I already had musical experience when I started and I was much older than my cousin. Any help would be much appreciated!

Hi Jamie,
I'm not a teacher but I do have a 7 year old in her second year. She takes out of the Faber series. Here is one way to teach her:

You could get her the Faber Primer level to start - they have 4 books: Lesson, Technique, Performance, and Theory that all coordinate together. Get a little lesson booklet that has a place for her parents to write down how many minutes she's practiced each day and for you to assign her pieces each week. Very important - get neat stamps or stickers for her to put on a piece at the lesson after she completes it. Get flashcards to learn notes - use a rubber band around the ones you want her to practice and another rubber band around all of them together. Have her parents get a timer - I would suggest a digital kitchen timer. It can be used to count down and start and stop her practice time. The timer also will be used for the flashcards - for example, if she can do it in 28 seconds, the goal for the next lesson will be 27 seconds. Expect her parents to work with her full time at this age - probably 15 to 20 minutes 5 days of the week. Plan a recital (or "performance class") at Christmas time and in the spring - simply make it the next 2 or 3 pieces she's working on at that time - preferably duets at this age. The piano books will guide you. There are other series out there. Make sure she curves her fingers early on. Good Luck.

My advise is that you help her parents hire a piano teacher. You need a lot of time to learn how to teach properly. Likely, if the parents can't pay, you will have some difficulty with committment issues anyways. If you wish to become her patron, I think that's the best way to go.

Take a look on Amazon. There are books there on how to teach piano. I don't use the Bastien method often, but his book on how to teach is an interesting read. They should have a section on this in your library as well.

I would really ask though why the parents will not pay for lessons. Is it a money issue, or are you facing a very unsupportive situation? Teaching informally or for free can set you up for a lot of frusteration and disapointment if the parents don't take you, as a teacher or the piano lessons seriously.

Good luck,
Stephanie