All About Music For Beginners & Selecting Instruments

[jedamum]

Which is a good grade or age to introduce violin, for those starting with piano? Thanks.


For kids taking grade one, can someone share their practice regime based on the three pieces? Practicing the same three shepieces for the next three months can be very boring.

[phankao]

jedamum:

Which is a good grade or age to introduce violin, for those starting with piano? Thanks.


For kids taking grade one, can someone share their practice regime based on the three pieces? Practicing the same three shepieces for the next three months can be very boring.

Really depends on your child. How to prescribe?

Mine started piano first then violin at 3.

[MommySherrie]

jedamum:

Which is a good grade or age to introduce violin, for those starting with piano? Thanks.


For kids taking grade one, can someone share their practice regime based on the three pieces? Practicing the same three shepieces for the next three months can be very boring.

My daughter has got very short attention span and gets bored extremely easily, but lucky, she picks up things pretty fast. So her piano teacher let her learn her exam pieces only 3.5months prior to the exam so that she doesn't get bored and stop practising.

So if your kids is able to take in faster, can seek the opinion of the teacher if they are able to learn at a later date? And also, my kid's teacher do not just solely focus on the 3 pieces. She includes other songs too, and only like a month before the exam that she would have the entire lesson based on the exam items.

But to do the above, she also said that the kids must practice on a regular basis too, otherwise the teacher also have no choice but to put more attention on the pieces so that they have a higher chance of passing. As for their practice timing, my son practices every day for 30mins, but the daughter only when I ask her too :skeptical:

[Dreamaurora]

MommySherrie:

jedamum:

Which is a good grade or age to introduce violin, for those starting with piano? Thanks.


For kids taking grade one, can someone share their practice regime based on the three pieces? Practicing the same three shepieces for the next three months can be very boring.

My daughter has got very short attention span and gets bored extremely easily, but lucky, she picks up things pretty fast. So her piano teacher let her learn her exam pieces only 3.5months prior to the exam so that she doesn't get bored and stop practising.

So if your kids is able to take in faster, can seek the opinion of the teacher if they are able to learn at a later date? And also, my kid's teacher do not just solely focus on the 3 pieces. She includes other songs too, and only like a month before the exam that she would have the entire lesson based on the exam items.

But to do the above, she also said that the kids must practice on a regular basis too, otherwise the teacher also have no choice but to put more attention on the pieces so that they have a higher chance of passing. As for their practice timing, my son practices every day for 30mins, but the daughter only when I ask her too :skeptical:

I highly discourage students from preparing exam pieces only after registering for the exam. I understand that many piano teachers do this for the lower grades, but I think it sets a dangerous precedent as the higher grades definitely need more time to prepare; students need to be disciplined to practice their pieces early from lower grades onwards. It is a good idea to wrap up the pieces and scales at least 2-3 months before the earliest exam date; students could then learn new pieces to keep motivated and just play through the exam pieces once or twice a day to maintain them.

From personal experience, working exam piece one at a time alongside one or two non-exam easier pieces is effective and keeps motivation level high. I also may choose not to inform the students that they are actually working on exam pieces (I will take the pieces from non ABRSM exam books); this is especially effective for students who are taking exam for first time or had bad exam experience before with another teacher.

[jedamum]

Thanks mommysherrie and dreamaurora for sharing.


My boy started preparing for the three pieces late last year and only just cleared his first piece completely- his teacher is now working on his second piece and his exam is in july. The teacher had done a preliminary coaching on the first three pieces late last year to ensure he gets the basic fingering and dynamics in place and this second round, she is working on tone and hone the dynamics.

our daily practice is mondays and fridays twice over three songs, tuesdays to thursdays twice over one song each. Scales daily and weekends off. He took 15min typically for each exam practice session and the next 15min he will practice on pieces we pick from his 42 famous classics - his teacher hardly has time for other pieces as our lessons are only 30min per session. Is this regime ok?

When I get him to do a twice over with no mistakes he is able to do so for the completed first piece, but still hit and miss for the other two which the teacher is still working on. He gets frustrated when he couldn’t get certain parts correct and I couldn’t help much but to tell him to slow his tempo on those parts- is it correct? Sometimes he will ask me 'like that can? ’ to determine if he has done the piece correctly when in fact he knows that he is wrong somewhere and was hoping I accept it as a complete practice session . On occasions when I told him to decide for himself as he knows best, he can practice until cry as he knows where he was wrong and could not accept it as a complete practice session unless I close one eye - once he gets upset, the practice session goes downhill. He wants me to decide whether to accept his slightly flawed performance, and will take my word, but will not accept on his own if I told him to decide for himself. So when should I be lenient and strict without setting a precedent of being too lenient or dampen his interest ?

He is in grade one. Thanks.

[Dreamaurora]

jedamum:

Thanks mommysherrie and dreamaurora for sharing.


My boy started preparing for the three pieces late last year and only just cleared his first piece completely- his teacher is now working on his second piece and his exam is in july. The teacher had done a preliminary coaching on the first three pieces late last year to ensure he gets the basic fingering and dynamics in place and this second round, she is working on tone and hone the dynamics.

our daily practice is mondays and fridays twice over three songs, tuesdays to thursdays twice over one song each. Scales daily and weekends off. He took 15min typically for each exam practice session and the next 15min he will practice on pieces we pick from his 42 famous classics - his teacher hardly has time for other pieces as our lessons are only 30min per session. Is this regime ok?

When I get him to do a twice over with no mistakes he is able to do so for the completed first piece, but still hit and miss for the other two which the teacher is still working on. He gets frustrated when he couldn't get certain parts correct and I couldn't help much but to tell him to slow his tempo on those parts- is it correct? Sometimes he will ask me 'like that can? ' to determine if he has done the piece correctly when in fact he knows that he is wrong somewhere and was hoping I accept it as a complete practice session . On occasions when I told him to decide for himself as he knows best, he can practice until cry as he knows where he was wrong and could not accept it as a complete practice session unless I close one eye - once he gets upset, the practice session goes downhill. He wants me to decide whether to accept his slightly flawed performance, and will take my word, but will not accept on his own if I told him to decide for himself. So when should I be lenient and strict without setting a precedent of being too lenient or dampen his interest ?

He is in grade one. Thanks.

It's good your boy is sensitive to mistakes and have desires to play well. Anyway, polishing a piece up to performance level require some time even after the notes have been learnt; so it may be some time for the piece to sound perfect. Slow practice does help if students are unfamiliar of the notes, repeated mistakes on same parts will need troubleshooting in lessons e.g. correcting fingering.

What any good teacher will do is specifying in details what students should practice at home instead of just some vague instructions such as make it more secure or faster. For example, I may ask a student to practice just the right hand of bar 1-8 starting from metronome speed of 50 and increase 10 per day up to 100 by the next lesson. I would also ask the student to demonstrate it before the lesson ends to make sure he/she understands what I mean. This way, the students can feel a much more definite sense of progress as they can steadily feel the piece getting better.

Planning practice sessions with clear goals is unfortunately often neglected by some piano teachers; so if your boy's teacher does not do so you may gently ask him/her to write these down in a little notebook or email. You can be strict, but only within the boundary the teacher has set; that means you are only strict in enforcing the instructions the teacher has made. Those mistakes the teacher have not gone through yet, you can try to help, but if your boy cannot solve it, encourage him to note it down and ask the teacher next time.

I think your regime is fine and gives a good balance of exam preparation and fun. Though like I have written here before, it is better not to plan practice in terms of duration but in terms of goals to be met.

[jedamum]

Thanks dreamaurora for sharing!

The teacher does have a notebook. Sometimes will specify which areas to focus on. Some days, just wrote keep practicg piece . Not as detailed as what you stated.
He has this piece C:2 March where the back portion requires him to take note on. That is his main frustration as that whole portion tends to go wrong in terms of beat and fingering when he enters at the wrong beat. Should he continue the whole song even if certain parts wrong, or stop and redo? Will he then have a habit to stop whenever he gets wrong, what will happen if he gets a wrong note during tests and he stops halfway? His success rate at this portion is not high at home, but when he plays for his teacher, he can get it correct. He claims that the stiffness of the keys are different while I think it could be the control on tempo. Should I use a metronome for grade 1? Thanks!

[bgmum]

How does one improve on strengthening the 4th and 5th fingers for piano playing? Are there specific technical exercises for this? Thanks!

[Dreamaurora]

jedamum:

Thanks dreamaurora for sharing!

The teacher does have a notebook. Sometimes will specify which areas to focus on. Some days, just wrote keep practicg piece . Not as detailed as what you stated.
He has this piece C:2 March where the back portion requires him to take note on. That is his main frustration as that whole portion tends to go wrong in terms of beat and fingering when he enters at the wrong beat. Should he continue the whole song even if certain parts wrong, or stop and redo? Will he then have a habit to stop whenever he gets wrong, what will happen if he gets a wrong note during tests and he stops halfway? His success rate at this portion is not high at home, but when he plays for his teacher, he can get it correct. He claims that the stiffness of the keys are different while I think it could be the control on tempo. Should I use a metronome for grade 1? Thanks!

When practicing, generally it is a good idea to play through the piece once at the start of practice session to note whatever mistakes or problems that crop up. During practice sessions, focus on correcting the mistakes the teacher instruct and resist the temptation to play through the piece again and again. If have extra time, try to analyse and solve extra mistakes that crop up. At the end of practice session then can play once or twice through everything without stopping even with mistakes; these run-throughs can be treated as actual performance of the piece. Only after all mistakes have been satisfactorily corrected and details added then can students do the repetition practice of playing the entire piece again and again during practice session.

So, basically, since your son still has that pesky section (I am assuming the part where the melody is played by the left hand towards the end) bothering him, try to make him refrain from playing the piece in its entirety first. Limit it to once at the start and the end of practice sessions; please consult the teacher about this immediately at the next lesson. If he keeps playing it and the mistake came up, he would just get very frustrated and the mistake will keep getting ingrained. I don't know how your son play, but is your son playing these few bars with left hand fingers completely flat? If that is, that may be the cause of the problem.

Metronome is always useful for any grade. But very young children may react better to clapping instead, so if your son cannot follow metronome, you may want to clap along instead.

[Dreamaurora]

bgmum:

How does one improve on strengthening the 4th and 5th fingers for piano playing? Are there specific technical exercises for this? Thanks!

For lower grades there are plenty of technical exercises by Hanon, Czerny, Bastien, Burgmuller, Gurlitt, etc that focus on 5 finger patterns.

I have to stress that it is not a good idea to attempt technical exercises without any teacher's guidance as students may learn to play them with the wrong technique instead; so best consult the teacher.