Lonny begins lessons as a toddler by the way of his mom’s computer and piano keyboard. Yes, he is a toddler, a very young student, but his mom believes that the earlier a child begins a new task, especially learning to develop an ear for music via piano lessons, the better.
As he begins his first lesson he is comfortable in a very pleasant home and computer environment. There is a cute toy bird above the keys on the teacher’s keyboard. She begins by showing Lonny the piano on which there can be high sounds and low sounds of a familiar song his mom said she has been singing to him since his birth, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star that has the same melody as Ba Ba Blacksheep and the A B C Song.
As soon as the song is played, sung, and imitated by his mom the little boy’s attention is drawn to the instrument with a big smile. He wants more and begins to try out the keys by himself by standing on his tiptoes since he is not quite tall enough to reach them. To make it easier for him the teacher asks his mom to sit at the piano and to lift him up to sit on her lap. Lonny’s mom is smiling at him while taking mental notes so she can daily reinforce at home everything that her little boy is learning at the lesson.
His tiny right hand is placed on top of his mom’s right hand as she plays the beginning phrase of the song with him. He is able to feel the rhythm of the notes. He hears the melody up high, in the middle, and down low on the keyboard. He tries to imitate the rhythm on the keys in the middle of keyboard with his entire hand.
With more repetition he is able to push down note clusters with the correct rhythm. Little Lonny squeals with delight as he tries to reach up to higher notes and down to lower notes. The high notes sound like a little bird singing and lower notes sound like a great big bird. The teacher is ready to show him a tiny bird and a larger bird in her collection of stuffed animals as he plays the higher vs lower notes. His mom and his new teacher applaud his efforts as he plays the rhythm over and over again imitating the teacher’s rhythm.
As Lonny begins lessons he is motivated to continue experimenting on the piano. By the next week with his mother working with him he will be ready to move on to better comprehend the rhythm of the entire song by clapping it, singing along, and playing it although not with the melody notes. That will come later. The rhythm comes first. How exciting it is for him to hear sounds of the note clusters in the rhythm of the phrase achieved by his own efforts at producing them on the keyboard. After a period of time within his attention span Lonny’s first lesson is over.
As Lonny begins lessons he is able to learn a lot in a short time:
(1)recognition of a song he heard many times before that is now coming from his teacher
(2)hearing his mom play the notes with high, middle, and low sounds
(3)how hard to press on the keys so they can make a sound
(4)how to imitate the rhythm on his own at the keyboard. Today Lonny begins lessons. At upcoming scheduled weekly sessions he will progress with the help of his teacher online and his mom each day in the comfort of his own home.
Your child can take online lessons with me to begin fun learning experiences at the piano when he or she is most receptive before starting school.