). Any suggestions are welcome.Curriculum for child learner?
Curriculum for child learner?
I'm going to be using Playground Sessions to teach my son, who is 10, to play piano. I intend to sort of guide him through, using the video lessons in the Rookie level of Bootcamp like weekly lessons and then having him practice in between with the interactive app. (I can play and understand the basics but don't have music teaching experience myself.) Has anyone developed a structured curriculum to divide the material into weekly one-on-one sessions and individual practice, or is something of that sort available through the site itself? There's a lot of great material there, but it seems to be geared toward a learn-at-your-own-pace approach for adult learners. I don't yet have a good sense of how much is enough/too much to throw at him at a time, if that makes sense. Maybe it's just a matter of jumping in and seeing how long it takes to move through the various elements, but I figured I'd see if something already exists so as not to reinvent the wheel (especially since my son is the guinea pig on this particular wheel ). Any suggestions are welcome.
). Any suggestions are welcome.-
sw1tch73ch
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Re: Curriculum for child learner?
I would say Jump-In and see. The software is especially suited toward learning at your own pace, practicing a piece that may take you more than a week to accomplish, or doing 5 lessons in one day. Some lessons are easier than others and are just needed to provide knowledge or practice before working something more difficult.
One of the really important things the software provides, assuming you have a digital / midi capable device, is the instant feedback. You can progress more quickly if you know you are playing correctly (or reasonable close). It is almost but not quite like having the teacher watching and evaluating you every time you practice. If you practice doing it correctly every time, you will progress much more quickly than if you practice doing it wrong for a week and then have your instructor correct you after that week of getting good at doing it wrong.
And while it is more geared toward adults, don't short change how capable young minds and hands are at learning something fun. The only challenges I foresee are when the piece expects a ten year old hand to play a pair of notes an octave apart at the same time with the same hand. I don't recall any Rookie Lessons that do that, though.
One of the really important things the software provides, assuming you have a digital / midi capable device, is the instant feedback. You can progress more quickly if you know you are playing correctly (or reasonable close). It is almost but not quite like having the teacher watching and evaluating you every time you practice. If you practice doing it correctly every time, you will progress much more quickly than if you practice doing it wrong for a week and then have your instructor correct you after that week of getting good at doing it wrong.
And while it is more geared toward adults, don't short change how capable young minds and hands are at learning something fun. The only challenges I foresee are when the piece expects a ten year old hand to play a pair of notes an octave apart at the same time with the same hand. I don't recall any Rookie Lessons that do that, though.
== Just keep playing. Just keep playing. Just keep playing, playing, playing! ==
-- jbs --
-- jbs --
Re: Curriculum for child learner?
I think for a curriculum you should just follow the sequence of lessons in the rookie bootcamp. They aren't just random - each new lesson introduces something new, compared with the previous one. As a complete adult beginner myself I've been very impressed by the way it progresses along so well. You can see a lot of time and thought has been put into it.
The whole thing is set up not to need a teacher. Most of what you learn comes from just playing along to the interactive feedback of the music in the lessons with the moving cursor and the green and red notes showing where you got it right or wrong. It shows you what fingers to use and which notes to play. You can slow it way, way down to start with. It's pretty self-explanatory. The video lessons are just a bit of a nice to have really.
I can't see any reason why it wouldn't suit a child. As long as you were on hand to explain anything he might not figure out for himself that would probably be all that would be needed.
As far as how much per lesson, I find that one lesson per day, taking about an hour, is a good dose. Each lesson has several different phases so you learn a little bit at a time then add a bit more. I don't think that limiting him to one weekly rookie bootcamp lesson is the way to go - assuming he practices most days, he would be sick of that lesson by the end of the week. The rookie bootcamp lessons are quite small chunks. If you only sit with him once a week you would want to start him off on the next few rookie bootcamp songs so he has something to get on with until your next tutorial.
The whole thing is set up not to need a teacher. Most of what you learn comes from just playing along to the interactive feedback of the music in the lessons with the moving cursor and the green and red notes showing where you got it right or wrong. It shows you what fingers to use and which notes to play. You can slow it way, way down to start with. It's pretty self-explanatory. The video lessons are just a bit of a nice to have really.
I can't see any reason why it wouldn't suit a child. As long as you were on hand to explain anything he might not figure out for himself that would probably be all that would be needed.
As far as how much per lesson, I find that one lesson per day, taking about an hour, is a good dose. Each lesson has several different phases so you learn a little bit at a time then add a bit more. I don't think that limiting him to one weekly rookie bootcamp lesson is the way to go - assuming he practices most days, he would be sick of that lesson by the end of the week. The rookie bootcamp lessons are quite small chunks. If you only sit with him once a week you would want to start him off on the next few rookie bootcamp songs so he has something to get on with until your next tutorial.