Prep Level A (2+) Month #1 Week 2
How is your experience teaching your child so far?
Pedagogy:
What is the priority in learning and teaching music?
The central figure of my Method is the learner.
An “ideal performance” of a music piece is not a priority of our teaching.
The main product of our efforts is the stable, successful and fun development of a child or adult beginner in learning to play the piano. However, an “ideal performance” often appears as a side effect.
Music is a tool that helps us bring out the best qualities of every student. We can use music to make a person stronger and improve the unique quality of someone’s inner self.
Unfortunately, we may teach a student to play one piano piece beautifully, but kill forever any love of making music.
Music was, is and always will be here on this earth. And only fun and successful learning will promote the desire to further develop or even master a student’s musical skills.
Music notation should be adjusted to the student’s perception. Changing music to make it easier or to digitize it doesn’t hurt a music text.
On the other hand, students can be hurt if they have to deal with the user-unfriendly way of reading music.
Ideal performance is an abstract notion. Performance that is far from ideal can’t hurt a music piece. Demanding that a student play perfectly and forcing the student to submit to this goal can cause incurable damage to the student’s psychological health.
Ultimately, it can affect his/her entire life. Learners—with their self-sufficiency, uniqueness, confidence and their own strengths—are the priority of the Hiner Method.
We have no right to decide for learners, whether or not they will be professional musicians. Therefore, we cannot push them to become concert pianists. Our task is to involve students in music and instill in them a love of communicating with sounds.
Practice:
We also will help your child to apply the names of the music notes to each finger of right hand as Do Re Mi Fa So
As a parent try to learn this easy piano exercise. You are going to help your child to learn it as well.
Next week I will help you to get started teaching your child the same exercise!
Meanwhile we are working on your child's fingers awareness by asking what is the name of each finger of his/her right hand.
This week we also start working on
Music appreciation
General rules:
We recommend starting introducing classical pieces through playing them for your preschoolers on piano/keyboard with the Gentle Piano first. Parents have to learn it using Right, Left and/or Both hands with child present or participating in piece learning/singing Solfeggio/performing.
1. Go to Gentle Piano folder
2. Find Album Favorite Classic Primer
3. Find the piano piece "Surprise Symphony'
4. Press R for right hand, L for left and P for both hands. If you never played piano before use vertical presentation (1 on computer keyboard)
After ‘hand on’ experience the same piece should be presented as original with the help of CD, You Tube, iTunes and other listening devices. We will provide you with the sample links here, in our curriculum for your convenience, but feel free to brows different interpretations of the same piece.
Movements, dancing, ‘conducting’, loosing attention during the listening to original version is appreciated. You don’t have to push ‘just listening’ – a child has to do something happy and enjoyable while the music lasts.
The piece should be presented to a child during the entire 4 – 4,5 weeks segment of curriculum on different occasions. The structure (playing a piece 1-2 times a day) and spontaneity should be combined.
Every time before or after the piece is being played the name of it and name of composer should be announced.
If the piece is stimulating and exciting we recommend listening to it 1-2 hours before nap or night sleep. If the piece is soft and smoothing, it may be presented to a child, when he/she starts resting and about to sleep.
Every piece of this list after initial introduction during 4-4.5 week segment should be played occasionally with new pieces of the curriculum. It is important to keep all the music in mind and be able to differentiate one piece from another.
GENTLE PIANO
Joseph Haydn ‘Surprise Symphony’.
1. Download and save the LMZ file from this link
2. Find the file Songs:
For Mac it is in the Soft Mozart folder
For Windows: Disk C - Program Files (x86) - Do Re Mi Fa Soft - Soft Mozart - Songs
3. Open the Songs and create new folder or use any existing folder
4. Copy - paste your LMZ file into the folder and close the window
5. Open the Gentle Piano and find your Album and the piece.
The sample of the orchestra version of the piece could be found on You Tube as Symphony # 94 (1st part) – for instance
Hope you are having a lot of fun!
Please, let us know, if you have any questions or just need our feedback in your Diary!
Sincerely yours,
Hellene Hiner
PS
PS
All the lesson plans:
for 24 months to 3 year old
3 year old to 5 year old
5+ year old
Always check here, if there any recital in the progress! You and your child will benefit a lot from the participation.
Your place to start your Diary is here