“Go practice! I’m paying for lessons so you get in there and practice, now!”
You’ve either said it, or had it said to you.
But the real question is, “Why don’t you go play when you’re NOT asked to?”
If you can answer the above question, your child will be able to enjoy the piano.
Here are some of the signs that a child likes the piano: playing the piano under their own steam, and using the piano like a toy that interests them.
For example, you never have to say, “Go play with your favorite toys, and play longer and more intensely this time, okay?”
A child is naturally drawn to their toys. The trick is to get them to regard the piano in the same way.
If your child already has a disciplinarian for a teacher, this will be impossible, for disciplinarians assume that children want to work like dogs for an unknown reason. It’s one thing to apply oneself to schoolwork, it is quite another to have something that is essentially joyful, the piano, turned into an object of drudgery and despair.
The reason for this is that children only rarely understand the concept of deferred gratification, and in addition most children’s personalities do not permit them to concentrate on something they regard as non-essential. Fun is essential to kids, work is not.
Don’t expect a six year old to understand the determination and skill it will take to play the piano even halfway decently.
Thus the main mistake children’s piano teachers make is to teach children as if they are cadets headed to the great Carnegie Hall, committed and sure in their future of hard work to achieve an almost impossible goal.
How much better for the kids if piano teachers regarded early lessons as a benevolent proving ground, like a sand box, wherein a young mind is introduced gently to the piano.
The goal of any first piano lesson must be to convince the child that the piano is an enjoyable way to spend a few minutes playing fun songs, not to convince them that the piano is impossibly difficult and taught only by dour pedagogues intent on finding every flaw the child naturally has to offer.
Kids at six years old hardly know they HAVE different fingers, much less how to categorize them, strengthen them and organize them into two matching teams! Piano teachers would do well to concentrate on issues such as strength and dexterity, as well as enjoyment and exploration, rather than drown the child in the minutiae of piano technique and musical notation right away.
Take hand position, for example. Most piano teachers run children into the ground insisting on a “correct position” at all times. But this is just one of a host of issues that are not only difficult for kids, but tend to turn kids off to what is essential for them to learn, that we make MUSIC at the piano, not hand positions.
Yes, of course, you will have to eventually learn the hand positions, but you’ve never seen frustration until you’ve seen a kid hounded into near-tears by a dogmatist insisting on issues such as hand position and fingering and ALMOST NOTHING ELSE.
By the way, hand position comes absolutely naturally to all kids when they have learned the basics of fingering. And issues such as raising the thumbs (a no-no) are ones, which will persist even for professionals, long into the conservatory phase. It takes years to train the hands, so don’t expect a child to do it any time soon.
What you can expect in terms of fingering is for a child to instinctively try it “their way.” Using thumbs only, index only, pinkies only, wrong hand, hands backwards are all children’s instinctive way of playing. Laugh at it, point it out to Bobby Johnson, and say, “Oh, I see you use the Bobby Johnson Fingering Method.” Laugh and keep repeating that at every violation of the fingering principles, and you will see rapid progress. I think it's the laughing gently at the mistakes that gently defuses their sense of failure, and failure is a feeling you want to avoid at all costs.
A wise teacher accepts “their way” (the chld's) and builds upon it, correcting what can COMFORTABLY be corrected, and building small habits, through games, that will eventually allow them to find the correct position by themselves. I’ve seen EVERY child achieve this if left alone long enough with the right tools. You don’t have to make fingering and hand position the central issues of your teaching.
To answer your question, piano practice can only be made more interesting by the teacher, in that what they expect colors the child’s entire experience at the piano.
Thus, if a child has not played at home that week, I don’t become negative in any way, but move immediately to play through what I asked them, in a fun way, in a way that might interest them enough to take up the song by themselves. If not, choose a different song until you find one that truly excites the child.
The choice of song is key, for you cannot expect a child to delight in playing a song they don't know or dislike. Use common sense.
If you have a disciplinarian for your child’s piano teacher, discard the teacher if the child does not enjoy it.
No piano teacher is better than the wrong piano teacher. On this issue, the child is always right. Listen to them.
If you can find a more child-friendly teacher, do so.
In short, if your child’s piano practice is not interesting to them, it is the teacher’s fault for devising a curriculum that does not connect with the child.
Turn your piano into a toy and you will not be able to keep your kids away from the piano. I’ve found this to be true in every case, without exception.
By John Aschenbrenner Copyright 2008 Walden Pond Press All Rights Reserved
See also FINDING A CHILD'S PIANO COMFORT ZONE
See also DON'T CALL IT PRACTICE, CALL IT PLAY
See also RULES FOR PIANO PRACTICE
See also SETTING UP A CHILD'S PIANO PRACTICE REGIME
See also KNOWING WHEN TO BACK OFF IN A CHILD'S PIANO LESSON
See also WHY DELAY READING MUSIC
