Music Education #8 What Parents Can Do for Beginners

When students are beginning, what can parents do to maximize their success?

Help them by setting a schedule, a plan to work at the keys everyday, and set learning goals for every day, every week in order to complete the assignment. The teacher should be setting realistic assignments, and hopefully giving good practice outlines. Give cheer and direction to each practice, show love by giving full attention to young beginners. Remark on and praise progress!

In Practice: "What does the assignment book say about that? Learn page one? OK let's shock the teacher. Probably she just thinks you'd barely get hands alone or whatever. What do you say we try to memorize the whole first page hands together?! That means you could do line one today, then you have three days for the rest, then a day or so for review..."

What specific things can I teach my beginning child so that the teacher can move forward unhindered with my child?

Total knowledge of the keyboard note names: ABCDFG.

In practice: "OK! play all the Cs! Great! How fast can you play all the Gs high to low? Play all the DEFs with the left hand, all the ACEs with the right hand. Name your finger numbers! Play a low F with the left hand 4th finger! Play a high B with the right hand second finger! That was faster than yesterday! Wow." Fast paced and cheerful is best, not lingering too long on any one exercise.

Knowledge of Staff lines and spaces: Treble and Bass Clefs

In Practice: Make a grand staff on your floor, [see previous Music Education posts] use flash cards introducing two or three new notes a day, ask questions about the notes in the music. Memorize with your child the names of the treble clef lines and spaces (EGBDF and FACE respectively) as well as bass clef lines and spaces (GBDFA and ACEG respectively)

Tip: help the student focus on the assignment given and if the student hears or sees new pieces to try, keep a running "wish list" for your child to look forward to. Teachers like to hear about student favorites!

Hats off to moms and dads! Parental integration in practice is so incredibly important to most young beginners and can really add a sweet dimension to a relationship when children see their parents really proud of them and excited about their success and potential. I had no idea about what this was all about until I had my own kids. Wow. As my brother said, initially the child's success depends probably more about what parents a child has than the innate musicality of a child. I didn't think of putting it so bluntly, but am starting to see things his way....