preschool piano lessons? (fit in, college, design)

[adressel10]

My daughter just turned three and I'm looking to start her with piano lessons. Any recommendations for piano teachers in Westchester county who are particularly good with preschoolers?

[AndreaII]

Originally Posted by adressel10

My daughter just turned three and I'm looking to start her with piano lessons. Any recommendations for piano teachers in Westchester county who are particularly good with preschoolers?

Why would you want to give a three-year-old piano lessons? Their cognitive thinking isn't developed enough to be able to learn to sightread, their attention span is barely exists, their hand and finger coordination is barely developed - at least nowhere near enough to play much of anything, which will make it frustrating for her.

Three is way too young. You must be listening to people who have no clue.

I'm sure there are "piano teachers" out there who want your money and will tell you that 3 is great.

My advice to you is to wait until your daughter is around 7 or 8 - it will be difficult enough for her at that point in time to learn to sightread. Ten is the perfect age. They pick it up immediately, it's the right level of challenge, and they don't (assuming they never had quality lessons before) remember the misery of it being too difficult.

In the meantime, open up a 529 toward college, and all that money you would throw away on some unethical "teacher," put it into a college fund.

Just my 2 cents.

[ehmom]

I would agree with AndreaII. Three is way too young to start lessons. Any reputable piano teacher would recommend waiting until 7 at least. There's no benefit in starting earlier than that and there's possibly a detriment if your child gets turned off it at an early age before she's really ready to give it a chance.

[Westchesterwannabe]

Just get the casio that guides you into playing songs with lights. Teaching music is absurd at that age.

[Forest_Hills_Daddy]

My kid started at 3 and is now 7 and still plays and practices everyday. She is no young Van Cliburn but she does well and is now ready for more rigorous instruction than she would have been had she started from zero at 10 years old. It can be a good thing for the kid depending how they and the parents handle it.

[kletter1mann]

Originally Posted by Forest_Hills_Daddy

My kid started at 3 and is now 7 and still plays and practices everyday. She is no young Van Cliburn but she does well and is now ready for more rigorous instruction than she would have been had she started from zero at 10 years old. It can be a good thing for the kid depending how they and the parents handle it.

Perhaps the exception that proves the rule?

[Forest_Hills_Daddy]

The thing with piano at that young age is that both the parents and kid would have to do some of the heavy lifting, which is why a kid who benefits from the experience becomes the exception. Even in my kid's current music school in the city, most of her peers are content with treating piano as a mere hobby and do not give the requisite amount of practice and study at home. This takes greater importance because lessons are offered only once a week. You also need to keep coordinating with the teacher to see where things stand as well as reaching out to other people who are knowledgable with the study of piano to get a second/third opinion. Most families will just not go through that extent.

[dimension6]

How early to start your kid depends on how good you want them to be, quite frankly. I graduated in violin from a well-known music school in NYC, and I don't recall a single one of my classmates having started playing their instrument later than around age 6 (brass/large instruments aside, of course). Somebody above mentioned that ForestHillsDaddy's kid starting at 3 is an "exception", but it's "late starters" that are the exception in the professional performing arts world (Itzhak Perlman may actually be an exception; I believe he started when he was eight).

The basic motor skills required to play an instrument well literally require thousands of hours of practice, and this gets harder as the kid gets older (they can either do the practice little by little now or make up for the "lost time" later). It is absolutely possible for kids as young as 3 to begin learning the motor skill basics and getting an ear for music in general. I would argue that even if you don't have any ambitions for your kid to pursue a professional career and prefer to treat piano as a hobby, they will appreciate having spent the time spent while they are young. It will make playing piano later on (in high school, etc.) much easier and more rewarding.

I can see a difference of course between violin and piano, as violins are available in 1/32 scale sizes to match small arms/fingers. I'm guessing piano may be more difficult for small fingers, so there may be a real physical issue there. I have a 1.5-year old myself, and we're leaning towards starting him on piano in a few years. We're probably going to start him on it more as a hobby than pushing for a professional career (unless he wants that!). Not starting him at 3-5 would put him at a disadvantage in case he did want to go pro for whatever reason in the future. I would avoid getting a toy electronic piano, since those feel nothing like the real thing. We have a full-size upright Yamaha digital piano that wasn't expensive and roughly approximates an acoustic piano.

As a side note, I started playing the violin when I was three, and completed the 10 books of the Suzuki Method when I was eight. As far as I know, Suzuki isn't as strong for piano as it is for violin, but it does have an emphasis on playing by ear (rather than sightreading, which could be difficult for 3-year olds). Don't try to teach a 3-year old using methods designed for adults. Based on my experience as a kid, prepare for lots of hands-on participation (as ForestHillsDaddy also mentioned). A young kid won't practice every day on their own.

[Forest_Hills_Daddy]

I don't know about violin but there are successful concert pianists like Alicia de Larrocha, Van Cliburn and Arthur Rubinstein who began studying at very young ages. Don't think there is a blanket approach to how young one should start but there are benefits to starting young so it's not necessarily a bad thing if the family knows how to handle it.

[ANM1982]

I started when I was three... sure, it's difficult to sight read and really work your way around a piano (two hands, going beyond CDEFG), but it was perfect time to start me on where the notes were, playing by ear, and learning basic musical concepts. I don't think there's any "right" age to start, and all depends on the kid, the teacher, and parental involvement.