All About Piano Lessons For Children
Here you find articles that include training videos showing you how to play a particular song. Many of them include practice tips and show my methodical approach to learning a new song.
Bald gras ich am Neckar is a beautiful old German folk song.
I arranged it for my beginning piano students. It is suited for children that already took lessons for at least 1 year.
Here is my video tutorial of the songs that shows me playing.
First slowly, then faster with my sheet music and related fingering.
This video shows how to play Beethoven’s Ode To Joy with the right hand only.
This is a nice piece that features a left hand accompaniment which alternates between different fingers and the thump.
Check out my video below. It includes also a practice tip, that helps the student to first master the note changes by simplifying the left hand.
This nice song features the famous “Alberti Bass” figure in the left hand which is an accompaniment pattern used in countless pieces.
Definition: Alberti bass is a kind of broken chord or arpeggiated accompaniment, where the notes of the chord are presented in the order lowest, highest, middle, highest. This pattern is then repeated.[1] The broken chord pattern helps to create a smooth, sustained, flowing sound on the piano.
The video shows me playing the song. It includes a play-along section that allows the student to perform along with the recording playing only one hand at a time.
“Can You Feel The Love Tonight” is a beautiful song (written by Elton John) featured in the Walt Disney movie The Lion King.
As simple as the song sounds, it is actually quite tricky. The melody feels as it was written in 3/4 time, which it is not. The difficulty for the young beginning piano student is therefore not playing the correct notes, but playing them with the correct rhythm.
Still, the pupil should first learn to play the right notes with the correct fingering (see video below). If this is learned, the pupil counts along as he/she plays the music in a comfortable tempo.
I suggest that the pupil watches and listens to my video many times, until the melody sticks.
Gradually the pupil should increase the tempo until finally he/she can play along with the recording.
This post is about my song “Ein Kleines Lied”, which I composed and arranged specifically for my younger pupils.
This song was arranged for 6 hands. The three different parts are intended to be performed by three players simultaneously.
Ideally each pupil learns how to play all three parts.
The video below explains each part and shows how to perform them.
The video below is a practice guide that also explains the bass clef. You may want to read on before watching this video.
Page 1 features the melody in the right-hand with a species counterpoint accompaniment in the left. I excluded the fingering, because I want the children to learn how to read musical notes. Otherwise all they do is read the numbers that indicate which finger to use for a particular note.
The base clef is also called F clef, because it shows us the position of the pitch F3 on the staff.
It is important that the children associate the location of the note-heads on the staff (Staff Lines) with the pitch name, and the keys.
So far we learned the location of the notes C3, D3, E3, F3 and G3 written in bass clef (as shown above). These are the notes I used in “Ein Kleines Lied”.
Piano music is generally written on a grand staff. A grant staff consists of two staves, the upper one being the treble clef staff, the lower one being the bass clef staff (in most cases).
For this reason pianists have to be able to read treble and bass clef at the same time. To complicate matter even further, each clef may feature chords (Mehrklänge), which consist of several notes being played simultaneously. Consequently, sight-reading requires a lot of brain power. It’s an excellent exercise to increase our visual memory.
The two accompaniments (Begleitung 1, Begleitung 2) from the second page of “Ein Kleines Lied” feature thirds. Playing two notes in one hand at the same time can be very challenging at first.
I created pre-exercises that should prepare the pupil to perform thirds more easily. Please watch the video tutorial below.
It is very important that the child practices these finger exercises slowly and with great focus. It is much better to do these exercises often, and in short intervals (5-10 minutes most), instead of once a week for 2 hours.
Ask your child never to stop practicing when it feels pain or discomfort.
