African American Christian Wedding Songs : Ideas for Preschool Piano

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Many parents want to start their preschool children at the piano as soon as possible, in keeping with the common knowledge that musical skills are best begun early. But there are pitfalls of which parents should be aware, not the least of which is expecting too much.

Before you begin your child with preschool piano, you should examine your motives first.

If you are thinking that your child will someday be a great musician, think again. The music business passed "cutthroat" several decades ago. There is no reason to doom your child to the life of disappointment that is the life of almost all musicians, talented or not.

If you are thinking that exposing your child to the piano is a good idea, and that maybe they would enjoy making music on their own level, you are on the right track.

I would be very careful of starting your preschool child with a piano teacher who insists on reading music right away. The truth is that reading music is an intellectually exhausting task for children, and literally, optimistically, one in a million children is comfortable with it right away.

What preschool children are looking for, from their point of view, is musical fun through the medium of the piano. Children this age know only that music is that funny, bouncy stuff that comes in through your ears, and makes you happy. You would do well to keep this in mind in constructing a curriculum for them, or choosing a piano teacher.

The simplest way to happily engage a child with the piano is to number the piano keys and have them start playing familiar songs right away. The alternative is to introduce them to the minutiae of the rudiments of musical notation, and that is a course headed for disaster.

The proper course for preschool children's piano lessons is to engage them happily with the instrument, and only after that engagement is firmly in place should you broach the idea of reading music. I can guarantee their response to reading music, even with a benevolent, spoon-fed approach: "This is confusing." That is the reality of preschool kids and reading music, and anyone who tells you otherwise has little experience with actual children in front of the piano.

I suggest you let preschool kids be kids first, and then see where that leads.

You will need almost Biblical patience and creativity to interest a child this age in the piano.

Remember that the only habit required to start learning the piano happily is to be happy in front of a piano. If you fill preschool heads with advanced ideas, guilt and pressure, they will walk away from it as fast as they can.

Once a preschooler has decided that the piano is an unhappy, difficult experience, you will have the same difficulty that one would have herding cats.

Try numbers at first for preschool piano. It really works from the child's point of view.

Here's link to the Piano By Number site where you will find lots of ideas about starting your preschool child at the piano: http://www.pianoiseasy2.com/

John Aschenbrenner is a leading children's music educator and author of the Piano By Number series for kids.