The girls asked me if I would give them a piano lesson. The last time they were here I taught them that old chestnut where you use your fist to play the group of three black keys up and down. But this time, after my experience with the piano is far more personal and intimate, I decided to actually teach them something that would "count" as real piano playing.
I figured that Frances Goldstein would have taught the kids the numbers of their fingers, so that's what I did. We started with the right hand. I had them put their thumbs (finger number one) on the F key, with the other fingers following, one to a key. Then I taught them to look up from the keyboard and transfer the weight from one finger to the next, teeter-totter style.
I didn't start with middle C because there were two of them sharing a bench.
The three of us set up our "houses" in different octaves. Right away I had the kids not look at their hands, and try to feel their fingers on the keys ("tactile, tactile," as FSG would say) and imitate the two-note motives I would play, using the fingers they felt on the keys. They imitated me really well.
The kids were thrilled to learn that the left hand fingers had the same numbers, and were fascinated by the fact that the notes they played went down instead of up.
The six-year-old wanted me to play the music that was on the piano music stand, which, of course, was a movement from a Haydn Sonata. I played the first eight measures. The eight-year-old then made up something of her own that used patterns she heard in the Haydn. That was a gift.
What was most thrilling for me was to be witness to the exact moment when their brains and their ears made a connection with their fingers. It was a first for me with the piano. Once that connection is established there is no going back. That is the moment when a person becomes a musician.
I wish I could work with them every day.
The three of us set up our "houses" in different octaves. Right away I had the kids not look at their hands, and try to feel their fingers on the keys ("tactile, tactile," as FSG would say) and imitate the two-note motives I would play, using the fingers they felt on the keys. They imitated me really well.
The kids were thrilled to learn that the left hand fingers had the same numbers, and were fascinated by the fact that the notes they played went down instead of up.
The six-year-old wanted me to play the music that was on the piano music stand, which, of course, was a movement from a Haydn Sonata. I played the first eight measures. The eight-year-old then made up something of her own that used patterns she heard in the Haydn. That was a gift.
What was most thrilling for me was to be witness to the exact moment when their brains and their ears made a connection with their fingers. It was a first for me with the piano. Once that connection is established there is no going back. That is the moment when a person becomes a musician.
I wish I could work with them every day.
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