We were blessed this past weekend with a wonderful piano.
Now we are starting to learn piano. :)
I played when I was younger, and actually competed and won a few competitions. But in my lack of wisdom in my younger years, I didn't pursue it to a higher level after I graduated school.
So I know enough to start my children's journey in music. I will teach the girls up to a point, and then hire a professional instructor.
This morning we had a "formal" lesson, which consisted of reading the lesson out loud, and then re reading the lesson while at the piano and practicing what the piano lesson illustrated.
Since my middle daughter is still younger, I'm going to use the same book for both, and supplement with notebooking and more practice for my older daughter.
"Formal" lesson's will be once a week, then during the rest of the week use the lesson time for practice.
For beginning Piano, I am using the Alfred Basic Piano Library, Level 1A. For anyone just learning piano, I highly recommend this series. They are very thorough and begin at the very basic of skills. Plus the pages are very simple, clean, and uncluttered, but they are also illustrated with fun pictures to help a young child learn. The Alfred Piano Library has a series of books, covering a wide range of ages and skill levels.
There are also a few very good sites on line to supplement piano learning. One is Piano Play It which offers online reading, video, and printables. Another I found this morning that seems very good is How To Play Piano with Andrew Furmanczyk's Music Academy.
We read Lesson 1 in the Lesson Book, practiced a short time on the piano, and then watched Andrew's Piano Lesson 1.
Today's lesson was on learning the finger numbers. After the lesson, we traced outlines of the girls' left and right hands on a blank sheet of paper, and numbered them to re-inforce the illustration. If you have more time and don't mind getting a little messy, it would be fun to make finger paint hand prints, and then number each finger in sharpie.
For playing the piano, the finger numbers are both the same on the left hand and the right hand. The thumb is 1, pointer finger is 2, middle finger is 3, index finger is 4, and pinkie is 5. You can also look at it as numbering from center to outside when hands are held side by side palms down. This is illustrated here on Piano Play It Lesson 3.
We also learned how many keys were on the piano, the names of the notes on the piano, and how to find them in relation to the groups of black keys and white keys. And we learned how to identify middle C on the piano. Here's a printable page on Piano Play It showing the layout of part of the piano keyboard, and the names of the notes.
Both the piano layout page and the handprint fingering chart will be put into a Piano notebook for each of the girls. Anything pertinent or interesting we come across in learning piano will go on these notebooks.
I played when I was younger, and actually competed and won a few competitions. But in my lack of wisdom in my younger years, I didn't pursue it to a higher level after I graduated school.
So I know enough to start my children's journey in music. I will teach the girls up to a point, and then hire a professional instructor.
This morning we had a "formal" lesson, which consisted of reading the lesson out loud, and then re reading the lesson while at the piano and practicing what the piano lesson illustrated.
Since my middle daughter is still younger, I'm going to use the same book for both, and supplement with notebooking and more practice for my older daughter.
"Formal" lesson's will be once a week, then during the rest of the week use the lesson time for practice.
For beginning Piano, I am using the Alfred Basic Piano Library, Level 1A. For anyone just learning piano, I highly recommend this series. They are very thorough and begin at the very basic of skills. Plus the pages are very simple, clean, and uncluttered, but they are also illustrated with fun pictures to help a young child learn. The Alfred Piano Library has a series of books, covering a wide range of ages and skill levels.
There are also a few very good sites on line to supplement piano learning. One is Piano Play It which offers online reading, video, and printables. Another I found this morning that seems very good is How To Play Piano with Andrew Furmanczyk's Music Academy.
We read Lesson 1 in the Lesson Book, practiced a short time on the piano, and then watched Andrew's Piano Lesson 1.
Today's lesson was on learning the finger numbers. After the lesson, we traced outlines of the girls' left and right hands on a blank sheet of paper, and numbered them to re-inforce the illustration. If you have more time and don't mind getting a little messy, it would be fun to make finger paint hand prints, and then number each finger in sharpie.
For playing the piano, the finger numbers are both the same on the left hand and the right hand. The thumb is 1, pointer finger is 2, middle finger is 3, index finger is 4, and pinkie is 5. You can also look at it as numbering from center to outside when hands are held side by side palms down. This is illustrated here on Piano Play It Lesson 3.
We also learned how many keys were on the piano, the names of the notes on the piano, and how to find them in relation to the groups of black keys and white keys. And we learned how to identify middle C on the piano. Here's a printable page on Piano Play It showing the layout of part of the piano keyboard, and the names of the notes.Both the piano layout page and the handprint fingering chart will be put into a Piano notebook for each of the girls. Anything pertinent or interesting we come across in learning piano will go on these notebooks.
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