Luca and Soft Mozart

Hello, it is good to be here, on this Forum. Thank you Hellen for your great work!

I wanted to share with you my experience, and maybe if you have suggestions, I can learn from you.

I am a musician, did it the hard way, as touring musician for many years. It is a beautiful job, but not really the one I woud recommend to everybody. It is really hard, and you should really love music with all your heart, to be able to do it well.

So this is my explanation about why I don't insist my child to be a musician
But... well, when he had about 2 years, I've noticed that he remembered a few notes, like the ones he could sing - do - re - mi, and that he could sing them at a pretty good pitch, even without hearing the right notes for a long time like 2 -3 weeks in holidays. So I considered this to be a gift, I mean... I am not able to do that, and I am 37
So I decided then to teach him piano, even if he will hate me, he will thank me someday that I didn't ignored his gift.
So I started by myself with my keyboard, and just playing with him, asked him to sing me back ...
After 3 years I started to teach him some really easy tunes on piano, like do re mi fa sol sol At that time ha had an excellent orientation on the piano, knew how each note should sound. For him it was easier (and still is) to sofegiate a song rather than to sing it with lyrics.
Anyway, even with those cool skills, he was unable to learn even a simple song, because like probably any little boy in this world, he didn't wanted to play piano, haha.
Have you noticed that most of the videos with little prodigies, are with girls? Try that with a little boy with a hard temper, that does not care at all about piano, he just wants to play with Lego...

I can tell you it was not easy, and as a parent i did a lot of mistakes, and the biggest of them all was forcing him, and asking him too much, without any visible results, except his raising hate for music. He even stopped listening to music.

So here I was... knowing my child is gifted (like probably all the children out there), and being unable to teach him anything...

Then I heard about Soft Mozart, and this changed our lives. I downloaded the demo, and started playing with my boy, and he enjoyed the new approach really much so I bought the full version... It took a while to make my child love music again, and Soft Mozart was my help.
We started taking piano lessons one year ago, at 4, to help him correct his technique, but to be honest I've never insisted on technique.

Well, we are not using SM as we should, we are not working too hard on playing piano either. I don't try to make him a pianist, I just wanted to be sure he will LOVE and UNDERSTAND, and FEEL the music. We play games, to test his pitch, we learn easy songs, but instead of focusing on technique, we are focusing on understanding the musical phrases, so he can play fluent.
What he is playing on piano might be not as impressive, but what's behind his playing is remarkable I guess. His piano teacher organized a piano concert for Christmas with children, and he was the youngest of them (he is still 5) Some of them could play really hard songs, and with a pretty clean technique, and rhythm. My Luca played loud and dirty, without even looking at his hands. He had this drive almost no child had that evening, and I was very proud of him

And I know that Soft Mozart was our biggest help, so thank you Hellen one more time!

This is a clip with 3 songs he learned with Soft Mozart. I am not a piano player, so feel free to give me any feedback and tips
I couldn't make him a youtube page because he is too young, so I did a Facebook page for him to be able to upload clips for you.
Click here:
www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=23467433891...64763&type=2&theater

Thank you for reading this long post, Happy Hollydays heverybody
Florin Barbu

He is Luca

Our daily routine is this:
1 hour music lesson
- 15 minute ear training
- 30 minutes piano lesson
- 15 minutes singing

Other parents maybe want more from they children... I want my child to love and to understand music. I don't want him to be a piano virtuoso. If he will want this, it is up to him...

So that's why we don't actually focusing on piano to be a piano player. We are playing piano because it is the best tool to make acquaintance with music.
Also I focus almost equally if not more on ear training and singing. I am sure that a man can play music only as good as he can hear it. And singing is an awesome ear training tool.

For ear training I simply play the piano and ask him to tell me back the notes. It is very easy, and you can start very early. I think I started before 2.
I play Do, I sing Do. he will memorize this. IIRC, at the age of 2 he could sing only Do Re Mi. So I used to play Do Re Mi around him, and name him the notes. Later we started to play little games, and I gave him poker coins and real money if he could tell me 5 or 10 times in the row the right note.

It is easier than it looks. You can help him at the beginning. For example you always start with do. Later he will memorize Do very good. But knowing that you start every time with do is a big help for him, and he will start the lesson being proud that he knew the first note. You can play Do - Re, Mi, Re, Do Re Mi Da, etc etc, so each time he will know what note it is So That's what I did, I helped him, by playing the notes in a intuitive order.
I was testing him from time to time, of course to be sure he can hear better and better. And he did.

Now he is 5, and if you play any little tune in C major he will tell you every single note you played, no matter what is the first note you play He started to recongnize Eb and Db from time to time.

We also play - recognizing sad chords and happy chords He started to be pretty good with that too
www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=23557892152...64763&type=2&theater

Ok... long post, haha! But I want to tell you that my best help here was Soft Mozart.I am a musician... yes... Luca has some talent.. yes. But Soft Mozart brought us together, made me a better teacher and Luca a better student.
Take care,
Flo

Florin,
Thank you, for such informative post!
We love long posts, keep them coming! Karma to you.