So you’re thinking about starting your child with music lessons. If you’ve started to ask around about which instrument to start with, you’ve likely heard the piano recommended pretty strongly. Why start with piano lessons?
I’m a piano teacher so I realize I might be a little biased. However, in my own studies and in talking to the pediatricians, psychiatrists and school teachers in my children’s lives, I have learned that piano is often what they recommend as well.
Let’s talk about why the piano is a fantastic instrument for kids to start off with.
Start with piano lessons to help kids visualize musical concepts.
A piano keyboard helps students grasp the idea of high notes and low notes, sharps and flats, half steps and whole steps. All these things are laid out on the keys, making abstract concepts easier to understand and visualize. It is also easier to understand the relationships between how notes look on the staff and how they are organized on the keyboard.
Start with piano lessons because the piano is pleasant sounding.
This is a benefit for both your child AND you. (Trust me. I remember my brother learning to play the violin.) Your child will enjoy the positive reinforcement of being able to play pleasant sounding music on the piano, rather than screeching notes. It can take years for a student to develop enough muscle control to make an instrument sound beautiful. With a piano, when you press the key, the note is right on pitch every single time.
Start with piano lessons because the piano is easy to play.
You press a piano key and it makes a sound. This allows even young children to begin piano lessons at an early age. They can focus on learning to read music rather than struggling through difficult technique.
The piano has a wide musical range.
Because the piano has 88 keys, your child learns both the treble clef (higher notes) and bass clef (lower notes) which range from very low to very high. Your child will be able to go on to learn either a bass or treble instrument with ease. Why? He already knows how to read music.
Your child will learn melody and accompaniment.
Piano is one of the few instruments that allows you to play more than one note at a time. Your child will learn how notes interact with each other, how to play a melody in the treble clef and structure chords in the bass clef that sound nice with the melody. With this comes a better sense of music theory as he learns to play complex melodies and chords.
Musicality.
Students will be able to lend emotion and excitement to their playing, because the piano has a dynamic response. It can be soft enough to accompany a choir or loud enough to be a solo instrument.
A strong foundation.
Because of the piano’s versatility, your child can spend decades studying the instrument and continue to grow in his abilities and skills. Yet it also brings such a fantastic foundational knowledge of pitch, theory and musicality. Your child can also take those abilities to hsi study of many other instruments.
Ready to get started? Check out my free piano lesson mini-course for kids!