Help with teaching a kid

[m3838]

So far it's all about what you want. What does she want?

 

Actually I don't care if she plays well. I would like her to develop her brain a bit more. She's not particularly bright, unlike her older sister, and suffers from malabsorbtion (sp?), poor growth, eczema, allergies to nuts, gluten. Being left alone, she may not even survive, much less thrive. So we teach her to be tough, overcome her problems, stick to it, take care of herself etc. Piano is yet another tool.

She is very good artist, has beautiful voice and is very lovely and smily child - thank goodness.

She can sing to a note, yes.

Now we have to go with what we have, and that is:

1. having the instrument to learn with

2. having nice charismatic young teacher, that is not very expensive and comes over

3. not having much time to supervise her lessons

4. having to deal with insurances, doctors, lawyers (kids with chronic conditions are habitual target for CPS).

All and all, it's not the best outcome, but it's what we have.

 

Now she has to learn how to build minor scales and memorize all three of each minors. I think it's nuts and will have to persuade the teacher to go easy. Playing with others is great idea, but unreachable so far, mainly because her sister is a hog to deal with - 16!

 

What she wants? She wants to play with toys, draw princesses, read cheesy Disney books and her dream is to have slumber party.

[AnnC]

She can find notes on the keyboard with no problem. When the stave is clearly showing ascending melody, she'll play descending and vice versa.

Her math is bad, but her spelling is beyond average, at 7 she is reading fluently in English and pretty fast in Russian, excellent drawer, great voice and definite talent for dancing.

She is small for her age, malnurished and suffers from eczema (no astma, nock nock nock). Has excellent stamina, despite her small statue, and generally is very loud, happy, "singy", smyly, dancy and likes to tell everybody how much she loves them. A chatter box and social butterfly.

All the info above is for those in the health field, to gather some clues and rule out some common cliches.

I would really appreciate help and my little Danielle will appreciate it too.

Thanks.

 

 

I would like her to develop her brain a bit more. She's not particularly bright, unlike her older sister, and suffers from malabsorbtion (sp?), poor growth, ec

 

I'd say she was very bright... to have 2 languages at 7,musical ability and the fine motor skills to draw well and to be happy, what more could a Dad want for a child of that age.

[JimLucas]

My kid just can't memorize the stave. We tried picture books, coloring schemes, and other tricks.

So we teach her to be tough, overcome her problems, stick to it, take care of herself etc. Piano is yet another tool.

...

Now we have to go with what we have, and that is:

1. having the instrument to learn with

2. having nice charismatic young teacher, that is not very expensive and comes over

3. not having much time to supervise her lessons

Hi Misha,

 

My advice is for you, Natalie, and the teacher:

Sometimes it's not worth the trouble, because

... Sometimes it's not necessary.

• Piano is another tool, but is it the right tool, or even a good tool? Always worth asking. But from what you say, Natalie and the piano are compatible, so we can dismiss that.
  
• If she can learn to play music in spite of not being able to memorize a few particular names -- and I think you've indicated that she can, -- then why not let her do so? It should be the music that's important, not the names.
  
• Sometimes there are things that it seems certain individuals truly cannot learn. One has to learn to live with that. I don't know that this is one of those cases, but it might be.
   
  One seemingly odd example I can give of that last is a friend with dyslexia... she can't tell the difference between "right" and "left", but she has no trouble at all with "port" and "starboard". But is the right-left confusion a handicap? An American, she took a trip to England. Before she left, she was terrified that she would wind up driving on the "wrong" side of the road and get into a terrible accident. When she returned, she was laughing about it, saying, "I forgot to consider that I'm dyslexic. I had no trouble at all, because to me nothing looked any different, as long as I was on the correct side of the road."
  

I would say to let Natalie get on with learning to play the piano without worrying about "naming" the lines and spaces of the staff. I bet she'll do just fine.

[Theo]

I would say to let Natalie get on with learning to play the piano without worrying about "naming" the lines and spaces of the staff. I bet she'll do just fine.

 

I wish my piano teacher had that open attitude to learning when I was a child.

[JimLucas]

I would say to let Natalie get on with learning to play the piano without worrying about "naming" the lines and spaces of the staff. I bet she'll do just fine.

I wish my piano teacher had that open attitude to learning when I was a child.

A person who is not open minded is not a good teacher. A good "instructor", perhaps, but not a good teacher. And if they are a private tutor whose approach causes problems for the child student, they can only do so with the complicity of the parents, who could simply refuse their further "services".

 

(Sometimes, it's not even necessary for the teacher to be a private hire. I remember when my mother walked into my sister's algebra class and bawled out the teacher -- in front of the class -- for his repeated criticism of her for not being as good at algebra as I had been. She pointed out that my sister and I were in fact distinct individuals, each with our personal strengths, and that if he couldn't tell the difference, he shouldn't be teaching. He wasn't stupid. That day, he learned a lesson.)

[Anglo-Irishman]

Misha,

It's well known that different people learn in different ways. In anything as complex as music, there's a lot of theory and a lot of practice involved. The theory is meaningless without practice, and practice without theory tends to be unstructured. In most cases, progress is a leap-frogging of theory and practice. You learn a bit of theory, and notice how it improves your practice. You discover something by practice, and when you get the theory behind it, you can apply it more generically.

Take the "3-chord trick", for example: You may notice in practice that a tune sounds right when you harmonise it with C, F and G7 chords. Later, you learn the theory that these are the I, IV and V7 chords for C major, and you can apply the trick to different keys.

Or you read about the 3-chord trick, and try it out in several keys, and find that it works.

These are two distinct paths to knowledge: theory to practice, or practice to theory. At the end of either path, you know how the 3-chord trick works in theory, and can use it in actual practice.

 

Some people study engineering, and later learn to apply their theoretical knowledge to practical situations. Others serve an apprenticeship as a mechanic, and later study engineering to underpin their practical experience. The result is the same - someone who knows what he's doing, and why.

 

In my case, practical music making has led me to an understanding of musical theory. With others, the opposite will be the case. Maybe your kid is like me - I didn't catch on to the theory until I was a young adult. My piano teacher tried to keep theory and practice in step when I was seven, but she failed miserably

My father then taught me to play by feel, and the interst in theory came many years later.

 

Cheers,

John

[m3838]

Thanks for Everybody, Anglo-Irishman and Jim.

Well, we talked to Helen the teacher, and she'll look out her teacher, who is a specialist in child instruction, to see what's available.

For Danielle (not Natalie) it looks like she needs written music, as she tends to forget the melody (sounds familiar, huh?), so we are stuck with the necessity to learn those freaking note names and locations. But in her case, as she easily memorized the locations of notes on the keyboard, there may be another way of teaching her.

Hope for that. She likes to play, but is easily distracted and that stave thing...

OK, have to run and check her spelling homework, esp. the way she is sitting (another problem, she began to curve her back to the right).

I'll keep you updated, I think it's of interest to many, who think of teaching the kids.

P.S.

Yes, looks like Helen is a bit open minded. The question is how much does she know, as she is very young, just graduating from conservatory this year.

Health to all.