Hey everyone!

I've just been asked to teach a six year old boy the piano. We had an introductory lesson yesterday of just 20 mins but i really dont know where to start.

I've only taught 7 year olds (who were in fact closer to 8) and these students i've taught clicked quite quickly about what was going on, and after the first lesson, were already playing the first piece of music (one child was able to do 3, with no previous knowledge of music!)

But obviously six year olds will need time for everything to click, and hearing all these new words like beat, bar, and hearing the alpabet up to G a million times! Everything will need to be repeated over and over, just for it to settle in their minds.

For those experienced teachers out there, could you give me an outline of what you think the first three lessons should be like, and what i should be giving them to practice at home?

Many thanks!

Jenny

I start with the black note groups and get them to play simple tunes using two (and then three, maybe second week!) black notes, to start finding their way round the keyboard. We identify high and low sounds and I try to make sure they understand the idea of high and low - we might also explore the ideas of fast and slow, loud and soft - probably not all in the same lesson. Some like to hear a familiar tune played different ways and choose which one they like.

I probably wouldn't use on-stave material at all at this stage, so words like bar and clef aren't needed yet.
Important to play a tune to go home with - however simple.

We learn the music alphabet and by the third week we'd probably be spelling simple words to make tunes - "can you say the music alphabet backwards three times without a mistake?" is a useful game. I have a sheet of words where they have to find the ones you can "play" and put an x by the ones you can't (there are about 6-8 jokers in the list which use letters beyond G).
We learn finger numbers and maybe by lesson 3 would play a tune using finger numbers as a guide.

If you get chance, have a look at some of the newer "young" books in the music shop - quite a few start off-stave.

Hope this is a bit useful. Pm me if you'd like a bit more detail - I have an intro course that I modify as I go along for most younger beginners.

For the very first lesson with such a young child, the most important thing is that they leave you wanting to come back. Forget about technique, forget about note values. Make the child want to play music! I tell them as soon as they come throught the door that they're not going home till they can play a tune - this is why they have come - Old McDonald, from the Schaumm Green Book - Pre-A - is a good starter - and we always manage it in lesson one. "This is Middle C - stick your thumbs on it. This way is up/this way is down. These are your finger numbers - now go!" Some of it's by ear, some of it's by finger number and a little of it's from the dots on the page. It doesn't matter. They need to leave with a sense of achievement and a desire for more. All the other bits and pieces can be talked about gradually as you move on.

I also start with ' kangaroo hops' on the sets of 2 then 3 black notes, then usually introduce D as it's in the middle of the 2 black keys-I'd usually then introduce C and E but that's all in the first lesson. I then introduce finger numbers on one hand and give them a 'tune' to play which they can do by just following the finger numbers-the most important thing is that they can play a simple tune by the end of the lesson. Games involving high and low sounds-I have little cards with pictures of animals on which they match to the different pitches on the piano- and 'matching' games where they match a card with a letter on it and a picture of something starting with that letter-they have to pick a card and find that letter on the piano-also worth having a set of music flashcards -I use these once I've started notation, and they're also useful for games teaching note values- I have a giant sized soft dice which we throw, and they have to find cards with notes which add up to the same number. I don't introduce stave notation until later with this age group-if you check out your local music shop if you have one there are a number of 'pre stave starters' which cater for very young pupils. I use the Bastien Piano Basics primers, and there are other similar books out there. Above all, I find introducing concepts very gradually, plenty of repetition under the guise of different activities which reinforce the same thing. Hope that's helpful-let me know if there's anything particular you'd like to ask.

I have started many very young children and it is so important for them to have lots of fun in the lessons. I begin by getting them to look at the black keys and how they are in groups of two and then three all the way along the piano. When we have found some groups of two black keys we find D the dog, who lives in a kennel made from two black keys. We find every D the dog note and play them all. Then we meet his two friends, C the cat and E the elephant. We find and play lots of these using finger three for each note. Then we might play a simple version of "Merrily we roll along" using letter names. I draw a long note sign after the held notes, something like this: E D C D E E E----- DDD------EEE------ and we usually play every thing with finger three. Make sure that you write things down in a large, clear print. Then we learn the Animal Song, which is a c major scale, again played with finger three only. C the cat, D the dog, E the elephant, F the frog, G the goat, A the ant, B the bee, and up to C. (Sing as you both play! Its great fun if you add some chords.) Play high and low games, play something jolly for him, and let him dance or march around as you do so, and You might even have time to let him draw abound his hands and then write finger numbers on the image. Tell him that THUMBS ARE ONES! I hope that it goes well.

I like 'Old MacDonald' too - we play it on the black keys fairly early on.

When we do get on to books, the ones I use now are Piano Adventures Primer ( Faber & Faber - pubd. Studio Music) supplemented with Hal Leonard Piano Lessons and Lina Ngs Theory Stickers book. The lessons books start off stave, use black keys , and, most importantly, are not stuck for ever with the thumbs sharing Middle C. All the concepts are introduced gradually and systematically.
Also , Jane Sebba's Piano Magic duets has a great one -' D D in the middle of the 2 black keys', with a jazzy teacher accompaniment. Huge fun!

With such young children I think it is best not to use notation at all, for quite a long time, until they are very familiar with up / down / high / low and many other musical concepts and most importantly have learned to listen to what they are doing. I teach them Kodaly type songs from the beginning, for example they can learn to sing 'clap clap clap your hands, clap your hands together' using just the minor third interval and then play it starting on different notes all over the piano - LISTENING to see if it sounds right, and trying out different notes to get it to sound right. There is an excellent book called singing games and rhymes for early years published by the national youth choir of scotland which I draw most of my material from. I record me singing onto a CD which the children take home and listen to before they play. A girl I teach told me she listens to it every day when she gets ready for school.

Also use of puppets appropriate to the songs you sing and using animal names for the notes (as has already been mentioned) is really useful. One six year old I teach loves to take a puppet home every week, which he promises faithfully to take very good care of!

The six year old I am talking about has had about 5 lessons now and can play and sing about 8 songs by ear. We have discussed what pulse means and he marches beautifully as he sings to demonstrate his understanding of pulse. Last week I introduced 'rhythm', with long bits of paper to signify long sounds and shorter bits for shorter sounds - we sang a song and laid out the paper to show the rhythm. He was really good at it.

I have found that using this approach children build their understanding of music much better than using a book. Notation is difficult for them to read, doesn't allow for very much music to take place and in my experience can put them off. When you are ready to introduce a book, or if you want to introduce one immediately a colleague of mine has written an excellent book called Cats & Dogs designed for very young children based on the Kodaly approach - she uses animal names for the notes and inside each note she has put the animal, which takes away the difficulty children have reading notation. Lovely illustrations reinforce which notes are being played. The approach also ensures they associate the note with the sound, rather than with the finger number. The most wonderful thing I have discovered is that my students who use this book are quite able to start in a different hand position and still play the correct note. If anyone would like to know more about the book please PM me.

When we have found some groups of two black keys we find D the dog, who lives in a kennel made from two black keys.
(quote)

Or D the Donkey - here are his two black ears - and here's his long white nose.

I like the idea of the animal scale.

I agree with all the above.
I have just started teaching a 6 yr old boy who is a sweetheart with good concentration levels for his age. As a tutor book, I'm using Alfred Prep for young beginners which has an accompanying cd (Mum was really impressed with this).
The duet parts for the teacher make their playing come to life that bit more, and you can have lots of fun with it. It's all fingers at the beginning so the children can play tunes quickly and feel like they've really acheived something.

(There is also an accompanying 'Fun Book' which the children all seem to love).

By week 2 he was playing Merrily we roll along on the black notes and wk 3 was Old Macdonald. He's really proud of his own book.

I find 20 mins is plenty.

I'm tending to move away from Alfreds though as they get older, but it is good for the very young.

Take a look at the London College Pre-preparatory exam - the first of three pre-Grade 1 exams. Thumbs on Middle c, dead easy, and gives them a great senses of achievement. Good experience , without the pressure, of the exam system.

I think that with younger children you have to be the judge of what's OK for your pupil. He's 6 so he should be writing at school, and really familiar with all the alphabet you need to use. I have started with the Bastien primer books which begin off stave with 6 year olds but I have found that they go quite slowly for some at this age and I find myself jumping the last few off stave pieces and moving on to "proper" music. I also steal ideas from different series of books and use them to describe the music where I think it gives a better visual idea eg. the treble stave becomes the right-hand ladder.

I also find that I use a couple of books to complement each other so that the pupil gets plenty of practice with a new note, or idea. I also spend quite a long time in my local music shop leafing through all the basic books.

Just to contrast with your 6 year old, I have just this year taken on a 4 year old boy, on the understanding that we would see how things went, and that I could not promise brilliant progress (since this was an area of unknown territory). I break the lesson down into work at the piano using a book with proper notation, a bit of "Kodaly-style" singing, pupil marching round the room to me playing something on the piano - made up out of my head - he doesn't mind the odd discord, and high and low games. It is really interesting that without any pressure he can now recognise notes around middle C on the stave and comes back each week having practised 3 or 4 times since the previous lesson with significant progress with the work set. It is really quite a discipline for me not to write anything down because obviously his reading is not up to much yet.