m_aduhene

Hi,
we have just received a piano from a freecycler. i think i know all
of your answers before i even ask but i am going to ask anyway. my
children are 8, 4 and 2. they pass the paino they have a tinkle, they
sit down and have a little play, they watch me and daddy play badly,
me with music in front of me and daddy by ear. well u all know what i
am going to ask, but here goes......do they need to have lessons???
there u go........
blessings
michelle

Brad Holcomb

> Hi,
> we have just received a piano from a freecycler.
...
> do they need to have lessons???



Do they *want* lessons? -=b.

Sandra Dodd

-=-we have just received a piano from a freecycler-=-

You asked for it, right? Or you jumped on an offer?
It wasn't given to you against your will, I'm guessing. So
"received" seems a dodgy word.

Would it be possible for your children to just receive piano lessons
from you?

They might ask for them, or someone might offer and the kids might
think about it and say yes, or might say yes first and think about it
and say no. But they shouldn't be given lessons against their will.

Maybe you could just tell them a few interesting things you know.
Show them thirds and octaves maybe, and tell them octave means 8.
Lesson enough.

Maybe show them "I dropped my dolly in the dirt" (if you know that
all-black-keys traditional piano song). See whether one of them
wants more or whether the piano as an easy visual tool for exploring
music is plenty for now or forever.

Sandra

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Laura Beaudin

Perhaps ask them if they WANT lessons? Nothing wrong with lessons if
that is what they want! I'd love to learn advanced origami (for
example) and rather than frustrate myself, I'd pay for lessons in a
heartbeat! If I can get myself lessons for something, then why can't children?

Laura


At 05:02 PM 03/02/2009, you wrote:

>Hi,
>we have just received a piano from a freecycler. i think i know all
>of your answers before i even ask but i am going to ask anyway. my
>children are 8, 4 and 2. they pass the paino they have a tinkle, they
>sit down and have a little play, they watch me and daddy play badly,
>me with music in front of me and daddy by ear. well u all know what i
>am going to ask, but here goes......do they need to have lessons???
>there u go........
>blessings
>michelle
>
>

Don't let school interfere with your education!" --Mark Twain
Should you give your children an allowance?
http://www.practical-homeschooling.org
The Great Blog Experiment!!! http://laurabeaudin.com
Works in Progress: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Laura.Beaudin


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eaglefalconlark

--- In [email protected], "m_aduhene" <m_aduhene@...> wrote:
>>>well u all know what i am going to ask, but here goes......do they
need to have lessons???<<<

I'm assuming you mean that they want to play, and you're wondering if
they need to be trained by a professional in order to be able to?

They don't. They might want to if they are looking for musical
community (a teacher can make a good 'in') and like to learn by being
shown and by having some human interaction and encouragement. But it's
not necessary in order to learn.

I've played piano since I was 6, and took lessons for 12 years, and
although I would certainly get my kids lessons if they wanted them, my
preference is that they don't have them, actually. I feel (and this
applies to everything I care about that I was schooled in) that I
became disabled in some ways by an early emphasis on practice and
technique, in that my intuitive feel for it and what I felt naturally
drawn to do with it got buried. I've been so thrilled to see my kids
go from banging on the piano to picking out tunes they've heard in
movies or video games, to creating their own (really lovely)
compositions. This more organic progression was something that I never
got to experience, and I regret that. Their relationship with the
instrument is much different than mine was at their age. My
relationship with it has changed since I've been deschooling, but it's
still not (and I don't know if it will ever be) at the place where
theirs is at.

They have more recently asked me to show them how to read notation (at
this point they can read and do research so could learn in any number
of ways, but I guess it's just most convenient to ask me.) A person
won't ask unless they're particularly interested in that aspect of it
(unless of course they've been led to believe they have to have it to
play) and if they're interested, they're ready because they've gotten
what they need to out of approaching it in a more intuitive way first.

Linda

Ariana Zora Ziminsky

Hi,

This is really relevant to our life right now, so I thought I'd answer!

A couple years ago, I got a yen for a piano, so I found a not-to-expensive one that I could happily play on (I'm an intermediate player) and that my boys, now ages 6 and 3, could bang/explore/play on without me having to worry they were beating up a baby grand or something.
I model playing for the kids, more and more in recent months, and they have their own natural levels of interest.

When we first got the piano, every now and then, when I was feeling really enthusiastic about playing, I'd show my older son something on the piano - a song, which key something was, etc. He's be interested, or not, and I'd go on playing.

One of his good friends also has a piano and is very into learning to play, and she began to show him stuff on the piano. From her, he naturally learned note names (and we made note cards for the different keys on our piano - A, B, C, etc. - little pieces of paper we taped on a few keys in one octave) and one little song. He also made up his own song, one day (a very short little ditty). All this with no pressure.

At some point, I began looking into piano teaching styles and what is in our area, in case my son wanted to take lessons. There was one teacher offering the Suzuki method, which starts with learning by ear rather than learning by sight-reading, and seems to be one of the best options to me. She was about an hour away, but my son was interested enough to want to visit the teacher for a mini-intro lessons (like 10 minutes long) and then, also, visit a friend after, so it wasn't just a long piano lesson car ride.

We ended up not doing the lessons there. My son didn't have the interest at the time, it didn't click totally with the teacher (though she was nice), and it seemed far for us to drive once a week as well.

About a year later, I happened to come across a Suzuki teacher in our area. I passed the info onto my son's friends (the piano player) who wanted to take lessons, and she started lessons with her (the lessons are 15 mins to start) and liked it. After a few months, I made an appt with this piano teacher to come tune our piano and, at the same time, offer an intro lesson to my son. Things clicked, my son became interested in learning more, and we signed up for lessons. It's been about a month now, and though my son isn't totally over the moon about the piano, he likes it and is interested in it, and is progressing at his own level.

The piano teacher is very nice, and she said part of the whole Suzuki lessons is that I need to be present so that I see what they do in a lesson and so I can do it with him at home after. I found that to be great, since my son would insist I be in the room anyways!

There are certain things to practice every week, and sometimes my son will practice, sometimes he won't. I encourage it and will practice with him (most especially when I am feeling excited and super-positive about it!), but if I sense resistance, I drop any suggestion of practicing, b/c I know it wil lead him to dislike piano. I'm not here to create a piano meistro - I only hope to be able to share with him the joy of being able to play.

I did have to explain to our piano teacher the second week of lessons that I wasn't going to make him practice, and that he loves to play with her and catches on quickly when she shows him but that he might not want to repeat it at home. And if the only time he plays in a week is with her, that's OK with me, just go at his pace. So was totally in agreement with that, and also said she'd be happy to stray from the usual 'curriculum' and teach him songs he's interested in learning.

I'm guessing at some point my son will learn just enough that he will suddenly want to learn a TON and will practice of his own desire, or he may want to play more and more with his friend, or he could drop it all together. I'm open to any scenario, and will happily keep playing myself all the while, because I enjoy it so much.

Hope this helps you have an idea of how we have unschooled our piano lessons.

- Ariana







http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t2_allup_explore_022009

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Joyce Fetteroll

> Perhaps ask them if they WANT lessons?

I might have offered the same advice, but reading it struck a wrong
note. If something new moves into range and one of the first
questions mom asks is "Do you want lessons?" what message does it
send? It suggests that there's something wrong or inferior with
playing with it and exploring it on their own.

The more you model playing, the more welcoming you are to have them
join in and show them cool things, the more likely they'll move
beyond the plinking stage if the interest grabs them.

Exploring on their own isn't the same as lessons. They'll learn
different things. By freely exploring they'll discover things that
are *difficult* to learn through lessons.

I think that's an idea that doesn't get emphasized enough but it is
important to unschooling. People discover the idea of unschooling but
are blocked from getting it by seeing all the school stuff that would
be hard to learn by exploring. What they can't see is all the stuff
that's hard to get through lessons: the connections that are made by
pushing things to their limits and playing around in novel ways to
see what they can do and turning things upside down and inside out in
ways that are "wrong". It's not testable, so we as a society have
lost sight of the value in it, but making and exploring connections
on our own are how we're hardwired to learn.

It would sound ridiculous to hire a track coach to help a toddler
walk ;-) But a coach could be useful *later* if someone wanted to be
a competitive runner.

Joyce

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Kelli Traaseth

My daughter plays and loves it.  She's learned from her own deep desire to play music.  It's been so interesting watching her whole process of piano playing because it's completely different from my own experience.  I play also but I learned in the conventional piano lessons way.  I took lessons for 10 years.   I love to play now, but I think back to when I was her age and I hated it.  I'm pretty sure I hated it because I was required to do my practicing for lessons and because I didn't get to pick what I was playing.

Abbi did try 1 piano lesson but the woman we tried wasn't a good fit.  So she hasn't had any formal lessons since.  When she was first learning I told her that if she wanted any help to let me know.  I printed out some graphs of notes, pictures of keys with the notes on it and also brought out my old piano books.  She hardly used the old lesson books but she really used the graphs and pictures I printed out.   I'll sometimes sit by her, but I try and give her  room when she's learning a new piece.  She knows I'm there if she's having a hard time. 

She now reads music pretty well.  She doesn't think she can sightread like me but once she sits down and figures out a song... it's amazing.  She keeps her songs in her mind and has a whole repertoire she can now play, by memory.   The most recent song that she chose to learn is Claude Debussy's Deux Arabesques.  This isn't her but this is the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15afUxNFsoY


A friend of ours was so impressed by her playing that she did a little write up about her and a video of Abbi playing one of her first songs is there also.

http://vhln.blogspot.com/2008/03/autodidact-piano.html

Have the piano available to them,  play around with it, if you don't play or don't know anyone that can play it for them find some youtube videos to show them; so they know what it can sound like.   This is all said with the preface, of course, that they are interested in the piano :)

Have fun!

 Kelli~
  http://ourjoyfullife.blogspot.com/%c2%a0

"There are no ordinary moments."  Dan Millman,  Peaceful Warrior





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Sandra Dodd

Pam Sorooshian's daughter Roxana learned to play without lessons too.
I didn't know that, but I had heard her play when I'd visited, and I
brought her a book of Clementi sonatas (they're pretty easy and sound
cool) and she put it on the stand and sight read one. It wasn't full
speed, but it was clear and confident. I asked Pam how long she'd
taken lessons and Pam said she'd never had a lesson. Cool!

Sandra

Brad Holcomb

When I was a kid (late 70's, very early 80's), we attended a Baptist church
in Baton Rouge where music was front and center. The pastor, Bobby Burnett,
was a pianist who had traveled the country teaching music before he became a
pastor. He was a big influence on the Gaithers (as in singer/songwriter
Bill Gaither and his siblings, for anyone who knows southern gospel music)
when they were young. Videt Polk was a deacon in the church, and he
compiled church hymnals for Zondervan and other publishers, as well as being
an owner of Stamps-Baxter publishing.

One family in the church made a living as a touring gospel act, traveling to
churches and performing in exchange for "love offerings"...whatever people
dropped in the plate. Their daughter was their pianist, and they sang
4-part harmonies beautifully. The daughter got married, eloped,
disappeared. I was about 12 at the time, so my memory of the details is
fuzzy. But I remember an announcement in church that this family needed a
pianist.

Then just a few weeks later this same family performed in one of our church
services, and their teenage son was at the piano, sounding better than his
sister had. He was around 15, I'm guessing. He had had some piano lessons
but wasn't very proficient. When his sister deserted them, he decided he'd
take her place and did it in less than a month. He learned/played/practiced
for 10 to 12 hours a day for 2 or 3 weeks straight (I'm guessing this was
summertime, because they were homeschoolers but not unschoolers) and he was
concert-ready, not only as an accompanist but even playing cool solos and
bridges. I wish I remembered the family name, because it would be fun to
google for what happened to them over the years. -=b.

Kim

I tried lessons with my older son because he asked for them. The
teacher was very traditional, and it was painful to listen to the
tedious lessons. He had no interest in practicing, and I can't blame
him - the method was SO boring!

In the meantime, I have purchased a DVD that I plan to use with him
when he shows renewed interest (the first experience turned him off to
the piano for now). Anyway, you can check out the site
www.simplymusic.com. The program first helps people to learn songs (as
opposed to learning to read music first). It makes playing the piano
fun and exicting from the start. Once a person has mastered some
songs, the program then introduces information on how to read music.
It sounds like a much more fun way to learn. I may have to give it a
try myself instead of waiting until my son shows interest to take it
out of the box!
Kim

Bernadette Lynn

I don't really like to criticise when I've hardly ever posted to this list
so if anyone thinks I'm out of order I apologise, but this line really
jarred with me:

The program first helps people to learn songs (as
> opposed to learning to read music first). It makes playing the piano
> fun and exicting from the start.



Playing the piano IS fun and exciting, for someone who is interested.
Whether it's playing songs, or making up songs, or listening to the
different sounds the keys make, or seeing how loud it gets if you bang the
keys really hard. If a child needs a program to make playing piano fun and
exciting then maybe they don't really want to play piano.

I really don't think you need lessons to learn the piano any more than you
need lessons to learn to read.

I have three sisters who did piano as second study at music college. The
older two had lessons from our mother when they were younger; both made
reasonable progress but didn't really get fired up about playing the piano
until they were older, one only really started to work at it when she
realised she would need a second study instrument. My younger sister didn't
have lessons but she liked to mess around with pianos when she got a chance.
When she was 13 she decided she wanted to play and started working properly
at pieces she really wanted to play. The first piece she learned was from a
piano tutor, one which she'd heard our older sisters play. Her second piece
was Für Elise, by Beethoven and her third was the slow movement from
Beethoven's Emperor concerto. She learned the way people here have described
older children learning to read - going from single words and phrases very
rapidly to reading adult books. The difference in the enjoyment my sisters
got from the piano was enormous.


Bernadette.
--
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/U15459


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eaglefalconlark

--- In [email protected], Bernadette Lynn
<bernadette.lynn@...> wrote:
>>>this line really jarred with me:

"The program first helps people to learn songs (as opposed to learning
to read music first). It makes playing the piano fun and exicting from
the start."

Playing the piano IS fun and exciting, for someone who is interested.
Whether it's playing songs, or making up songs, or listening to the
different sounds the keys make, or seeing how loud it gets if you bang
the keys really hard.<<<

Or, I would add, learning to read notation. It's not that learning to
read music isn't fun and exciting, it's the context in which it
happens that determines that. My son, who I earlier talked about
progressing from banging on the piano to picking out tunes he knew to
making up ones of his own, was very excited to learn how to read music
once he decided that was what he wanted to do. He was as focused on
that as he's ever been on any video game, working on it for hours
every day for days. I felt that way myself when working on a new
piece, although never when there were outside expectations concerning
it. There is a very real pleasure in a drive that's wholly internally
motivated.

Linda

Kris

<<Playing the piano IS fun and exciting, for someone who is interested.
Whether it's playing songs, or making up songs, or listening to the
different sounds the keys make, or seeing how loud it gets if you
bang the
keys really hard. If a child needs a program to make playing piano
fun and
exciting then maybe they don't really want to play piano.>>



I think we have to be very careful about assuming motivation or
sincerity of a child's desire to learn anything. I have known very
talented musicians who did not wait to read music before playing.
They often did go on to learn to read but only as a way to play with
other musicians, this did not increase their love of music or their
desire to play, only their ability to play with others.

Sometimes when a person asks for a method of learning to be more fun
just means that it is clearer and is less frustrating. Frustration
can kill a sincere desire to learn, what fits for one person may not
fit another. Tradition, no matter how old or glorified, is not the
determination of right or wrong

Kris

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