Piano Lesson-Course Details
Learning music has a lot of benefits on an individual’s physical, intellectual and psychological development, such as visual recognitions, auditory skills, kinesthetics, motor coordination, and emotional functions.
When starting at appropriate ages, it supports children’s growth and well-being, and matures them as a well-rounded person.
What is Child Development?
Child development refers to the sequence of physical, language, thought and emotional changes that occur in a child from birth to the beginning of adulthood. During this process a child progresses from dependency on their parents/guardians to increasing independence.
Child development covers the full scope of skills that a child masters over their life span including development in:
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Cognition – the ability to learn and problem solve
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Social interaction and emotional regulation – interacting with others and mastering self-control
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Speech and Language – understanding and using language, reading and communicating
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Physical skills – fine motor (finger) skills and gross motor (whole body) skills
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Sensory awareness – the registration of sensory information for use
There are 6 courses and 3 mini group courses categorized by approximate ages and levels. This is a general outline designed to support every child's learning process and maximize Child Development. Each child is unique and their development stage varies. Please use this template as a reference but not as any determination.
Parental attendance
Parental attendance is required in both group and private classes for students under the age of six (including six years old). Parents' support and interests are the most important factors in their children's learning. Your children and you will learn piano together, allowing parents to learn how to help and support their children's home learning during the week.
Home practice
The length of each practice is usually irrelevant in the early years, but spending time together with music is. Even if you only have 5 minutes, it is far superior to 0 minutes per day.
Accumulation makes a significant difference.
Grade assessment
There are minimum age and level requirements for enrolling your child in grade assessments such as RCM, CNCM, and other competitive festivals:
Students must reach Level 8 (usually after Sonatinas) and be at least 13 years old.
Focusing on these grade assessments can be stressful for children's natural development, and a lack of experience learning all important music pieces can stymie their future progress.
Art is not for competition. Every child has their own sense of accomplishment, and it is critical not to disrupt it with external rewards, grading, and scoring.
Once a child has matured enough to judge whether assessments are important and beneficial to them,
I will discuss additional options, how to process, and what is required to prepare.
Baby’s Lullaby Class - Me, My Baby And My Piano
Group Piano Lessons for Littles
Pre-Piano Fun Circle & Piano Fun Fan Buddy Club from ages 3 to 5
Largo up to 3 y.o. (Pre-primer)
Cherish music.
Play with piano.
Move with souls.
Sing with your heart.
Adagio 4 to 6 y.o. (Primer -pre-reading)
Enjoy music with small hands.
First steps to learn rhythm, listening, singing, and playing piano.
Andante Beginner 6 y.o. and up
Focus, independent and fun.
An entrance for little pianists.
Moderato Late beginner-early intermediate
Rational, compassion and purpose.
Development process for maturity.
Allegro late Intermediate - early advanced-advanced
Challenge, dream and invent.
Learn how to be persistent to make a balance in the life.
Presto - late advanced
Passion, determination and love of art.
Preparation to be independent musically.
Largo is a 30min lesson for toddlers and their parents to enjoy and get familiar with piano through a lot of activities, such as singing, listening and moving along with music in a variety of tonalities(tunes) and characters.
Music helps to stimulate young children’s emotional development. It’s a great opportunity to introduce music as part of their daily life in a warm nurturing and playful environment.
It is also for parents, those who play piano, to learn how to incorporate music into their busy lives with toddlers. Parents/caregivers are strongly recommended to attend with their child.
Adagio is a 30min lesson for early beginners of pre-reading young students of ages 3 to 5 y.o.
This is the important stage to establish a strong musical foundation and good practice habits to prepare for more formal piano lessons in the future.
They will start off without any books. Before learning how to play the instrument (piano), they will experience music through various activities which develop their rhythmic, aural, auditory and kinesthetic skills.
Since each child’s development stage at this age category is unique and varied, and so as how they recognize outer world through their sense using vision, hearing (auditory sense), touch (tactile sensation) and movements (coordination and motor skills), I assess each students’ skill levels and select the best possible approaches.
Once they start playing piano, they will learn how to use their hands/arms without adding excessive force onto their tiny soft structures.
Andante is a 45min lesson for beginners ages 6 y. o. and up.
The most important skills to develop at this stage is learning good form to play piano. It will take some time and effort. Acquiring good form will prevent future injury and gives freedom = good technique on the keyboard to express their own music with beautiful tone. Long term benefit surpasses all effort and conundrum here.
Main approaches are very similar to Adagio course, starting off without books to develop auditory skills first and then music notation will be slowly added.
I encourage everyone to learn music by ear (by rote) until all note names and keys are matched. All students will learn aural skills and note dictation from the beginning. Music theory will be introduced approximately at the same time.
Moderato is a 45 to 60min lesson for late beginners to early intermediate
Once children start developing physical stability and strength, main focus in the lessons will be to develop good technique with good form, which is important to produce good expressive tone. Students will learn basic body’s anatomy to help understand how to use their body at ease to play the instrument.
(The piano is a humongous instrument, indeed.)
Their repertoire will be widening at this stage. They will learn great composers pieces from various epochs from baroque to contemporary.
Scales and chords will be introduced as a part of their technique development.
They will continue to learn sight-reading, aural training and music notation.
Theory will be incorporated into their repertoire as an introduction to music analysis. This process will connect all the knowledge they have learned happens in an actual piece they play.
Allegro is a 60min lesson for late intermediate to early advanced students.
Their repertoires will become larger and artistically more sophisticated, so as required techniques.
They will keep learning advanced technical skills in order to deal with demanding repertoires without any injury.
Since they will start learning repertoires considered as master pieces by great composers, musicianship-solfege skills and theory comprehension become more important to understand these master pieces.
How quickly students can grasp/understand structure of music become crucial point to learn larger-longer pieces in today’s busy school life.
To help with this process, they will start learning functional harmony as an introduction to harmony.
Listening variety of genres music/performance will help developing their artistic comprehension level at the same time.
Presto is lessons for late advanced students, considered RCM Level 10 and up. Lessons length starts from 60min to 120 min, and up, depending on their necessities.
In this category, students, those who work towards higher grade exams or targeting music as a major for their post secondary schools, usually have extensive repertoires to master and are required thoughtfully organized plan to achieve their own goal.
Well-rounded technical skills which make students' musical expression possible with a wide range of tone and color become essential. They will learn all kinds of repertoire from Baroque to contemporary, including Bach Well-Tempered Calvier, full length classical sonatas.
Advanced harmony and counterpoint knowledge become an important part of their study.They will learn both through their repertoires. Separated theory classes will be added if necessary.
