Why Take Piano Lessons? My Personal List

FreeImages.com/Carlo Lazzeri

Several years ago, I stopped teaching piano lessons after having taught for over 15 years. I was burned out; my students were burned out. We just weren’t having any fun! Not long after that, I began attending a new church and immediately assumed the role of church pianist. Even though the idea of sight-reading in public scared me to death, I had never had so much fun playing in all my life! A year or two down the road, my playing had drastically improved, and I was teaching music to anyone who would sit still and listen: children and teens from church, nieces, nephews, visitors. I just couldn’t instill enough knowledge and fun ideas into those around me. As of last July, I have been teaching again and loving it! My students are enjoying their lessons and progressing quickly, and I am happy.

I have put together a short little list of personal reasons for taking piano lessons. Here they are:

1. Creative Outlet. From day one, you begin learning the elements you will need to make music for the rest of your life. Some teachers even incorporate creativity into their lessons. I have seen some great improvisation methods that are geared for beginners, and the piano method I use has several improvisation opportunities sprinkled throughout the theory books. It won’t be long before a new student is sitting at the piano and conjuring up melodies of his own. Children are very creative; I think mostly because they aren’t so self conscious and don’t put as much stock in “perfection.” However, as a musician practices and grows, he will expand his musical horizons, thus allowing him to improvise with ever more confidence and technique.
2. Discipline. I strive for discipline in my own life. Discipline to keep the house clean, to cook meals at home, exercise and eat right, and improve my skills and knowledge. Playing the piano gives me a way of practicing discipline. I must discipline myself to sit still and break down a complex passage, or figure out how I want a specific song to sound. As a mom, I also appreciate music for the perfect way that it fits into my son’s life, providing him a form of discipline. Even when he doesn’t have homework or chores, it gives him something productive he can do every single day.
3. Distraction from Distractions. Believe it or not, I have a lot of trouble coming up with ideas for my son when it comes to how he spends his free time. Like most kids his age, he plays his fair share of video games and enjoys watching shows on Netflix, but I also like to make sure he gets completely away from technology from time to time. Sometimes I just make him turn off the TV and allow him to have unstructured playtime, or invention time, or whatever he can come up with. However, one of his favorite things to do during this time is play the piano. He loves to sit and pick out melodies that he has been listening to throughout the day.
4. Fun and Relaxation. Just listen to a few piano tunes on YouTube, and imagine yourself being able to play them. This should help you understand how addicting it can be to increase your skill with a musical instrument. Every time you play well, you can feel good about the effort you put into learning and practicing. In addition, as the sounds wash over your soul, you get to enjoy the results of all your hard work. Playing piano is also a fantastic way to unwind or de-stress; it’s one of my favorite things to do when I find myself worried about something, and I just want to escape for a little while.
5. Unique You. Ok, well, you’re already unique. But imagine throwing a piano into the mix. Just think about the ideas and personality that you will bring to the table while picking up a skill such as this one. It’s even possible to develop your own playing style that no one else can lay claim to. On top of all that, there probably aren’t that many people in your area that play the piano really well. You could be one of the few. All it takes is dedication and consistency, and you’ll find your skills improving in leaps and bounds.
6. A Skill to Pass Along. If you’re anything like me, this is the best part. I love showing someone how to play almost any song with just three or four chords. I love showing them how to use a fake book, how to read sheet music, how to add dynamics and make the music speak. Broken down, the steps are all so simple and easy to grasp. Even when I’m not teaching an official lesson, I just cannot wait for the next person to come along and ask me a musical question so I can open his world to the magic waiting at his fingertips. And, if you become skilled enough, and love teaching as much as I do, you might even make a living at it!
7. Endless Possibilities. The beauty of learning to play the piano is that there is always something new to learn. Even if you become a top-notch sight-reader and can play classical music like the great composers themselves, there will always be more territory to cover. Jazz, blues, Latin, improvisation, composition, lead sheets. You will never run out of things that pique your interest. This is fabulous news for those of us who love learning for the sake of learning.

What do you think? Do you agree with this list? What reasons would you add?

Voice Lesson Binder

All right, so the other day when I was writing about my Current Projects, I mentioned the voice lesson binder that I had finished up. Well, it isn’t exactly finished yet, as you will see.

The first thing I did was fill up the binder with kid-friendly songs like “Let It Go” and “Somewhere over the Rainbow.” Then I supplemented those with songs that had a limited range, just to give the students a way to have immediate success matching pitch. (I have found that almost anyone can match pitch, as long as the music is in their range. Some ranges are very limited, and so it sounds like the person is always singing off-pitch. This usually has nothing to do with a person’s “ear” and everything to do with range.) Thankfully, I have a transposition button on my piano, so I can reuse the same songs for students with very different ranges.

Next, I Googled “how to teach voice lessons” or something similar. I have taught hundreds of voice lessons in the past, but because it has been a few years, I didn’t want to miss anything important. I typed up the things I thought were important, adding a couple things and deleting a couple things, and rearranging the activities to work for short attention spans. Here’s what I ended up with:

Voice Lesson Format (Word)

Voice Lesson Format (PDF)

If you teach a choir, you could use this format for that as well.

I have been using some of the same warm-ups with my choir for years. I usually have my students begin with a hum, descend for five notes, and then hum back up to the starting pitch. Then we start the exercise again, starting a half-step lower each time.

The ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma denotes a five-note scale ascending and descending. I usually ascend by half-steps with each repetition. Alternatively, you could change this one up and use other syllables, or even a silly phrase: mommy made me mash my M&M’s.

Siren is just what is sounds like. Students imitate a yawn to open the back of the throat. Then they wail up and down a couple of times, reaching very high and ending with a vocal fry as low as they can go. The most important thing to remember with this exercise (and with any vocal exercise) is not to strain the voice at all. I always tell my students, if anything hurts or feels strained, stop immediately.

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha denotes a staccato major chord arpeggio. I always wait until after the siren before using this exercise, as students can usually sing quite high with these. The siren helps warm up the voice for the higher pitches.

On the back of the lesson format page, I designated a place for student names and ranges (with dates – so I can see how they progress). As I gain more students, I will probably make a page for each one so I can list songs they are working on, vocal exercises, etc. So you see, I will never be quite done with this project. 🙂

Last of all, I found a nice cartoon pic of kids singing online and printed it on the top half of a sheet of paper. I borrowed some awesome colored pens from my sister (thanks, sis!) and wrote “VOICE LESSONS” in big block letters underneath, using a different color for each letter. So now the folder looks appealing and is ready to go to work for me and my students!

Music Practice, the Easy Way

Ian had been flying through his drumset and guitar books. Up until last week, that is. Last week, things became suddenly hard. He knows the top three open strings on the guitar, and F and G on the E string. So far, so good. On his drumset, he has learned to play several patterns and read a bit of music. But last week, his guitar method introduced C on the B string, and his drum method introduced fills. Ten different fills on one page. Enter the crying sessions. Well, Monday night, we had such a terrible night. We probably spent 90 minutes on his music practice. I felt so sorry for him, but I could not allow him to throw a temper tantrum and win. So we pressed on, but I knew I needed to do something different. So Tuesday and Wednesday, here is what we did: after finishing every subject in school, Ian always receives a ten minute break before he starts his next subject. Well, we decided to throw in a bit of music practice here and there throughout the day. So after his first break, he played the first song in his guitar book 5 times. It took him all of about 3 minutes. Not scary, right? Even for an 8-year-old. After his second break, he played the second song, and so forth. Well, things are going much smoother now. He’s happy and he’s learning, and that makes me happy too!