Blog My First Piano Adventure Piano Pedagogy The Young Beginner: Keys for

The Young Beginner: Keys for Connecting – My First

Piano Adventure
By Randall Faber • February 3, 2016 • • My First Piano Adventure, Piano Pedagogy

As piano teachers, we’re quite adept at bridging our adult world to that of the typical seven- or
eight-year-old beginner. It requires only modest e ort because most 1st and 2nd grade
students also try to bridge their world to ours. The attempt to “bridge worlds” is two-way, so
teaching and learning are uid and reasonably predictable.

It is a di erent matter, however, when we work with children at ages 4 and 5. Not only is this
young beginner’s world substantially di erent than the adult world and qualitatively di erent
than ages 7-8, the young beginner does not “meet us halfway.” 4-5 year olds require us to nd
and enter their world. The young beginner is not inclined to adapt to us, so we must adapt to the
world of the young beginner.

Spirit of Play
What is this world of the young beginner? It is fun, fantasy and exploration. Seriousness?
Teacher-driven rules? Tight control? These close down a young learner’s intrinsic interest.
Playfulness? Creativity? Adventure? These drive the youngster’s learning. And the multi-
sensory world of music makes a perfect context for such a playful adventure. We take the child
into a musical “playground” that engages the emotions and the senses. In this world, we
explore, we hear, we look, we learn. To be fully e ective, we combine visual, auditory and
kinesthetic (feel/touch) experiences with a spirit of play, including playmates—the “friends at
the piano” of My First Piano Adventure®.

The student’s “musical friends” pose a new adventure with each piece: swimming with a whale,
climbing a treehouse, dreaming of the Tooth Fairy. Engage with each page as a new encounter, a
new surprise. Take in the visual; catch the emotion. Hear what the child says about the context.
This adds personal meaning that engages attention and primes memory. Then listen to the CD
track. Now the engagement is auditory, yet with emotion. Next, make it tactile. Feel the keys;
listen to the sounds. Smile and sing. Engage the senses, and engage the child with a playfulness
of spirit.

Wendy the Whale moves her big tail, then dives lower and lower.

Attention
We’ve all heard of the young child’s short attention span. While this is a valid characteristic to
which we adapt, let’s be equally impressed with the young child’s tenacity when emotionally
engaged. Have you heard a youngster say, “Again! Again!” prodding far beyond our own point
of tedium? (What might this say about our own attention span?) So, the capacity for sustained
attention is there, even in the young child. We simply must recognize when attention is engaged
and when it is not. If attention wanes during a visual activity, shift to an auditory or kinesthetic
action. And when attention is wholly captivated, reap all the rewards of this “teachable
moment.”

Activity-based learning—this is key. Each student responds with personal favorites, which
makes this level such a joy to teach. The antidote to a short attention span is to get o the
bench: move to the table, sit on the oor, move to the board, back to the bench. Activity-based
teaching allows adaptation, repetition, and variation. Not every page is essential, but having the
student’s attention is. Celebrate student favorites and repeat them from week to week to glean
all their capacity for musical development. Use creative variations for fun and challenge.

Technique
Noodle ngers, small hands, no coordination… maybe we should wait until the child is older?
This fallacy is remedied by recognizing that a child will never “grow” a pianistic hand. A
pianistic hand is developed through guidance and practice. So the undeveloped hand physique
of the youngster is ripe for guidance and presents an ideal time to start on technique. We just
need to adapt our teaching routine and introduce activities that appropriately guide physical
development of the hand.

Stepping up to nger 4, then checking for a rm ngertip. “Is the hand round like a scoop of
ice cream?”

As a priority for this age, we want to develop the hand structure. (Teaching a oppy wrist and
relaxation would be an unproductive starting point.) We need a physical framework that is
sorely lacking in the undeveloped hand. The use of braced nger 3, with a relaxed wrist and a
free-fall drop (arm weight) is perfect because it models the hand structure and alignment of
nger, wrist and arm. Unique and e ective, “Stone on the Mountain” introduces sophisticated
aspects of piano technique. Then we work on the ngertip with Cookie Dough (pushing
chocolate chips into imaginary cookie dough), which sets up the next several pages for using
only a braced nger 3 (Dipping L.H. and R.H. Donuts, and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star).

An upward (and/or forward) wrist motion that drives the “bridge” over the ngers is practiced
in Mitsy’s Cat Back. This wrist motion is then developed into an expressive “rainbow” gesture
that carries that hand across the keyboard.

Rhythm and Pitch

While it is exciting to see the child develop good technique habits at a young age, it is even more
exciting to observe the young student’s development of rhythm and pitch perception. These
perceptual skills develop most e ectively with early-age exposure, so My First Piano
Adventure® puts special focus on this aspect of brain development with the enclosed audio CD.

For rhythm, we emphasize feeling the steady beat in the body. We are going for a kinesthetic
response, as in Roll Call, which introduces the Friends. “Tap,” the music re y, is the rhythm
mascot. “Tap” introduces the Monster Bus Driver (for imitating rhythms), Dancing Feet and
Band Practice (for tracking the beat and rhythm notation) and the repeating, notated rhythm
patterns of Monsieur Mouse and Mouse Rhythms. The tunes and audio recordings also
emphasize pitch. Student voices—girl and boy alike—are carried from “chants,” which open
the book, to singing of melodies, including famous classical themes of Beethoven and Mozart in
Book B. (Haydn, Brahms and Tchaikovsky in Book C.) Special emphasis is placed on the hearing
of tonality and the expressive power of music.
Summary
The joy and reward of teaching young students more than o set the challenges. And the
challenges are readily addressed with the right curriculum and the right attitude. My First Piano
Adventure® provides the curriculum. The teaching attitude is—keep it fun! The child’s life at
this age revolves around fun for good reason. Fun motivates play, and play is the child’s “magic
formula” for learning. My First Piano Adventure® allows you to step into the child’s world and,
together, explore the joy, challenge, and beauty of music. With fun as your watchword, seek to
draw out your student’s full attention and vibrant spirit. The child just may give the same gift
back to you.

One Response to “The Young Beginner: Keys for

Connecting – My First Piano Adventure”

Sharon Cummins
April 22, 2018 at 3:54 pm #

These wonderful books have helped 2 of my grandsons delight in and learn to play the
piano. I delight in playing the duets with them. At ages 6 and 8 they are now both in book
2. The 6 year old is excited to be learning Big Dog Boogie like his 8 year old brother.

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