Why I Teach Music Kids Love
Playing music we love is important when learning to play the piano
Old School
When I was a young student, there was an emphasis on playing music you’d never heard. The idea was that if you’d never heard it before, then your rhythm was learned from your lessons and practice, not from having heard it first. Same with the notes. If you didn’t know the melody, then your reading skills were all you depended on to learn the piece.
Better Results Today
These days, I get much better results by having students learn familiar songs. Young students are playing music at much higher levels of difficulties because they know the tunes. They are playing rhythm far above their current levels because they know the song. What if the notes are too challenging though? Turns out, it’s not a big problem if the student recognizes the piece. They feel more confident working to learn them. Confidence spurs a lot more practice and a lot less frustration in the process.
Teach for Individual strengths
Doing. Playing. Struggling. It’s how we learn. Is there just one way to do so? Not in my experience. I’m a visual learner. It turns out, the way I was taught to play worked fine for me. Did it take me longer to learn a piece? I’m sure it did. Did it take a whole other week to work solely on dynamics and personality of my piece? Yes, all the time. Not everyone is a visual learner.
It’s important to make sure we teach to each student’s strengths. That requires flexibility and a willingness to offer different ways to decode a piece. If you could hear the progress of a student who’s both heard the piece and loves it first, versus someone who hasn’t ever heard the song, you’d be convinced too.
Keeping Students Motivated
When my students begin learning a song they have heard before and like, they are able to add character, details and all kinds of feeling to a piece much more easily because they know how it’s supposed to sound. Do they learn from challenging rhythms? Yes. They absolutely do. One of the first things they learn is not to be afraid of lots of ties, lots of combinations of challenging patterns.
They also learn to see the patterns and hear how they sound or play, without panic. This is huge for students. It keeps them motivated when practicing and progressing. The struggle is still there, but the pay off is the reward of playing a piece they like that keeps them moving ahead.
Giving students a song they like will motivate them, encourage deeper skill sets and help with technical development. Joy comes from the satisfaction of accomplishing their goal.
