Author: Cynthia Van Landingham

Piano lessons are a great activity for children. They encourage creative thinking, develop math and reading skills, and improve students’ overall educational progress, as well as building a fun life-long skill. As a result, over six million children in the United States take piano lessons! One of the choices that parents have when their child is beginning piano lessons is whether to enroll their son or daughter in a private or group lesson. Parents often have misperceptions, or at least several questions, in making this choice.

Q: What is the difference between private and group lessons?

A: Individual lessons are usually thirty minutes in length, with the piano teacher working one-on-one with a student. Individual lessons provide a high degree of personal attention for a student. Group lessons are generally 45-minutes to an hour in length, and consist of between two and four students working with their piano teacher. During group lessons, each student plays their own piano or keyboard and receives both individual and group instruction. Students are introduced to new skills in the group every week and are then given individual playing assignments. They practice these assignments using earphones and the teacher rotates among the students to check on their progress and provide additional instruction.

Q: Don’t children learn more in a private lesson?

A: Not necessarily, and it depends very much on the student. Some children thrive with individual instruction. However, private lessons can also create a dependence that students may have a hard time overcoming, as some children grow to feel that they cannot learn on their own without their piano teacher repeatedly showing them every new thing. To prevent this, successful piano teachers create supportive learning environments that let children know that they are responsible for their own success. This helps children learn how to set goals and that their own effort makes a difference. That’s why, even in a private lesson, students need some time to work independently.

Group lessons are a great way for children to learn, and many children learn faster in a group setting than in individual lessons. Group lessons create a fun and supportive environment, and students learn both from the teacher’s instruction and from each other. It also helps many children to know that other students are learning the same skills.

I encourage most new students who are seven years of age or older to start out in group lessons. However, I have found that private lessons typically work best for two groups of students. First, they can provide a solid learning foundation to very young students (ages 5 to 7) who need one-on-one instruction to help get started. Parents of these very young children sometimes stay with them during their lessons. When children get a little older and have the basics, they usually can transfer to a group lesson. Second, private lessons are appropriate for late intermediate to advanced students who are looking to apply music theory and advanced playing techniques requiring intense instruction and dedicated home study.

Author: Brian Shelton

When playing the piano, a good sense of rhythm is essential. Here are the top five ways to develop you piano rhythm:

1) Learn the basic rhythms.

As one of the top 5 ways to develop your piano rhythm, learning the basic beats found in any kind of music will help. The more rhythms that you listen to in fact, the easier they are to identify and emulate. We have for example, the standard four-beat rhythm that counts out to four beats per measure. Pretty common. Then we have the three-beat rhythm that counts out to three beats per measure. Again, pretty common. We also have the two-beat rhythm which is half the four-beat rhythm, but as you delve deeper into the world of piano, you’ll discover some rather interesting (albeit, a little tricky) beats to play. The five beat rhythm is an example. This pattern counts out five beats per measure, commonly found in non-European music.

2) Practice rhythms with your hands (clapping, clapping on lap, tapping foot).

Speaking of tricky rhythms, we find that clapping our hands or just tapping our feet is an effective method in developing rhythm — especially when the music that we play gets a little complicated. Bear in mind that music doesn’t have to be foreign to be complicated. Sometimes, music can be so “full” of “stuff” (notes, flags, sharps, and other twists and turns), we can get lost in trying to play it. Taking a few moments to clap out a rhythm however, helps us associate notes with a unique time signature — a time signature that could at any moment, change right in the middle of a song!

3) Count out loud if you have to.

This strategy follows the hand clapping and foot tapping strategy above, except that counting aloud helps strengthen the concept of rhythm in our minds. When we repeat 1 -2 -3 -4 over and over, that pattern sticks and flows from our fingers. It’s best to count aloud while looking at the music you’re playing. The relationship between the notes you see and the beats that they represent will become clearer as a result.

4) Use a metronome.

Metronomes are pretty much standard staples when it comes to playing music. You would be hard pressed in fact, to stay on beat without one! A metronome is programmed to produce a steady beat for a prolonged period of time, so they make perfect tools for strengthening adherence to certain beats.

5) Play the piano in your mind while doing something else.

Just for fun, you could use the sounds in your environment as a basis for a new rhythm. Imagine the sounds created in the office environment. A person typing… someone walking down the hall… a printer grinding out 20 sheets of music… you get the point. Pick any one of these songs and then play your imaginary piano to the rhythm of the sound that you’re hearing. Even if the rhythm speeds up or slows down, the goal in this little exercise is to keep playing the music on time, no matter how much the beat sways.

Author: B Shelton

Let’s face it, learning to play the piano well requires practice, practice, practice! But who wants to practice more than they have to? Here are the top 10 ways to get the most out of your piano practice:

1) Looking for the top 10 ways to effectively practice piano?

Let us start by admitting piano practice isn’t always fun. At times, it can be as grueling a task as mopping the floor or teaching your York Terrier to roll over (even when he hasn’t done it for the hundredth time). The key thing about piano practice however, is that it isn’t really supposed to fun — it’s supposed to improve your skills. That doesn’t mean that practicing the piano **can’t** be fun. We’ve even written an article describing how to **make** it fun. This article however, focuses on how to make practice more effective. And effective practice often accompanies a little thing we like to call, “dedication.”

2) Plan your practice time and set goals.

Yup - as with every thing else under the sun, perfection at the piano requires a dedicated set time of practice. So take a look at your schedule and **make** time (don’t ’squeeze’ time) to practice. Make sure that this time slot is uninterrupted and void of frivolous phone calls or visits from friends and family. Put the terrier in the back yard and unplug the phone. This is how to build “you” time, or more correctly, time to strengthen the love affair between you and your instrument. On such a lovely date, you may want to finally figure out a passage that has been troubling you, or you may want build your basic skills. If it will help, write into your schedule book, the task that you’d like to master on each day that you practice. That way when you look at your planner, you’ll remember how even Beethoven started out!

3) Play With Your Metronome.

Don’t forget the metronome. Metronomes are designed to strengthen your rhythm skills and if you insist on playing without one, you’re destined to produce inconsistent music (no matter how well you can count). Put your trust into the mechanics of a metronome and you’ll stay on beat, every time.

4) Get Smooth

After a while, you may notice that your metronome is getting on your nerves. If so, chances are you’ve either got it turned up too loud, or you’ve advanced so much, you’re ready to concentrate on other aspects of piano music — like smoothness for example. During this phase of your lessons, your rhythm and timing have obviously improved, and now you’re more interested in playing with emotion than following a steady beat. This doesn’t mean that the metronome is useless however. It simply means that you can start focusing on letting your music flow. Turn the metronome down to its lowest level and refer to it only when you’re nervous about getting off beat.

5) Practice in front of others.

Talk about getting nervous! Failing to regularly play in front of others will only turn you into a master among one: (yourself)! Get used to entertaining small crowds and you’ll eventually gain the courage to play for a crowd of a thousand. With just a few more years of experience, you’ll soon solo at the symphony!

6) Kill the mistakes.

This is where practicing in front of others really pays off because if you make a mistake, you can be sure you’ll hear about it. And as daunting as this may seem, it’s actually a good thing. You certainly want to catch and correct mistakes before you solidify them as a permanent fixture in a public performance.

7) Practice Every Day

Yes, even when you’re tired, grumpy, or just plain don’t feel good, you must practice every day. You don’t have to produce a masterpiece every time you sit down to play the piano, but you can at least run through the drills. This will help keep your fingers limber and your pedal-work coordinated with your hands. Of course when you’re feeling up to it, go on and rock the house! Just don’t skip a day. Not even one. The masters didn’t!

Work the Right Hand.

Since the right hand often plays the most intricate part of a song, you’ll want to exercise it as much as possible. Take it slow if need be and then speed up to the right tempo when you’re ready.

9) Speed It Up

There’s an interesting theory in the piano community that claims playing faster, increases skills. This is a theory of course that only works after you’ve mastered a piece at tempo you’re comfortable with. And it’s idea claims that “speed playing” makes music appear easier to play than it really is.

10) Chill

You’ll never master the piano if you continuously play it while tense, angry, or nervous. Certain pieces of music require that its musicians relax. If you never learn how to relax during practice, your tense, angry, or nervous condition will eventually become your personal playing style. And the music that you play will instill the same condition within your audience. Yikes! Learn how to relax your wrist, hands, shoulders and arms. Find a comfortable position and learn how to smile while you’re playing. Yes, playing the piano is hard work, but it should never be forced.