Piano Man

Alex is showing a strong interest in learning how to play the piano. I asked him if he wanted me to get him a book to learn piano and he said yes. So last week, I stopped in to the local music store and talked to them about lessons, and what age to start and all that. After discussing the kinds of skills they want the kids to have — basically able to read, etc. — I decided to buy the most basic intro to piano book they had and just do it with Alex in a low key way. I put the book on the piano — didn’t even tell him about it — but he saw it and was very excited and wanted to read it right away. My biggest problem is he wants to skip directly to the songs, and I have been trying to explain to him that it is every important to do the story in order so that he learns the basics. (Well, my biggest problem is that on the song pages, they basically have the kiddo doing one or two notes while the parent or teacher plays an accompanyment that would be easy for an actual piano teacher or someone like Mel or Connie but for me, is going to take a lot of practice to figure out — I can’t sight read very well to begin with, and I certainly can’t sight read in the key of buttload flats or whatever they are using. I mean seriously….).

But so far he has learned:
how to hold our fingers like they are curved around a ball
low sounds are on the left, high sounds are on the right
the black keys come in groups of two or three
glissando means to move your hands all the way up or down the keyboard
p means soft and f means LOUD
That his fingers are numbered (last night we traced his hands and he numbered his fingers and labeled them L & R)

All in the first two nights. This is our special time after baby Nate goes to sleep and before (one less) story time. But I am happy to see him so excited about it!