Piano Garden Studio

What I want my students to know before they start lessons.

Practice time at home

1. Lessons not only involve fun, but also work. You don’t need to spend too much time practicing, but it should be regular and efficient. At home practice should happen at least 2-3 times a week, 15 minutes each. It is even better to do shorter but more frequent sessions when possible.

2. Students who don’t practice at home don’t progress, lose interest and drop out in a few months.  

3. Parents are responsible for arranging practice time at home for their kids. Don’t expect your kid to be a guru of time management, even if the kid is 10. Almost nobody WANTS to practice at home. Sit together with your kid and ask him/her to make his/her own practice schedule on days when they don’t have a lesson. Let them pick days and times themselves, write it down on a paper, let’s say Monday, Wednesday 4-4.15 p.m., Saturday 9-9.15 a.m. Tape this paper next to the piano, and follow it. No distractions during that time, treat it as a scheduled lesson time.

4. Keep in mind that learning musical instruments involves a lot of repetitions of the same section of the piece/song, so playing it just once is not enough.

5. What is efficient practice? Just playing a piece from beginning to end does not count as efficient practice. Instead you need to review your teacher’s notes and work specifically on those sections the teacher recommended. It usually means to work in small sections of 1-2-3-4 measures each and repeat each section multiple times before you go to the next section.

6. Try to find practice time earlier in the day when possible. Use Saturdays or Sundays morning. Do not schedule practice on those days/times when your kid is too tired. 10 minutes on Saturday morning will give you a better effect than an hour of late evening practice after school.

7. When you practice, you should pay attention not only to the notes you play, but HOW you play it – check your hand posture, wrist movement, if you play on fingertips (avoid flat fingers). This will give you more control over dynamics and sound quality, and will make possible playing 

8. Placement of the keyboard at home: put a keyboard in the area where the kid spends the most time. Don’t put it next to the TV or other distractions. Living room or dining room might be a better option than a kids bedroom – it gives you a feel of a piano lounge where your kid can perform for your family, rather than being cornered in a small bedroom. 

9. Always praise your kid for practicing. Say things like “I really like how you play _____ piece, could you play it for me again?” or “My favorite moment in this piece is line 2 (any hardest part of a piece), could you play it for me again? I enjoy it so much” or “This is my favorite piece”... This simple trick usually works very well.

Books + music sheets

1. You will need to buy your books and bring them with you every lesson. When I give you a print out and we work with it for a few lessons or the whole semester, please bring it with you for each lesson. I have my copies of all books here and we will use them in case you forget yours, but normally we’ll work with your copy because I am making many notes for you there and you need to take those notes home. Especially notes with finger numbers! The best way is to make a folder or a bag for music books and sheets and bring it to the lesson with you every time.

How to sit right at the piano at home

1. 90% of kids sit too low at the piano at home. It leads to developing the wrong posture and hand shape, which causes many technical difficulties and is not healthy for hand muscles/joints. Make sure you either raise a chair (put something firm on a regular chair) or make your keyboard stand lower. Make sure your elbow is on the level of the keys, and the part of your arm between the wrist and elbow is parallel to the floor. Hand should NOT be bent at the wrist.

2. Kids under age 7 usually need a footrest – make a habit to keep your heels grounded on the floor while you are playing.

For small kids 4-8 y.o. (which is really true for older kids as well):

1. I expect one of the parents to sit in the lesson and follow what we are doing so you can help them out at home. Such small kids absolutely need help at home. If you are not ready to do it, better choose a different activity, because you will not see much progress with music. Each lesson should be followed by home practice which reviews the same things we did in a lesson - nothing new. If you don’t help them practice at home, we have to do the same lesson again, which is not a very effective way of spending your money.

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What music do we play?

1. This program is based on classical music and it works best when kids are listening to classical music at home. You can find great playlists on Youtube or subscribe to one of classical channels on TV.

However, it does not mean we don’t play any other music.

I am supplementing songs from other books such as Piano Adventures, Piano Safari, Disney, Movies, play along projects, etc. 

Personally I like songs and arrangements specifically written for the piano, because often pop-rock-hip-hop songs are meant to be played by a rock band, or programmed with many layers of electronic instruments, so it sounds less interesting on the piano. 

The best songs that can be adapted for the piano are those that have developed melodies and/or harmonies.

How to choose a keyboard for a beginner

1. The choice of a keyboard is very important. It does not have to cost a fortune, but it needs to be a real instrument, not just a toy. There are three main parameters you need to looks for:

• Digital piano (or keyboard) with a FULLY weighted key action. This means that the keyboard is going to react differently to different touches, so you can create sound with various dynamics (from soft to loud). “Toy” keyboard are not weighted or semi-weighted, which will produce a more monotonous sound.

• 88 keys. Don’t buy those 61-keys keyboards, they are not weighted and kids with smaller keyboards often get lost on bigger ones and start playing in the wrong octaves :)

• Has built-in speakers

• Less buttons is better. When you see a keyboard with a LOT of buttons, it usually means it is a synthesizer. Kids end up playing with buttons more rather than practicing. Also they can mess up settings. Especially watch that Transpose button – if it is on, the pitch can be off by a lot and everything will sound very different from what it should be. Also when you have 300 built in instruments, it usually means that they all are of a poor quality. Better to have just 5 instruments, but good sounding ones (like Digital Pianos have).

The brand is also important. There are a lot of cheap keyboards on Amazon and Walmart, they sound terrible and they don’t last long. It is better to get cheaper models of brands who make professional instruments, such as Yamaha, Roland, Casio, Korg, Kawai.

Here are some good entry-level models: Yamaha P-71 ($399 on Amazon), Yamaha P-45, P-125, Casio CDP series, Casio Privia series (to my taste, Yamaha sounds more natural that Casio that has more “plastic” sound, but they are still good for beginners)

If you want to save some money, I would recommend buying a nice used piano. It is better than a new “toy” piano. Check out Facebook marketplace – people often sell lightly used pianos there. You can get Casio for $200-250 range, and Yamahas in $300-350 range. If it still seems too expensive, keep in mind that even if you drop lessons you will easily sell a good digital piano in a day for a good price. While “toy” pianos are sitting on the Marketplace and nobody buys them. 

If you buy a pre-owned piano, google the model/make and make sure it is a fully weighted action. It is often hard to tell from the picture. For example, Yamaha Piaggero is not weighted, although it looks very similar to weighted models.

Bonus:

How to make piano practice at home more fun - let’s be creative!

1. Try to make practice a game. It can be a dressed recital at home, where you put toys in rows to listen, put on cool clothes and pretend like you are playing in a concert hall before the audience. Check how your kid looks at the piano in a funny halloween costume, a princess dress, a new t-shirt (hint: every time you buy new clothes – do a piano recital in those clothes!)

2. Use a stuffed animal or a ball to throw to your kid during piano practice. For example, the kid is working on 4 measures of a piece/song, and every four measures you throw a stuffed animal, the kid throws it back to you, and repeats those 4 measures again. It is funny that all kids like this game, I often use it in lessons too. It is also a great way to check if the piece is performance ready – when you throw something every 4 measures, it switches your attention from piano, but then you need to go back and continue from the same place where you stopped (not from the very beginning). If a student is able to play with such intentional “distructions”, then he/she is 120% ready for a recital.

3. Check out keyboard stands on locking wheels. If you have hard floors, you can roll your keyboard in different parts of the house 

4. Reward your kids for good practice.

5. You can make a practice journal and make them “earn” stickers.

6. Task Jar: write piano tasks on small piece of paper, fold them and put them in a jar. Your kid is going to pull out a task from the jar, so you can do them in random orders.

If you think of any new ideas on how to encourage your kids to practice – please let me know and I will add it to this list :)