Teaching Piano

[MummyRoo]

For those of you teaching piano/keyboard how do you encourage/help your child to play with more than one finger?

My son is 3 and desperately wants to play his keyboard but he either carefully presses notes with his pointer finger or he "plays" with his whole hand and bashes at the keys, hitting notes at random with 2 or more fingers on each key. I often show him how I play two adjoining notes with separate fingers and he watches me do my practice scales but he just doesn't seem to 'get' what he has to do. I know that hitting the right note with even one finger is better than most children his age could do, but I have always encouraged him to do things properly (like pen grip) so that he doesn't need to re-learn the skill again when he's older.

We are using SM but although he loves the note-recognition games he doesn't like anything where he needs to put more than one finger on the keyboard at once. He just gets frustrated that his fingers 'don't listen'!

Has anyone here had similar problems? What advice do the piano teachers among you have?

Thanks

[lelask]

Hi we are having the exact problem 
Here is the answer I got from Hellene on SM forum
http://www.softmozart.com/forum/15-learning-experience/6835-finger-placement.html#6859
Hope it helps.

[kizudo]

I haven't read Helene's post, so maybe some of this has been mentioned there...

From my knowledge (which is purely mommy - not professional music teacher) it is mainly due to finger strength.  We did several finger strengthening activities to help my son with it.  As his fingers got stronger, he was able to use them differently on the keyboard.  But, as I've been told by "real" teachers - keyboard exploration is very important, too...to retain the love of the instrument.  For concentration reasons, we've moved our keyboard into my bedroom and now, right after breakfast, we have practice time.  We begin with my son being allowed to explore and play "Music to Make Mommy's Bed By" - which is his free play time on the keyboard...it's kind of funny, but he asks for it - or reminds me - "Mommy, you need to make your bed now.  Are you listening?"

Anyway, here are a few ideas:
- spider pushups - put palms together, touching at fingertips, pull palms apart keeping finger tips together, palms together, palms apart (looks like a spider doing pushups in a mirror)...
- finger kisses - in the same position as the spider push ups we make the fingers "kiss" and pull apart - ie Finger Threes tap, tap, tap and we say "kiss, kiss, kiss"
- spider races - pretend that your hand is a spider and race your hands from one end of the table to the other moving your fingers like a running spider
- lid lifts - save up your sour cream tub lids or coffee lids (something with a rim) and attach 2 like pictures to the top of 2 lids - repeat several times with different pictures so that you have several sets of like lids.  Flip them over so that you can't see the pictures.  Play Memory (like you would with a deck of cards) by turning the lids over but don't use the strong pointer finger and thumb, have him use his ring finger and thumb or pinky and thumb to grip the rim of the lid in order to flip it over.
- tiny pick up activities - like the lid lift idea, have him pick up tiny items with fingers other than his pointer finger - it will give the other fingers a chance to develop their muscles (ie - put 12 tiny Jelly Bellies into the egg carton cups before he can eat them...or in my sugar ogre way...12 cheerios)
- Peter Wetherall has a song about farm animals <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/t25uVPsNUkE&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/t25uVPsNUkE&rel=1</a>.  We made finger puppets with little foam animal stickers representing these animals for fingers two to five, then we made our fingers dance to this song.

[SoftMozart]

It is not very easy to teach toddlers at home, but possible and very rewarding. I noticed that after 1 on 1 Skype conferences with parents and kids everything starts getting better.
Well, I am available for you every Sunday from 11 AM to 2 PM. If the time is not convenient, we'll make it another day or time.
But it would be very helpful to meet with me at least once.
I am not charging anything, but donating my knowledge to all the members of our beautiful program
Just watch for announcements on our forum (hellene Hiner blog) or our Soft Mozart page on face book

[Tamsyn]

Everyone has great suggestions.  The only thing I would add is that it is helpful to make a big deal out of the different fingers and the role they play.  I like to trace their hands on paper and number them, 1-5 starting with the thumb.  If you want to make a craft out of it, you do it on one colored paper, cut it out, and paste it on a differently colored paper.  Talk about the how each finger has a part to play.  There's also a silly game we play, where I pretend my hand is a monster, and is going to come after the number 3 fingers.  The child then needs to touch that finger on an object of some sort to make it "safe".  Practice this away from the piano, and when they gain some proficiency, play the game on the piano.  Disclaimer, I haven't actually done this with my 2-year-old, but I have with a few 4-year-olds and they really loved it.

[TeachingMyToddlers]

I had a much easier time of this with my son, I just colored his fingers similar to this picture:



It took very little reinforcement and he "got it" from the very beginning by introducing things this way. He is almost 3 and is playing with all of his fingers (no colors on the keys, only colors on his hands sometimes). He still presses the keys with straight fingers vs. curved, but he is definitely working on building finger strength and dexterity so I am not going to harp on him about his fingers and potentially discourage him. He has an easier time playing on the tabletop keyboard than on the upright with weighted keys, which is where I teach him. I figure he has to learn at some point.

Anyway, the colors on the fingers made it so easy to just encourage him to match them up. If you are using SM only and if he knows how to read, can you write the solfege names on his fingers? If you know someone that knows know to do THIS, then they can draw little Doors and Mirrors on his hands that will last much longer! 

[MummyRoo]

Thanks for all the ideas. I've started trying to teach some finger exercises away from the piano and he seems to enjoy them.

TMT - I Love the idea of colouring his fingers! We use LM too and are learning the note colours, so this would be easy enough to do. I'm definitely going to try that!

[MummyRoo]

Unfortunately, I've just been given a lecture about 'not drawing on people' when I tried to colour his fingers... This is from the boy who paints his tummy at every possible opportunity

I think we will use this idea and try making a piano fingers poster instead.
I have managed to persuade him to at least hit keys with his other fingers today, though if I asked him to play a specific note he still only used his pointer finger. Small progress is better than none, though, and we've only just started with the finger exercises

Thanks for all your ideas - they've helped me de-stress about the whole issue. I really like the idea of giving him a chance for free play while I do a couple of chores - it should help stop my desire to hover at all times that he has the keyboard on

[TeachingMyToddlers]

eh- amend the rule to be "except when mommy uses colors on your fingers for piano! That's the only time." and proceed to draw on your own hands, too. You're the mom you reserve the right to change the rules as you see fit. Then give him a note color skittle for every colored finger he uses correctly in a song when the song is done. You'll need two bags-- an original flavor red bag and then one of the specialty flavors like wild berry skittles or the teal "riddles" bag. We've used these for matching games before and you'll need both to get all the colors. (In the beginning, this is how I knew DD *didn't* have perfect pitch, about every other month we'd play a note guessing game and I'd give her the note m & m if she got it right OR wrong just for trying. Then I figured out skittles were better because they have ALL the colors. She didn't mind being "tested" this way!"

It would just be an ice breaker to get him to use all of his fingers initially and show him he CAN. Remember to model everything you want your child to do...sing while you play, use colors/all the fingers, etc. It might involve him watching you and your hubby playing the game before he wants to jump in. Also, I can't remember if this was mentioned or not, but along with coloring fingers, color staff and keyboard print outs, too so he can see how they all match up and fit together. If you're feeling particularly crafty, customize something like this Melissa & Doug Puzzle & draw bass/treble clefs on the hands, color code it, etc. ($10 at Toys R Us)



 Good luck!

[kizudo]

You could also go to the dollar store and pick up some white little circle stickers and colour them as you need to, then stick them on his little fingers...or paint them with washable paint before you go over to the keyboard...he might accept that as "not drawing".

[Korrale4kq]

Fingernail polish maybe?

Piggy paint is non toxic.

[reei]

you could try putting a soft round ball under the palm + fingers, to sort of makes the fingers 'stand 'on the key in a curve .

[andreasro]

Great ideas! thanks!

[lzp11]

I found some rainbow coloured small dot stickers on ebay or amazon that were really inexpensive and fit really well with the colours of LMs.  I put a dot on each of her fingernails.  You can play a lot of games with this such as putting a matching dot on various toys around the room to touch with the same finger.  Eventually you can move this game to the piano where you can put the dots on different keys.

Just be prepared for tiny dot stickers to appear EVERYWHERE around the house - I discovered our rubbish bin decorated with them this morning  

[Tamsyn]

I just want to say how grateful I am to have a place for this kind of discussion.  If MummyRoo were to ask this question, about teaching a 3 year old piano (really, are you crazy?) almost anywhere else, there would have been a lot of scoffs.  But here, there was an outpouring of support and great advice.  My extended family is not thrilled with our learning approach, and neither are a lot of people in my community, even among the  homeschoolers.  I have never met any of you in person, but I want you to know that you are more than a screen name to me, and that the support of this community is a great blessing in my life.  Without you, I would have been content to have taught my young kids to read, but this forum has encouraged me to raise the bar, to stretch further, and to reach for loftier goals.  I love you guys!  Group hug.  Happy Thanksgiving.   

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