TEACHING MUSIC to our kids – Questions for YOU

Early Learning Teaching Your Child Music
21

Mozart started learning the Clavier (keyboard type instrument) at the age of three.

I’ve taught piano to littlies and age five is much much easier for many many reasons, hand strength being one of them. However, easier for the teacher doesn’t exactly translate to easier or best for the child.

It depends on what you want your child to walk away with at the end of the lesson. If you’re happy with them learning that the notes to the right are higher pitched than the ones to the left and pressing keys in time with the music and what an octave is and that pattern on the keyboard repeats then there is no limit to when they can start learning. If you want them to walk away from their first lesson playing the c major scale in contrary motion you might need to wait a bit.

I believe in exposing them straight away (my son plays my piano when he wants to) because they can learn a lot just from experimenting with the instrument.

I think music courses like those described by KL and 2010BEBES are great for children as long as we keep in perspective that there are certain technical aspects that they will need to grow into.

22

just keep in mind that a clavier keys are much smaller that regular piano keys… like a harpsichord. so as much as i believe in starting children in music ASAP, such as flashcards, picking out notes, etc., do keep in mind the physical limitation of their little hands in relation to the width of the piano keys. that is why people start with violins… because they make very small ones to accommodate little fingers!
food for thought,
the doc :clown:

23

Hey Dr Primo,

I think you may have misunderstood me. I actually completely agree with you that the keys of a piano are too wide and heavy for young fingers to learn to play. However, I don’t see this as a reason not to have lessons - simply to adjust the lessons.

When I take on a three year old as a piano student we play lots of games.The beauty of the piano and one of the reasons I prefer it as a beginner instrument is the visual clues it gives the child about the repeated note patterns in music - they can physically see and deduce without help (which is very exciting for them) that the c note repeats all over the piano.This means you can have them not just reading ledger lines but understanding them much sooner than you can on a stringed instrument.

We use flashcards to pick notes on the piano and as they get the hang of it I add a little twist. “Use your right hand, fourth finger to play this note”. When this becomes too easy I start showing flashcards that have both treble and bass clef and a note on each and they have to play one with the right hand, second finger and the other with the left hand, first finger (sometimes I specify which hand plays which notes sometimes I don’t). This develops individual digit awareness and helps develop right and left hand awareness and the ability to use both simultaneously (many students who come in at five have a very firmly instilled hand preference that leaves the second hand playing catch up).

I used to put little stickers on a group of notes (say three to begin with and then the group gets larger as the student gets better at the game) and have the student turn their back I would play one of the notes three times and then have the student come and tell me which note (or even notes as they advanced) I played. At first they guess but very soon they know.

I always finished the lessons with the student getting improvisation time where they could play whatever they wanted on my piano. Sometimes I’d tell a story and they’d play the mood music. It’s great fun and helps build an understanding of dynamics and tempo.

There are many, many games like this that a three year old enjoys and learns a great deal from while developing their hand strength. Then when their little hands are ready they have a large knowledge base which means they wont be limited to the traditional three note beginning.

Imagine if parents decided that a 3 month old can’t turn the pages of her board book by herself so there’s no point in giving her one until she can, or their 1 year old doesn’t have the strength to use a pencil or crayon properly so we’ll wait until he’s 3. We don’t do this, we adapt what we expect them to achieve with these “instruments” and we guide them and help them develop the strength and skills in their own way at their own time. I think I prefer this approach.

So while I totally agree with you that there are reasons why the piano is difficult for little ones - I think it can be a limited way of looking at a wonderful resource. All these games I play with my students can be achieved by parents, but there is much to be gained by a child beginning formal lessons with a trained musician and going home and practising and showing off to their parents and family.

Just thought I’d share the way I work around little hands and big keys :slight_smile:

24

sorry for misunderstanding! great ideas!!
karma to you,
the doc :clown:

25

Hi mums and dads!

We were very pleased that so many parents responded to this forum discussion about the importance of teaching our kids music, and we thank you very much for giving us fantastic insight on the subject!

We certainly HAVE been thinking a lot about the subject of teaching music recently – not just because of our desire to complete the development of Little Musician (which we’re determined to get out this year), but also because we have been looking for experts to help give our members useful advice and guidance on the subject.

And seeing how everyone has so many questions about music education for our children, we’ve invited Chris Salter, who is an expert on exactly this topic!

http://d2.brillkids.com/upload/files/Emails-ELE/images/pwa-01.jpg

Chris Salter is the founder and CEO of Music Wizard Group. He had no previous music education, but one day he signed up for a group piano class and ended up staying there for 4 years. He went on to get a double degree in Music and Linguistics from SIU, and then a Master’s degree in Musicology from UCLA.

Music literally changed his life, and this led him to founding the Music Wizard Academy, which develops a unique method of teaching children music.

Chris has been gracious enough to offer us his help by joining us at the Forum to answer your questions about teaching your children the wonderful subject of music!

He’s also given us a SPECIAL REPORT on the topic of teaching kids music. If you’d like to get free access to this report and to continue to hear from us regarding this subject, please sign up for our Music Mailing list on this page.

I hope that you all sign up to get access to the report, you’ll find that it’s a very interesting read which I’m sure you’ll enjoy. :happy: And in the meantime, we’ll try get more things cooking up on our side so can provide you with as much information about this topic as possible - we may even be coming up with special offers from partners so do stay tuned for more on music.

As always, thanks for being such wonderful parents and members of our community.

Cheers,

Lappy

26

Just wanted to second the motion on the Kodaly method, that was how I learned piano and music in college, with a very gifted, “no sacred cows” approach by my teacher, Don Beattie. Basically it gave us a physical and visual way to think about songs, notes and solfege. It was also a coordination challenge! I had just taken this “Group Piano” course and had no idea what a genius teacher they had running it. I had no previous experience playing piano and in 2 years was playing a Bach fugue and a lot more. Years later when we developed our game we went back to Don and his wife Delayna and they helped us create the whole curriculum and then the Academy lessons. The main thing is to not get “stuck” thinking music notation is music. It is merely one representation of music. Chinese exists as a spoken language in dozens of dialects, and a few versions of the written, but the characters are not the language, they are representations of the language, as music notation is a representation of music. Get the kids directly to the music is always the best approach, and then teach them the representation of what they already understand by doing.

If the Chinese used the way we teach traditional music lessons (basic theory, reading, then play) it would be a nation of mutes. Imagine if they had to learn the theory and history of Chinese characters, then to read, then pronounce the words before they could speak! Yet we take that approach with music all the time. Music first, then studies said Franz Liszt, and I agree. If the Kodaly method gets the kids singing, playing, and interacting with the music, it is a great shortcut to real music, and their passion.

27

Okay, completely non-expert here, but we love music. Here are my answers:

  • How important do you think music education is, and why?

Music is wonderful for the whole child. They benefit from hearing it, it affects mood, trains their ear to be more attentive, motivates them to movement, and is a wonderful way to ingrain scripture, facts, and other fun.

  • What are you currently doing with your child in terms of music education?

We listen to the works of one composer at a time, learning to hear that person’s style. We learn new songs to sing (typically hymns and children’s hymns) every week. We make music with whatever is handy and dance to many kinds for fun.

  • What instrument(s) is your child learning (or do you plan to let your child learn)?

Piano is our basic, beyond that the children are welcome to choose more.

  • What are the problems you face when teaching music (or an instrument)?

Cost! I am getting ready to have baby #6 and lessons for al lthe kids adds up very quikly.

28

I’ve heard many good things about the Kodaly method. One great thing is that they use solfege a lot (or so I understand).

29

Maybe it’s bc we are talking about really young kids here. 1 year olds, 2 year olds. I have a 2year old. So his dexterity is not quite there yet, so we started with appreciating music - basically exposure, listening lots, introduction to lots of different types of music (easy in our house), and rhythm - note recognition, note values, music terms. His mental development is more advanced than his dexterity at the moment. Hopefully it helps in his future music learning. I’ve discovered that he seems to have perfect pitch too, bc when he reads a score, the notes are in tune, until he sings the notes in the higher register (he can’t reach them).

For my older kids, when they first learnt music - and yeah, I have an 11year old boy who is playing traditional chinese instrument - the erhu. He also plays the very very traditional folk instrument for beijing opera. This really requires a steep appreciation of that type of music. And my older 2 children play the piano & violin respectively. All learnt music late at 7 or 8, and all learnt by just “doing”. No theory at first. But that’s bc their dexterity is there at that age. And learning theory at a later age - formally, is easier too, bc they encounter all these in their music, and they can infer much more easily. I think this is not so for our “babies”.

30

It is so easy to get caught up comparing the different methods of music education, it is so important and can bring such joy that we want to make sure we get it right.

I think we all have to remember that music is first and foremost a form of expression. There are techniques that will help your expressive vocabulary become more descriptive and versatile and responsive to the thoughts, feelings and concepts that you wish to communicate but these must be secondary.

I was recently on a tour with a band, we did 15 shows in 17 days. I hadn’t worked with our guitarist before and am sad to say I did not enjoy the experience. A brilliant technician but his fingers could not have been more disconnected from his soul.

In limiting ourselves to teaching this style, or learning this method or reading at this age or theory first then play or even play then theory we limit the ability to learn. Music is an expressive art there is no right or wrong way of doing things there are simply many approaches to express your thoughts and feelings some people will like them some will not, some will understand you others will not even fathom the content.

It is not wrong to feel sad or happy yet you can play wrong notes so we begin to link an instrument of expression to certain correct ways of doing things. It is this binding of music into a tight little box of conformity that prevents us from experiencing it as a whole. Children should be exposed to as many different types of music as possible from all different cultures, styles and eras. They should be exposed to as many different sounds as we can as well and then be given the opportunity to take the sounds from their heads and hearts and bring them forth on an instrument - without our judgment of good or bad, tuneful or not tuneful. These things develop.

So many times older students have come to me because they cannot improvise. I have found that students who are not given enough improvisation and creative time on their instruments from the beginning of their tuition (and even better from early childhood) can get into a weird head space about intuitively playing even though they know the rules etc.

All my students experience a vast variety of methods of teaching tailored around a number of factors so that students can think of music in as many ways as they like. When we free them from the idea that there is a right and wrong we can allow ourselves to relax and we really begin to connect with our music.

While we are not all Mozarts it is a wonderful gift to give a human the ability to express through music without inhibition and conformity - I hope I can achieve this with my own son.

31

We have had some spirited discussion in this forum, with lots of curiosity and different points of view. We don’t shrink from that, we hope to learn from it and take the best ideas and bring those tools to our homes to help our children grow.

With that in mind, we shared the free report on “Is Music a Birthright?”(http://www.brillkids.com/ext/partners/ebook-free-download-2.php) that gives some perspective the challenges of learning music, and their roots, some of which was brought out in our discussions. SoftMozart has some similar, more in depth articles on the origins and challenges of traditional music notation as well, the summary of which you can see in this thread (http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-music/information-about-music-history-and-theory-every-parent-should-know/new/#new). What I also added, in a different section, to try and give some perspective of the range of approaches and choices, is a series of posts about the four common approaches to learning piano (up to now). I believe that our methods, both Hellene of SoftMozart and Piano Wizard Academy, begin to shape a “fifth way”. What is important to appreciate is they were both developed in response to something that was not really working, in the context of the limitations of the other approaches, trying to compensate for those gaps and yet leverage their strengths. Though each method has its advocates and champions, including Hellene and I for our own, and those advocates can be as we have seen quite passionate and compelling, NONE OF THESE APPROACHES IS PERFECT. We do strive to honestly “perfect” our process every day, with more and more knowledge, and this forum has been I think very fruitful in its exploration of the options. Here is my latest contribution to that conversation.

Below is the link to that section of the forum.

http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-music/four-common-approaches-to-learning-piano-some-pros-and-cons/msg60967/#msg60967

I don’t know how many parents are following all this, but I can tell you if you are, you are now MUCH more knowledgeable about both the challenges of music education, and the pallet of options available, and I hope it helps you all find your own unique solution to your children’s needs, and leads to a less dogmatic, more practical, efficient and fun way to bring music into their lives.

32

Reposting this from another section of the forum

Dear parents,

As promised we have been busy working on a few special bonuses for Brillkids parents. One that is very special is my mentor Don Beattie and his wife Delayna, the team that helped create the Piano Wizard Academy have agreed to join this forum. Let me give you some background on them, both general and specific.

Don and Delayna Beattie

During the course of their careers, Don and Delayna Beattie have touched the lives of hundreds of thousands with their enthusiastic love of music and young people, gift for piano teaching and special devotion to Beethoven. Individually and together, they have appeared in music programs, performances and festivals in all fifty of the United States, Canada, Germany and Austria. In June of this year, Don retired after 30 years as Director of Piano Pedagogy in the School of Music at Southern Illinois University Carbondale while Delayna has enjoyed a thirty year professional career as an independent music teacher. They are parents of four children and proud grandparents of Emma Elizabeth.

They have been blessed with countless opportunities to share their love of music and people as founder and directors of the Beethoven Society for Pianists, published authors and composers with Edition HAS and Warner Bros. with their compositions performed at the White House and throughout the world, teachers and performing artists for school children throughout the country, church music performers, master of ceremonies for World Piano Pedagogy Conferences, featured clinicians in Music Teacher National Association Conventions and for G. Henle music publishers and as founders and directors of Piano Wizard Academy and authors of the Piano Wizard Academy’s music curriculum and 50 DVD piano lesson series for Music Wizard Group. Currently, they are “house parents” to 300 college students in an apartment community in Carbondale, Illinois where human kindness, music, food and friendship mix to create one of the most outstanding living experiences for young people in their community.

On a personal note, Don’s work as a new group piano teacher at Carbondale over 30 years ago changed my life profoundly. Through his work I learned not only to play piano but to play things like Back fugues, Chopin Preludes, Beethoven Sonatas and works of Debussey, Bartok and more. I not only learned about piano but about music, and education and bringing love and spirit into the classroom. I ended up with a double major in music and linguistics though I had no prior music experience before college, his teaching and influence were that profound and effective. Years later when I developed the Piano Wizard game I shared it with my old friend and he made several suggestions, and then offered to develop the curriculum for it. That "research and development took about 18 months or so, and then he came to my son’s school and did a “boot camp” for the kids for a week, and blew us all away with the impact and excitement of that magic combination of the game, his and Delayna’s curriculum, and their hands on teaching. I realized that they could bring all the elements of music to the game that it was missing, and make it a profound vehicle for true musical enrichment and learning. We all invested another 18 months or more into creating a 50 lesson video series, and extending even further the original curriculum, and thus was born the Piano Wizard Academy. While not perfect, and always complemented by great music teacher, it is a breakthrough in music learning, even more powerful because it empowers the parents to coach their children in music without having to do all the heavy training and lifting normally required.

Don is the greatest teacher of any subject I ever had, and it is my blessing and privilege to share he and Delayna and their work with Brillkids parents and the world. He changed my life, and I hope he can help you change your children’s lives for the better as well.

Thanks

Chris

33

More free music games online

http://69.93.17.74/Music/Games-Demos/Welcome/Memory/index.cfm

This one is a great memory game for ear training.

Here are some more.

http://69.93.17.74/Music/Games-Demos/Welcome/index.cfm

Enjoy,

Thanks

Chris

34

-Cost saving option for overseas members-

[i]Hi Chris

I was so excited when I saw that the offer had come out to brillkids members - have been waiting and watching for it. I have over the last few weeks managed to convince my husband that it would be worth the expense - helped by your posts etc. So I went to order it this morning to find that the post and packing was another £90.82 (GBP) which has meant that the cost has now become prohibitive for us.

Is there anyway of obtaining this in the UK to reduce the costs - for example have you got enough brillkids members from the UK who want this that you could send out a mass order to 1 of us so we could then help each other distribute between ourselves? Dont know just an idea but Im so disappointed - and I know all the arguments around the cost - its just the hidden cost of post and taxes has rather blown us away.

Look forward to hearing from you
Kind regards
Brillkids Mom[/i]

Brillkids Mom,

Where most of the challenge is is with the keyboard. I don’t know if you noticed but we offered a version without a keyboard included, that saves about $100 US, but also drops the shipping cost pretty dramatically. (http://www.AutomatedSalesMachine.com/app/?Clk=3973986, then just log in and then scroll down on the exclusive offer page to the actual offer and choose the unit WITHOUT keyboard on the right)

By purchasing a keyboard locally you often save quite a bit on postage, as the weight of the package drops dramatically. ANY MIDI compatible keyboard will work with the game, but we do like the M-Audio line of KeyRig 49, which has a street price of around $100, mainly because it is simple, lightweight, and powered by the USB. (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/KeyRig49.html) If you follow this link you can track down and contact their international distributors and find resellers in your area. Here in the US Apple stores carry them, and they are popular in music stores as well.

Taxes of course are beyond our control, but we have found that for international customers the option of getting the bundle without keyboard included and finding that locally saves them quite a bit.

I also just got confirmation that Don and Delayna Beattie will conduct the monthly teleconferences starting in January to guide people through the coursework and help make sure people have the best possible results with the Piano Wizard Academy.

I hope this helps, we actually recently had to raise our regular price $50 to $599 without any bonuses, because of increasing wholesale expenses on keyboards, but worked out this special bundle for Brillkids members, and offer the option of purchasing the keyboard locally to save more money as well. We actually are worried about internal availability of the keyboards for our domestic customers this Christmas, so we encourage Brillkids members to order early or even domestic customers may have to source the keyboards themselves.

Finally, let me share this letter we just got, it was addressed to Don and Delayna, but I think you can see, that if you can swing it, it will be more than worth it.

[i][b]"Hi Don,

Thanks for taking your time to reply my email.
We really appreciate the Premier mode in Piano Wizard.
My 8 years old son enjoys so much playing the accompany for many songs from Academy 1 to 5.
It’s a joy to see my 5 years old daughter played the main melody of Jolly Old Saint Nicolas and my son played the Harp accompany with her. (My 5 years old daughter has finished Academy 1 and is having a lot of fun with Academy 2.)
My son also loved playing the string assemble for Morning in Colorado. (He wanted to make sure that I mentioned this to you.)
It made the piano learning so much fun to him.
He used to have a lot of power struggle with me for practicing piano and taking the private piano lessons before we got Piano Wizard.
Now, he just practices all by himself and have a lot of fun to try all different accompany.
He even tried step 3 & step 4 for those accompany.
I was very pleased with your program.
Thank you for developing such a fun and educational program.
One thing makes piano wizard so attractive to him is he can challenge me on playing the accompaniment.
He always gets higher scores than I do and gets to 100% faster than I do.
He is very proud of himself. He can finally beat Mom in piano.
That is an important motivation for him to keep going on.

I will for sure find a private teacher after he finishes number 80. But for now, he doesn’t need a private teacher. You guys and the program have been his teachers.

Piano Wizard has enriched our family’s piano experience so much. My son’s private lessons have never been so much fun and rich. It’s not how much money we have saved through this program. It’s HOW MUCH we have learned from this program that attracts us. (Of course, we did save a lot of money through this program.)

–We also appreciated you mentioned a lot of music masters in your DVDs (not just techniques). It’s such a great introduction for the kids to the wonders of music.

Again, thank you so much!! May God bless you richly.

Thanks,

Michelle
God bless you!"[/b][/i]

Brillkids Mom, a lot of other people overseas have the same concerns as you, so I will be reposting this without your name so they can also look at this option.

Thanks

Chris

35

Hi Chris

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my email about the cost to overseas purchasers - as posted now above.

I had looked at what you are suggesting - but to purchase a keyboard in the UK costs between £80-£90 with free delivery.

Add this to the cost of your package without the keyboard and it is only £10 less than the cost of the other package which includes the keyboard (and the shipping)

Sadly not a saving of sufficient magnitude to swing it with DH. :frowning:

The killer here is the shipping costs of over $140.

Is there any chance that you consider looking to find a UK distributer

kind regards
Hsmummy

36

Hsmummy,

You see the problems is universal, either the distributor pays shipping, we pay shipping or you pay shipping, adding to the costs, and there are probably tariffs in the UK that we do not have here for keyboards. That being said, being resourceful on the keyboards may still get you big savings. (By the way, search also for “MIDI controller” because that is another term that may be used for these types of keyboards) Here in the states we see a $30-$40 swing in pricing on that product, not counting ebay and other second party resources. Also, as I indicated, this is merely the keyboard we recommend, not the only one that will work. Piano Wizard Academy is MIDI compatible, meaning it will work with ANY MIDI keyboard, we just like the M-Audio because of the simplicity, size and USB powered aspect of it. But I for example also use it with a full size weighted 88 key keyboard from Yamaha, or a 3 octave mini keyboard, so it is not a constraint, but a recommendation that works for most people. As I indicated, our costs went up on the keyboards (more than 35%) so we deal with the keyboard costs as well.

I understand these challenges, I really do, I lived abroad more than 7 years of my life, from Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, and often had to deal with very predatory shipping, tariff and tax costs to get products from the US (I once had to convince the Brazilian customs department to release Vitamin C without a prescription or absurd tariff or fine. Luckily he was a music lover with a famous musician cousin in the US I had heard of, and he “deu um jeito” worked it out for me.)

That challenge for all of us to make this package both cost effective and affordable led us to the solutions and discounts we supplied, and why I went after Don and Delayna and secured their contribution and commitment to 6 months of teleconferences for Brillkids members to really maximize the value from the package. In other words, there are limits what we can do on keyboards and shipping, but we tried to add extraordinary value on the training to help make it more than worthwhile. Remember, whatever approach you take to learning piano, there is a keyboard or piano cost involved, (or they can’t practice) whether you rent or buy, and it is an investment that should render for years of joy to come. With that in mind, we feel we came up with the best, most convenient and low cost solution available.

If you find other keyboard solutions locally that may work for other members, please let us know so we can share it, but I feel confident that there are other options around you that could fit your budget. For example, Fatah, an Italian based company also manufactures MIDI controllers, and they may be more affordable because of EU tariff agreements, I do not know, but it is another idea.

As for a distributor of the Piano Wizard Academy, this product is really not suited for retail distribution yet, (prices would actually go up) and it stops us from being able to offer all the bonuses we added to the package (which have a cost of course, and we already have embedded costs for royalties on the songs, training and sheet music to recover).

In the US, we have a payment plan option, which will soon be automated, but we cannot offer that to overseas customers at this time, as our financial underwriter does not have international options yet.

I know that I have not offered you anything concrete other than other local keyboard options to explore, again, the cost of shipping and keyboards is a problem we can hide but not run from, it gets added in or companies go out of business. What I can, and do guarantee is that whatever sacrifice or resourcefulness it takes to get this into your home will be worth it many times over. Our guarantee for BrillKids members is not our usual 30 day unconditional guarantee, it is extended to 60 days, starting from when the package is opened and registered!. In other words, if you order it now, and only open it at Christmas, you would have over 100 days to make it work for you, and at least 2 of the teleseminars to participate in, and you can keep the bonuses even if you return it. We did this because we know how tough things are, and we want this to be one of the best purchase decisions you make for your family this year, if not longer, so we did our best to make sure your children could not fail to thrive and enjoy the journey.

Most parents do not regret the purchase, they regret it was not around to use when they were a kid! But one of my favorite quotes is, “its never too late to have a happy childhood!”. We hope you enjoy this as much as they do.

Thanks

Chris

37

PS to Hsmummy,

I love the picture of the feet on your profile!

Thanks

Chris

38

Chris

Thank you for your paitence and suggestions I will do some more research and work on the DH and see if I can get anywhere. I will of course post anything I find that maybe of use to others in trying to overcome the financial ouch!! :rolleyes:

kind regards and thanks again

Hsmummy

39

Chris

Sorry to be a pain - but another question for you - Ive been looking around at lots of keyboard outlets and have come across some are suggesting that we in the UK will have to pay VAT on the keyboard because we’re importing into this country - do you know if thats the case with your product -VAT is currently 17.5% in this country?

Any knowledge?
thanks

40

Hsmummy,

These are local country taxes and regulations, and may be why the keyboards in your area are proving expensive. I do not know the regulations, but I know the purpose, to stimulate or protect local manufacturers. Unions are often the driving force behind these types of legislation and taxes, but almost all countries have some kind of “protection” or disincentive on some products being imported, depending on the industry and its clout or importance.

While I know of no British keyboard manufacturers, that was why I suggested Fatah, as they are European (or were) and so may be exempt or have lower import taxes and/or shipping. GEM is another one, but I believe they now manufacture in China as well.

Good luck!

Thanks

Chris