Above you'll see the first page from the activity section of our new book, I CAN READ MUSIC (ISBN # 0-9718936-4-0) and below it a picture of how your piano will look after you apply the six removable colored stickers to your piano keys.
Children readily understand that the five horizontal lines on the page are equivalent to the five blue stickers on the piano.
You're now ready to play games and understand how to read music! Kids piano lessons should be fun, especially when the difficult task of reading music is involved.
We take it so slowly that every child is allowed to gain confidence with each easy-to-understand step.
The object of the sample page above is to let the child know that the landscape of this "game" is five horizontal lines. That's the playing field for kids piano lessons, reduced to the most basic elements, and it will never change.
Children are put at ease by the simplicity of each carefully graduated concept. It's easy to scale this skillfully constructed, graded curriculum. Kids have fun with piano lessons if you lower the bar and make each step imperceptibly small.
Any child could start with this book, but we've found that kids who start playing piano "by number," perhaps using PIANO IS EASY or THE CHRISTMAS CAROL KIT, make the easiest transition to reading sheet music.
See also THE BIG BOOK OF SONGS BY NUMBER for older children.
Our method was created by a leading children's music educator, Emmy Award winning composer and Broadway veteran John Aschenbrenner, whose distinguished academic background includes the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Southern California, and Trinity College of Music, London.
PIANO IS EASY and I CAN READ MUSIC have demonstrated far higher than average results in motivating kids to continue and enjoy their piano lessons.
Click here to read the entire tutorial HOW TO TEACH YOUR CHILD TO READ MUSIC
Our books are designed to provide kids with preparation for piano lessons, a fun process kids can do at home, before they start regular piano lessons.
All other piano methods start kids far too quickly, causing early frustration and eventually leading most kids to quit.
We've found this failure can be prevented by starting your child playing piano "by number" at home, and then making a slow, smooth transition to reading sheet music using our book, I CAN READ MUSIC!
This "Fun Method" has proven results, turning kids into happy, interested experimenters who enjoy tinkering with the piano.
PIANO IS EASY and I CAN READ MUSIC are the best way to properly prepare your kids for success with piano lessons.
Here's a comment from a recent customer: "Just wanted to let you know that we received our PIANO IS EASY book! What a blast! My 9-year old briefly had piano lessons in the past, but she couldn't motivate herself to practice much. Since I gave her this book, I can hardly get her away from the piano! What a great product! Thanks!"
A good start leads to further interest!
NOW AVAILABLE AS A PRINTABLE EBOOK! DOWNLOAD AND PLAY TODAY
Below you'll find another page from I CAN READ MUSIC.
Above you'll find the second page of the activity section of I CAN READ MUSIC! Here the child learns that notes, formerly "numbers," are now circles placed on the five horizontal lines they have met on the last page.
No extra graphic detail is given at this time (such as clefs, time signatures, stems, rhythm, etc.) so that the central, easy-to-grasp fact is seen: notes are circles found on one of five horizontal lines.
Most children look up at this point and say, "Yeah, so?"
It's easy to learn about sheet music if the tasks are broken down into minute steps, and are made into games. I CAN READ MUSIC contains all the ideas and games that Emmy Award winning author John Aschenbrenner uses to help children make the transition from piano "by number" to sheet music.
Click here for a list of songs in I CAN READ MUSIC
USING THE STICKERS
Children are often confused when they try to correlate the notes on the page to the keys on the piano.
The reason for this is that there is no visual reference point on the piano. To a child, the piano keyboard is an ocean of white and black buttons with no apparent organization.
When given a reference point, children relax and start developing visual habits and confidence.
(See above.) Above is a set of five lines (a "staff") and below it is a piano keyboard.
The circle with the little horizontal line is Middle C and it is always the first note to which a child is introduced.
Imagine you are a child and you have to find the note "Middle C" (the little circle with the little horizontal line) on the keyboard.
You are asking a child to correlate two completely different, foreign technical languages, neither of which are familiar to them: the language of musical notation and the physical layout of the keyboard.
(See above.) Let's put a red sticker on Middle C.
Explain to the child that the key with the red sticker is called Middle C, and that on the page it is the circle with the little horizontal line.
That is enough information for a child to digest, and they now have control of the "central" key on the page and the piano, Middle C.
Without stickers or some visual reference point, all your teaching time will be consumed with finding notes on the page and the piano, and kids will forget quickly.
The stickers prevent the fumbling of beginning note reading, and leave room for other, more musical and fun tasks.
(See above.) We've added a blue sticker on the keyboard.
The child already knows where the key with the red sticker is.
Now we show them where the note on the lowest of the five lines is located on the keyboard.
Once the child is comfortable with the red and blue stickers, we can continue to add notes to the page, and stickers to the keyboard:
(See above.) Middle C is on the red sticker. The five lines are the blue stickers. The white keys without stickers are on the "spaces," as opposed to the lines.
I CAN READ MUSIC (Individual Book)
Individual 50 page illustrated book and removable stickers
(A copy of I CAN READ is included with every Book Package order.)
$19.95
