Preparatory C (from 5+). Lesson 25
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Mastery of praising.
If we create an abstract ideal image of a child, whatever a real person does will never be good enough.
The tradition of pointing out mistakes and criticizing literally everyone, including the “Best of the Best,” has lasted for centuries in music education. As the saying goes, "No one’s perfect." So, unfortunately, many parents spend too much time telling their kids just how imperfect they are.
It is common practice that we shower a child with our negative remarks after his recital: he didn’t play fast or slow enough, made rhythmical errors, didn’t have “proper” piano technique or articulation. There is an endless list of claims that music educators have passed down from generation to generation. This happens because the priority of musical education is to compare a performance to an internal, perfectly played piano piece and each generation of students comes across the same challenges over and over again. History repeats itself.
There is also another extreme in our modern days: some of us praise our children in general, just in case. This type of praising that is unspecific and insincere doesn’t offer any benefits to your child. You may call him/her a super talent, almost a genius, and suggest that more practice will create better results. Nevertheless, empty praise won’t help keep the child’s motivation going for very long.
In the Hiner Method, we pay a great deal of attention to the mastery of praising children properly. In fact, we consider these skills crucial for any family because proper evaluation involves assessing the level of the child’s personal motivation to study anything.
Your child must perform concrete actions to learn concrete pieces of music. He needs a concrete assessment of his results. Our goal is to help him to understand if he is on the right track. We also have to give him motivation to keep improving his results and enjoying his success.
Working with the Soft Mozart system is an easy way to learn how to compare the success of your child with his own previous successes and to give his performance a more specific, objective and realistic assessment. Moreover, your little toddler can learn how to evaluate himself easily by analyzing and comparing his scores from one performance to the next.
Your assessment should have the following qualities:
- It must be concrete
- It must be tied to specific, individual achievements
- It must be impartial and independent of the mood of the appraiser
- It must be focused on personal features of your child and not on an abstract ideal.
For example, if you tell over and over again, “Baby, you are doing great” – this will be a vague assessment that has no connection with your child's achievements. It is an impartial, impersonal and is not motivational assessment. Over time, from the endless repetition, it also loses any value to your child.
But if you say, “Baby, today you made 2 fewer mistakes, and your lag time was 5 seconds shorter. Let's try to play it again and see how it will improve”--this will be quite an effective and motivating assessment. The Hiner Method requires completely rethinking the personal evaluation of each child and of music in general. If each child is a priority, we should build our opinion on the original features of his/her progress and the peculiarity of his/her efforts. In the real world, for some children the ability to press a key with a different finger can already be a real and concrete achievement!
The ability to praise requires practice and care. During our recitals–Butterfly Ball or Graduation –teachers and parents praise hundreds of students without resorting to standard clichés. The ability to see the specific achievements of a child, to understand and assess the dynamics of a student’s development—this is the most important skill of a Soft Mozart educator.
For the development of this skill, our parents teachers are required to spend some time on the forum, see the largest possible number of videos, read the evaluations of other professionals and write a few responses. This practice helps you to understand how best to evaluate and praise kids of any age so the young players can achieve the best possible learning outcomes.
1. We continue to improve the playing of the C Major Scale. You can try to play with both hands in the same direction, but this type of work is best done with a teacher.
2. Exercises for setting the hands of Olga Mikhailovna Egorova:"Rings". This exercise generates and develops in beginners the sensitivity of the fingertips. It is with the pads that you should play keyboard instruments. The exercise of the pads of each finger and both hands helps the student to remember the feeling of tenacity and strength, which will improve the piano technique in the future and help in developing the clarity of performance..
Note Duration ®
This module teaches timing and rhythm and how to recognize the different time value for each note symbol, how long to play each different type of note.
Rules
Press the Space key to play a note on the yellow line. Release it when the note is over a basket with the same symbol. The time the Space key is held for different notes depends on the time value symbol of these notes. You must complete 21 different songs to finish the module.
Tips:
Play a new note immediately after it is on the yellow line. If you play quickly and correctly, you will hear the melody of a song.
- Try to play 25 notes correctly in a row, and the program will switch to the next level of difficulty. You will get 2 points for every correctly played note. If another 25 notes in a row are played without mistake, the program switches to the maximum level of difficulty, and you get 3 points for a correctly played note.
- If you make 2 mistakes in a row, the module will switch to a lower level of difficulty. In the lowest level you get no points, and notes slow down. To escape from this level you need to play 5 notes in a row without any mistakes.
Few words...
The module directly builds the eye-hand coordination needed to differentiate notes by time value. The player plays melodies from an actual music score, but using only one key. This enables the learner to concentrate on learning the time value for each note symbol. An advanced student can finish the module in 14 minutes (13 minutes of module time), but beginners should start by playing for a shorter time. Please, contact our professionals for your customized guidelines for playing this module!
For beginners and young children, it will be advisable to play this game for no more than 1-5 minutes at first (it will be difficult for children to concentrate on completing the tasks of the game for too long). If you have any questions, feel free to ask them on our forum.
Learn to practice with the Note Duration ®module and show your child how to do it.
Video example:
If your child is growing faster or slower than our plans suggest, we encourage you to contact us at admin@softmozart.com to start learning with our certified professionals.
1. 
Gentle Piano®- Reading from a sheet.
Favorite Classic 0. Anton Rubinstein "Melody" R, L, P 2,4,5 or 6
Video example:
2. Largo - We continue to learn the piece by heart. We try to make as few mistakes as possible with the least delay in time.
W. A. Mozart. Longing for spring
TEASER: Gentle Piano® - Album Mozart for Children: ‘Spring time song’, Mozart "Longing for Spring" - play at least with the right hand R
Video example of a student:
Execution from the Internet:
Visit our Soft Mozart forum and start your progress diary here. Use the current year section. This is the place for you to ask questions and share your experiences.
At least 2 photos and 1-2 videos of the listed activities will count towards your child's credits for the graduation DIPLOMA. Please upload the video to You Tube, copy the address from the BROWSER window and paste it into your Progress Diary. Do not forget to indicate the year and type of work in the description of your Soft Mozart Academy photo / video.
Sincerely Yours,
Hellene Hiner
Video success:
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All the lesson plans:
For 2+ students
For students from 3 to 5
For students 5+
Always check here, if we have any recital! You and your child will benefit a lot from participating in our concerts!
Your place to start your progress diary is here.