Anyone else teaching their child to play a musical instrument?

[kmum]

I thought we could share ideas on teaching our kids to play musical instruments.

 I just started teaching my older dd to play the violin.  The first couple lessons have gone well & so far she is very excited.  I am keeping the lessons short to keep her interested and using a chart which we put a sticker on each lesson. 

I love to hear everyone's ideas.

[KL]

I'd be interested to know too!

Thanks for sharing - how old is your dd?

[kmum]

DD is 5. She took piano lessons last yeaar, but that option is not available to us this year.  I thought I would teach her violin this year & then see what we decide for next year when the piano teacher will be available again. With the amount of practising the piano teacher wants, two instruments may be too much, so she may have to chose.

[tatianna]

i have a 23 month old girl
we are doing the Suzuki method with her
she listens to the violin school one cd everyday
in 6 months we will start proper lessons twice a week
we are really happy with the program
very easy and no pressure
you can learn about it in dr suzuki's book Nurtured by Love

“    I want to make good citizens. If a child hears fine music from the day of his birth and learns to play it himself, he develops sensitivity, discipline and endurance. He gets a beautiful heart.    ”

—Shin'ichi Suzuki

[kmum]

What a beautiful qoute!

I've been doing my own lessons foe now, but I'm interested in the cd to listen to.  I'll have to check out suzuki.  I thought it was just learning his way with a book.

[tatianna]

we bought the cd for $6 on amazon.com
the one we got was call David Nadien Performs Suzuki Violin School vol 1
it has 17 songs and then the piano accompaniment

here is a little bit more about his method
hope this helps 

The central belief of Suzuki, based on his theories of universal language acquisition, is that all people can (and will) learn from their environment. Thus, the essential components of the method spring from the desire to create the "right environment" for learning music (he believed that this positive environment would also help to foster excellent character in every student). These components include:

    * Saturation in the musical community, including attendance at local concerts of classical music, exposure to and friendship with other music students, and listening to music performed by "artists" (professional classical musicians of high caliber) in the home every day (starting before birth if possible).
    * Deliberate avoidance of musical aptitude tests or "auditions" to study music (Suzuki firmly believed that teachers who test for musical aptitude, or teachers who look only for "talented" students, are limiting themselves to people who have already started their music education. Just as every child is expected to learn their native language, Suzuki expected every child to be able to learn to play music well when they were surrounded with a musical environment from infancy..
    * Emphasis on playing from a very young age, sometimes beginning formal instruction between the ages of 3 and 5 years old.   
     *In the beginning, learning music by ear is emphasized over reading musical notation. This follows Suzuki's theory of language acquisition, where a child learns to speak before learning to read. Related to this, memorization of all solo repertoire is expected, even after a student begins to use sheet music as a tool to learn new pieces.
      *Frequent public performance, so that performing is natural and enjoyable.
         
      * Tonalization is a term coined by Suzuki, and is deliberately similar to the word "vocalization" (as it is used by singers when they talk about warming up their voices). Tonalization is defined as the student's ability to produce and recognize a beautiful, ringing tone quality on their instrument. While initially developed for violin education, the tonalization technique has been applied to other instruments such as the piano. Suzuki believed that a student must learn tonalization in order to properly reproduce and perform music

    * Using sound recordings is another technique common to all the musical instruments taught in the Suzuki method. Records, tapes, and CDs are used to help students learn notes, phrasing, dynamics, rhythm, and beautiful tone quality by ear. Suzuki pointed out that great artists (such as Mozart) were surrounded with excellent performances from birth, and that the advent of recording technology made this aspect of their environment possible to achieve for large numbers of "ordinary" people whose parents were not themselves great musicians & music teachers like Mozart's father was.

[kmum]

Thanks for the info & karma to you for taking the time to post it. I looked through our books & I do have one by suzuki, it just never occured to me that there would be cd's. 
thanks again!

[DomanMom]

I am curious about the Suzuki method. I know that one of the core beliefs is that, because children learn how to speak before they learn how to read than they can and should learn how to play an instrument before they learn how to read music.

However, I was wondering how those of us in this forum feel about that, since we all know that babies can actually read words long before they can articulate them with their mouth. Reading words is actually a whole lot easier than speaking them.

With my son, I have been teaching him perfect pitch and how to read music. I hold up a large card with a note drawn on it and play the note on the keyboard while I tell him, "This is C sharp", etc. Now, he has perfect pitch and can tell me what note I am playing just by hearing it. And he can read the music - when he looks at a note he knows the exact sound that it represents.

So far I have taught him the notes from the third and fourth octave of the piano. I believe there are eight octaves on a full-sized piano. But in my doing this, I am thinking, isn't it better for him to be able to read and hear music first and THEN learn how to play it with his hands? He is only three and his hands are very small. He is not all that coordinated yet and it will take him several years before he is fluent on the piano and can play just about anything. However, if he looks at a sheet of music he will know exactly how it sounds and will be able to hear it in his head, and eventually be able to replicate that sound on the piano. Is this not an advantage?

Since babies can hear and read music long before their hands are coordinated enough to be able to replicate it on a musical instrument, I am curious about those of you who are experienced in Suzuki AND understand that babies can read and learn perfect pitch, how does that all work together?

Also, I do expose my son to a lot of good classical music. We listen to one new piece each week, and I play it for him at least three times a day. I usually play it for him a few times during the day, while he's playing or we're in the car, and also put it on repeat when he's taking a nap and when he goes to bed at night. So in a way it is similar to Suzuki, in that he has learned how a lot of good pieces should be sound, and he knows the melody by ear.

I got my information about teaching my son perfect pitch, note reading, and music appreciation (listening to music) off of this site: http://www.childandme.com/teach-your-child-music-doman-method It goes over the Doman approach to music. Doman doesn't go into teaching music in any of his books, only at the How to Multiply Your Baby's Intelligence course (which I have not been to). So this site was the only place I have heard about Doman's approach to music.

Anyhow, if anyone has any insight on how Suzuki views fit into the fact that children actually can and do learn to read before they can speak, I'd love to hear their comments.

Elizabeth

worldsbesteducation.blogspot.com

[tatianna]

“Children learn to smile from their parents.”
- S. Suzuki

Domanmom, first off thanks for the direction to that site, I will definitely check it out.  You raise some good points in your post.  Now, I am not an expert, though I feel simply reading his really short book “Nurtured By Love,” gives a great grounding in Suzuki’s philosophy.  I believe Suzuki would applaud what you have done so far with your son, especially developing in him perfect pitch.  He often mentions that parents can actually teach their children to have poor pitch!  Second, Glenn Doman was an early supporter of Suzuki’s methods, went to Japan numerous times to visit him, and indeed based much of his own techniques on Suzuki’s philosophies.  You can even find videos of Suzuki in America, brought here by Doman to conduct seminars.
To address your concerns about is it more important to get your son established in the reading and music recognition before actually playing an instrument – it might be kind of a non-issue.  True, Suzuki discovered his method through the epiphany that even the youngest, least ‘intelligent’ child is able to acquire language skills (For example, Finnish children have no trouble learning that difficult language, any more than British children can learn their own language), but this only served to encourage him to introduce children to complex concepts at a much younger age than ‘conventional society’ thought possible.  (Reflected in Doman’s work as well.)
Now obviously young kids have physical limitations that might prevent them from starting to play as early as we eager parents would dream, my own daughter is still at least six months from starting the violin.  However, this is no different than a one year old who recognizes words, but is still a few years away from writing essays.  At the same time, Doman says that one reason young children don’t read sooner is because the text in most books is too small, and Suzuki would say the same idea applies to musical instruments.  To that end, Suzuki, and now Suzuki societies, have developed tiny violins and cellos, and have created special seating and pedal accommodations for young piano players.  Sure, your son might not have that octave-and-a-half hand span yet, but he might just be able to tackle variations on “Twinkle Twinkle.”
Finally, the prevailing thought in ‘conventional’ musical pedagogy is to wait until a child is “developmentally ready” to begin playing – seven or eight or later – apparently they have forgotten a fellow named WA Mozart.  Anyway, there is nothing to stop an earlier beginning; indeed, physical dexterity comes the same way as any other skill, through practice.  In “Nurtured by Love” there is a touching story of a physically disabled girl who bravely conquered her affliction through practicing her violin.  
Ultimately, you, as parent and coach, will decide what’s the best track for your child.  As Doman would counsel, you’re the expert on your own child, you will know in your heart the best time to start.  So, at the risk of putting myself on the same plain with these two great teachers, I would say to listen to your heart and honor the greatness you are unleashing in your son.

[DomanMom]

Oh, and also, in my above post I went over how I teach my son music appreciation, music reading, and perfect pitch, but didn't actually discuss how I teach him how to play a musical instrument. 

For piano, usually once or twice a day we sit down for a couple minutes at the keyboard and play a few notes. I really don't have a clue what I'm doing, that is, there's really no method I'm using and don't exactly know how I "ought" to be teaching a three-year-old to play the piano, but I know he's learning, building a love and habit of playing the piano, and developing finger dexterity. I usually just have him play a few notes, using two fingers at a time just to practice control and strength of his fingers, like play a C with his thumb and an E with his middle finger, playing C-E-C-E-C-E... etc., or something of that nature. We mostly do finger exercises like that, and he seems to really enjoy it and be getting better.

We also do guitar. He has a little First Act guitar (not the nicest brand, but oh well). He practices holding one string down and strumming. He holds down different combinations of strings, higher and lower. He loves it, and at least he's learning how to hold it.

We also play rhythm games, where I just get out a bunch of musical instruments (like maracas, small drums, sticks, shakers, tambourines, etc.) and dance around to classical music. I also clap a lot while singing certain songs, and dance with him.

Music hasn't been one of our strongest areas, but it sure is one of the most fun and we sure are enjoying it.

Elizabeth

worldsbesteducation.blogspot.com

[DomanMom]

Thank you so much, tatianna, for that information. I really should read "Nurtured by Love" - I believe they have it at our library and am really interested in it now.

Thanks for the information and inspiration.

[kmum]

I think I'll check out that book too!
thanks again!

[karli]

Well we are not so technical round here but I do know that Ashley loves to play his harmonica!!!!
 He has been blowing and sucking on it for quite a few months now and it amazingly easy to get a good range of notes and chords out of it!!! It fits in my pocket and we take it around with us, he loves to play it on the bus! I recommend this instrument for even the youngest child.
 
A word though, dont spend a lot of money on one as they tend to bite down on them, and dribble in them, and will soon ruin them. So buy a few cheapies, they sound great and you can just let them go for it!!!!

[tatianna]

so cute
i have to get one of those
as we ride the bus alot here in mexico
what brand do you recommend?
 

[kmum]

The harmonica is a great idea. 

A simple idea we have for K who is 15 months is to leave a keyboard at a level she can reach so she can play whenever she likes.

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