Piano Lessons? What age and who do they suit ?

[knittinginknots]

Dd likes to sing and dance. As i never had music lessoons, i have no idea what is typical children's playfulness and what could be regarded as musical ability. Any ideas ?

My under five kids love to sing and dance. I assume they have no special ability mainly because no one in my family does. But they can hold a tune- or so i've been told by people who can hold a tune - and they've listened to music since birth and been to lots of groups and seem to love it. We are doing colourstrings now which works up slowly until they are given the chance to learn the instrument of their choice. what i like about this system is that so far it involves no input from me!

ime, music lessons not useful for under 7s unless they have very obvious talents. Most children like to sing and dance until at least about age 7, so quite normal.

DC's school say Y2 for starting individual lessons in school. DS started then and is very happy and still wants to play (as opposed to me making him do it). Any younger than that I would say you would want to look for a group lesson of some sort, TBH (suzuki-style, violin or keyboard).

Having said that, my DB started violin at 3.

Hand size is a big factor in piano lessons; they don't have scaled down pianos the way they have scaled down violins and other instruments.

I have a friend who is a piano teacher and she is reluctant to try and teach before 6 and preferably later. My 6 year old dd started earlier this year and is doing well but she is generally a quiet, focused child. Noisier more boisterous ds (nearly 8) has no patience with it at all.

It mostly depends on what you think your child's atttitude to practice would be. If they could not be bothered without you nagging all the time, then leave it for now.

DS started piano lessons at school from age 5. He is not exceptionally good but he loves it!

Hand size not really an issue ragged - beginner piano doesn't use big stretches, and all five-year-olds can reach adjacent notes, which will be the main focus at the beginning. Biggest issue with young learners is concentration, and the ability to read (scanning eyes across a page in a left to right direction, understanding letter names, being able to work things out using logic i.e. C is two notes higher than A because C is two letters after A in the alphabet etc; or there are two half-beats in a whole beat and so on).

Generally speaking, if you start at 4/5, you won't progress very quickly. A 7-year-old will have caught up within a matter of months to a 5-year-old who's been learning for a year or two. But if it's something they want to do at 5, and you find a teacher who keeps things fun (lots of singing and musical games as well as piano) then there's no harm in starting young (just the expense).

(N.B. I guess if the teacher is boring or too serious, it could put a youngster off who may have been able to cope with it better at an older age.)

my son started at 6

Well hand size is a major issue for me, and I'm an adult using instruction books for children. So I've no idea how some children are supposed to do the stretches.

Hi my dd started learning the piano just after her first 5th birthday. She is 6 and is going to take her grade one exam in June. She loves playing and seems to be doing well.

ragged - what I meant is that hand size isn't really an issue at the beginning, as there usually aren't any big stretches in books for beginners. As the music becomes more complicated, the child is also growing and able to accommodate the bigger hand range needed.

There are also ways around it if there are any bigger stretches (techniques you can use) - you sometimes get this if the child is better than the average youngster and playing difficult pieces. If a, say 6-year-old, is doing Grade 2/3 and can't manage the stretches, the teacher can work out which notes to miss out, or a way of spreading the notes so they aren't played simultaneously etc.

Not saying this is true for you ragged, but good technique is important to make certain stretches possible (exact hand position, how you're sitting, distance from keyboard etc). If the hand position is wrong, it can make something much more difficult than it needs to be. HTH.

I think it is largely dependent on the child and you could just give them a go with a couple of lessons in a chosen instrument. I would say that the teacher should tell you whether they are ready or not.

My DD1 started piano lessons just after her 6th birthday and she is making amazing progress. My DS1 wanted desperately to try - he is only 4 years old - the teacher agreed and he is making some progress too - he can read notes and play a tune and that keeps him happy!!!

dd1 just started piano, aged 7 - she is doing really well, and enjoying it. Any earlier would probably have put her off, because of the practise time and concentration needed (on top of school, homework etc). That's her though - I knew it wouldn't be worth doing till she wanted to.

I started aged 5 and loved it.

dd's piano teacher, a concert pianist, started aged 2.5 but she says 'thats because I come from a musical Japanese family' and is not starting her own ds that early!

Have put my dd down for a lesson in September when she will be nearly 7 but think I will be waiting to see how she takes to it before I get too excited and buy a piano (although I've moved furniture to make a space already!). Is this what most people do? Wait and see and then get hold of a piano??

Parents are far too concerned about the idea of who has "special ability" and who doesn't, so forget about that. It's mostly just learning skills like anything else. Find the right motivation, practise a lot and have a good teacher.

The best thing for children under about seven is general singing/rhythm/musicianship group activity. Anything Kodaly-based is good and the previous recommendation of colourstrings could be good if there's one in your area. The problem is not so much being able to learn, as the formality and artificiality of a half-hour lesson 1-1 with a teacher, particularly if they push the grade thing early. It's more important to sing, dance, move, learn about rhythm, get a musical CULTURE that connects easily with others. "Learning an instrument" is then something that sits on top of all that and brings it to a point of focus.

But everybody's different. If you have a sensitive teacher that's good with young'uns, some kids can go well with lessons from 5 or so.

Dd's nursery had a resident music teacher and they all had a wee keyboard (electronic thingy) from the age of 3. When she went to primary school the same teacher formed a little group of children who wanted to continue and she's been in that group for 2 yrs now and loves it. They are all 7 now and still playing the keyboard..the teacher says next year he wants them to progress to a wider one. His method was/is great, they learn the notes initially by attributing each note to a different flower and following sheets with flowers on etc. (also did something to do with what "floor" each flower lives on to decide where on the bar thingy the flower went.

When we find ourselves in a house with a real piano, dd can play it no problem based on the classes she's done in the group.

Nettlefairy - start lurking on freecycle groups - we got our piano through freecycle - it won't take DS through to Grade 8, but for now it is more than fine and we are all very fond of it.

Our dcs started at about 6 at home using this book dogsandbirds. They started lessons with a teacher at 7 and 6 - dd1 is doing grade 1 this year she is 9, dd2 8 has packed it in as she does not want to do it anymore!

Dogsand birds is very good - a bit like bucharest's teacher's flower technique.

Agree with everything confidence says