Fast Food Piano
We can learn a bunch from our trip to the fast food drive through window. Every person at work, if doing his or her job correctly has one goal in mind, to get you your order as quick as possible. Getting a quick meal insures our likeliness to go back again. Piano Teachers need to insure a promising product and deliver fast on playing the instrument so their young piano students keep an interest up.
Start Lessons Now
Just give it to them, when we teach a new piano student our number one goal is to get the lessons started in a hurry. It’s something we train our teachers for. Too much talking, not enough playing, etc can be distracting to a nervous child who wonders what piano lessons are really about.
Put Their Hands On The Piano
It’s as simple as getting a students hands on the piano. There are probably 5 things I want to say, 5 things I want to make sure are correct, and 5 things I’d like a younger person to know before the touch the piano but I don’t have the time. At Lessons In Your Home we tell our Music Teachers to embrace that pressure.
Our goal is that within the first few minutes of In Home Piano Lessons, we get students’ hands on the instrument. It’s not hard really:
Lesson number one,
Teacher: What two colored keys does the piano have?
Student: black and white
Teacher: Can you play me a black key, can you play a white one?
There you have it, you have put a students hands on the piano and fast.
Decide On A Piano Lessons At Home
It takes a long time for someone to decide on starting piano lessons, another reason for teachers to get students playing fast. Now don’t get me wrong, we don’t want to rush it, just ensure students making music as quickly as possible.
Teachers Have A Sickness
As in home piano teachers go, we have a sickness. The “sickness” as we call it, is this desire for everything to have an order before we even move forward. We can see the clearest path to reach musical success. It’s a lie though, because a beginning piano student doesn’t yet have the desire to start that path. Sometimes it can take a long time before a piano teacher, with the best intentions realizes the road best traveled isn’t in their head, but a road controlled by the direction of the student.
Teach Don’t Preach
If there is a better way to do it, a piano teacher needs to make that happen but not through preaching, it’s TEACHING! Demonstrate the process and have the student repeat. If you can, in the timeframe of your lesson, have them accomplish a small goal, they can repeat that process when you leave the house.
This is a powerful teaching concept. The sheet music selection may be 24 measures long but if a piano student has the ability to learn one, they can learn them all. Often times we underestimate how intimidating a piece of music can look to a young student.
Eating An Elephant
The way you eat a whole elephant is one bite at a time. Learning piano is a big elephant. Not every student is going to finish but they will and can come close if we just get them started. There are many meals along the way. Playing something soon, as lessons begin, is a great first goal. After that the pieces fall in place because in a way we’ve eaten our first elephant, to play the piano.
