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[Quote
i have a 4 year old boy who is going to take piano lessons. I don't think it's best to start him out on the piano right away (in terms of playing)]


I completely disagree.

Here is this 4 year old boy, in a room with you and this magnificent, wondrous sound making machine, and you intend not to let him use it?

Is he going to pay any attention to you? I doubt it.

This is what I suggest you do.

Go to the piano, and encourage him to make sounds. He can use fists, he can play cluster of notes, he can play single notes, he can use just one finger or both hands, he can play loud or soft. Let him do whatever he wants. As for you, control your wish to “teach”, and instead observe. You are waiting for something. And this something is the moment when he run out of ideas. He will start fascinated and interested. But as he exhaust his repertory of ideas, he will get uninterested. This is the moment you must intervene and give him another idea, another thing to try. By the way, at this age this may take more than one lesson.

Here are three things to try once he gets tired of bashing the piano (in this order):

1. Tel him to play only on the black notes. No matter what the plays it will always sound good and have a vague “Chinese music” feeling to it.

2. Tel him to play RH fingers 234 the three black keys as a cluster (chord) and LH finger 23 the two black keys as a cluster. His job is to play them right on the beat. You can use a metronome, but I prefer to do something else. The point of this is to get him used to the idea of playing to a regular beat and start using the fingering that will be later used in scale playing. The something else I do is this. I play on the bass (LH) the notes F# and C# (thin crochets) alternately. He must be together with me. Once he gets the hang of going together, I introduce my RH and play this melody (quavers): D#-C# - A# - C#-D#- C# - A# - rest – D# - F# - D# - C# -A# - rest – rest –rest – rest - D#-C# - A# - C#-D#- C# - A# - rest – G#-F#- A# - G# - F#. Repeat as long as you wish.

They just love the sudden “organisation” that appears (first what sounds like randon clusters – then I add the bass what regulates the beat, and then the melody comes out of nowhere and fits everything perfectly).

I call it the “Chinese clock”. You can tell a story about it if you wish. He may master this the first lesson or not. It does not matter, how long it takes, just keep at it, since these are important basic skills.

3. Now you play on the bass the following chord progression (do it in broken chords, it is nicer): LH: C – RH: CEG – LH: A – RH: ACE – LH: F – RH: FAC – LH: G – RH: GBD and back to the beginning. Tell him (as you go through this progression) to play anything he wants as long as it is white notes only. It will always sound good and he will feel that he is actually playing something (and he is!).

Notice that the plan above follows a structure: (1) he can do whatever he wants. (2) he is totally limited in what he is allowed to do. And (3) he goes back to do what he wants, but within a certain limitation (only white notes). So we have thesis, antithesis and synthesis = Dialetics!

Watch like a hawk for signs of his attention drifting. As long as he is focused let him keep at the activity he is on. That is when learning is at its most effective. The moment he drifts change the activity. If he is an unusually concentrated child he may keep on (1) for the whole lesson. This is perfectly all right. If he is unusually unattentive the material above may not be enough to cover 20 – 30 minutes (which I am assuming is your lesson time. Be prepared to go through the same material for several lessons. It is not how much material you teach that matters. What matters in the end is how much did he learn.

Can he read fluently? If he cannot, I would not bother with the staff for a couple of weeks, or even a month. Instead, on this first lesson tell him about C. Make sure he leaves the lesson knowing where all the Cs on the piano are, and make sure that he finds the C by reference to the black notes. Again, do that at the piano with an activity I call “Jumping” he must jump up – with his finger, it does not matter which - and down the keyboard playing all Cs in sequence, and he does that by visually locating the 2 black keys and pressing the white key to the left. Can he tell left from right? Next lesson, tell his about the Fs (they are to the left of the three black keys, so this both reinforces the Cs and avoid confusion). Keep adding one note at a time (in this order: C – F – E – B and last A and G: expect trouble with these last two). When he is really good at this, teach him to say the notes first in order (ABCDFG), backwards (GFDCBA), and skipping (EGBDFAC) and skipping backwards (GBDFACE). Skipping is very important because it will lay the foundation for the staff later on (lines and spaces follow the order EGBDFACE)

This should be enough to see you through the first lesson and for him to leave the lesson wanting more!

Also very important is that over the course of the next weeks you find out what kind of music he likes. So that the pieces he loves are the pieces he learns how to play. No one bothers with what they don’t like. (At this age the sure bet is nursery rhymes and Disney/Children’s TV songs). Ask mum what he watches, what he hums, what he is singing at school.

By the way, I personally do not follow too rigid a plan. I make a plan (it is very important to have something to fall back on if everything else fails!) but I am always ready to let go of the plan and improvise according to the behaviour/personality of the student.

Good luck.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,
Bernhard