Piano Lessons For Beginners - How To Teach Piano

By Samantha Hobart

With beginners to piano a good teacher should be able to adapt the piano lesson to each pupil. People will learn and pick up things differently. For example - Some may find note reading really easy, but others may find this quite challenging, some may have a good ear and some may be tone deaf, so it's finding a method that will suit each individual that is the key.

Teaching children and adults is also different. With children you have to vary the lesson more and do things that they can relate too. For example with my younger children - if we are going over a certain part, and we need to repeat this then I will ask their age and we will play it that amount of times, and they will also call out the numbers, or we use a dice and roll this and then play it however many times the dice says! So it's engaging the children and most importantly when they leave they have a smile on their face! Keep the lesson colourful! I use a variety of worksheets that I have devised myself, to do this with.

It is important to have lessons running to a structure so I try and break up an hour lesson into 3 parts, but switch the order every week.

For example for an hours lesson: 20 Minutes on Scales....Then 15/20 minutes on the piece we are working on, 5 minutes doing theory refresher. So maybe do "Find the note game and do a countdown with this! (Get pupils to read notes back and also find them on the keyboard - this is always fun and you are learning at the same time. Then finish with another piece of their choice or something I know they LOVE to play!

I find that practicing scales in lessons is very productive especially if you find a scale that a pupil is good at and likes. You should then encourage them to play this in all keys. Arpeggios are a really good way to help with difficult stretches and are very good for finger positioning. - 32526

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