Progress of Mel02 -- 4.5 year old (4th week)

Mel02 wrote:

Yes. We did Hannon, C Major and pickup up Chromatic scale and Chords now. Continue work on these.

Gradual progression should be to work on one hand at a time (not too long - max 1-2 weeks), 2. start playing using both hands 3. Playing with both hands saying the notes names, 4. after that slow with metronome and 5. increasing speed gradually with metronome.

Thank you very much. I saw the link before, but this time with your pointing, I am able to see what it is now.

Another thing I am confused, when count mosquito as in curriculum, does mosquito mean missing note, so we would say between C and C, C and D the mosquito is 0. 1 mosquito between between C and E , between E and G.

Should we maybe just use the interval above or the mosquito helps in another way. I am confused about the different way of measuring/counting distance between notes -- some way count half step.

You asked me GREAT question here. You see, the cards and 'mosquitoes' are designed to train eye sight of beginners to instantly grasp, how many keys they have to skip, when playing piano. If you already noticed: we call notes on lines 'girls' and notes on spaces 'boys'... When we have 2 'boys' or 2 'girls' there is always ODD number of 'mosquitoes' between them: 1,3,5 etc. If we have '1 boy' and '1 girl', the number is always even.

There are activities that you may start practicing using the cards:
1. Boy or Girl game. Show the card with 1 or 2 notes and ask who is who. It teaches beginners to distinguish lines and space notes.
2. What name of the note (first kids count with the help of 'mosquitoes' after that they have to count without visual help)
3. How many notes/keys skipped (better to give quick estimate upon even - odd number rule) First with 'mosquitoes' after that without.
4. Name 2 notes.

Piano players' eyes 'the whole picture' of notation and send instant signal to fine motor system. They don't have time to get music on the note to note basis, but understanding the graphical relationship between notes on lines and notes on space is very important. Therefore, we created cards to help with it.

Thank you very much for the guidance. I checked it out and see that Musette will be more natural for her to pick up next. Really appreciate for the direction.

Choosing the pieces are very important, because by making right move we enhance piano technique and bring it to the next level.

Yes. She did all that. We did more RH and then PH, often skip LH. Is that okay? It seems she likes to play on higher level like 5 and 6 when play hidden. Shall we do on lower level?

No, please, follow her lead on that. Pleasure of learning music is our priority.

She is not keen on learning read yet. I did not know how to teach too until last week I saw one of Helene's video, teaching a little girl about Musette? Could not find the video again. Shall we have another forum with thes tip lesson video? I ramdomly hit some video about soft mozart in youtube.

We have special place on our site about the lessons here: softmozart.com/our-library/videos/instructional.html

Please, let me know, which video you would like to discuss.

However, we need to teach her to READ - and to read on 2 presentation, 'till she will be flawless with any unfamiliar piece, because she relies on her great ear and muscle memory. We need to get her eyes in place asap. Otherwise she won't be able to keep up with more and more complicated sheet music one day (Susuki syndrome)

She picks it up a couple of day after mentioning.

This is another option. As a classically trained piano player at first I was very anxious about correct fingers working with Soft Mozart for couple of first years. After that I had notice that kids, after playing exercises, manage their fingers very reasonably and need our involvement much less then we think.

Will try that. The new direction of next step you pointed shall help.
Hanon and other finger exercise, are they in any album in software?

No, it is just part of curriculum. I wrote, why these are most essential exercises in my book 'You CAN be a musician', made some teaching videos, how to play them and start all my beginners with them. It works!

Btw, not sure how to drop a message into your inbox. Private message? It says "No results found" for any name I tried for recipients.

Click on my name to get to my profile. You will see

Add as friendPhotos Videos Send messag icons. Click on Send message and write to me. Then click 'send'

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Mel02 wrote: Helene, thank you very much for the guidance.

We are doing the Mussett and Largo now. It is in a phase that she is not as focused as before, that in the middle of playing new songs, when finish one run, before I get a chance to press a key "P/R/L" to start again, she will rightly jump to play the old songs, "Ode To Joy", "Hot Cross Bun" and etc..

Yes, because the new pieces are longer and require more focus. Would you like to cut it in smaller segments? Please, press F1 for help and learn, how to do it.

It is good that she repeated old ones anytime, but not at every stop.

Yes, the issue here is a lack of your control in conducting the sessions. I find it very important to equip yourself with your own 'music money' - paper butterflies or flags. Pay her only when she only do what she asked. Count the goods after the lesson and get some little trophy with it.

Even I tried to lay out the plan, say a time for old ones, it is not effective. (Surly, she played old ones better, and we did with and without Metronome now.) But as familiar song accumulating, how to balance between the old and new, sometimes give more time to new ones, sometimes give more time to old ones while not bending much of children's will.

Oh, when they get twice more butterflies for a new task, they learn the routine pretty fast

Wonder if you have any suggestions or any others who experience the same.

Of cause! Did you read this section? softmozart.com/forum/20-hellene-hiners-b...rite-a-new-book.html

Dear Mel02, I am going to comment on your post while reading as usual

Mel02 wrote: Helene, thank you for the tips.

She is more attracted to new songs now. She did Musette in good timing, but when we checked the video, since the left hand is very quick/the tone is very short, I guess we could not use SM then and since SM will consider the key is not long enough and hold it. Right?

Yes! There are gradual stages in learning performance pieces with Soft Mozart. I wrote about them here:
www.softmozart.com/forum/20-hellene-hine...tml?limit=6&start=24

I would recommend you to practice playing with the videos after memorizing the piece and polishing it with metronome.

Also, have a few observations. Her wrist is lower than the palm when playing and the hand is not round, the finger sometimes touch the key flatly. Will this stick there and shall I just leave it there or keep suggesting the gesture?

This is a very good question! If you will take a close look at our package (with the boy in the wig playing piano), you'll see that his fingers far from being perfect. It happens because we follow the natural way of learning complex skills. When a child learning to walk, he also have to learn a lot of things including balance. Therefore his movements are clumsy to say the least Nobody enforce 'correct movements of lags' on a child.

Rounded fingers and correct posture came out after observation of very gifted students. With old school such prodigies built the freedom of their muscle much faster then average.

So, yes, we have to correct the posture little by little, while playing A LOT of pieces, but when your child is really ready to hear your suggestions. Otherwise, when beginner in a stage of building general eye/both hand coordination and we insist to keep the hands well rounded, it would be waist of our breath.

When time comes and I see my students playing with no struggle, I say: imagine, below these white keys is an ocean and you may end up falling from the ship.

I read your book, but a kind of unsure, is that due to age? I don't remember the old days, but for me, the "good" habit about playing piano actually seems natural and relaxing. So when I see her hand gesture, it is kind of bothering and make me worried.

I was the same! I graduated classical Russian school of music and it made me very uncomfortable and I was trying to interrupt the learning process with my suggestions. But now, after many years of teaching with the program and watching other teachers, I can say: you will be perfectly all right and your child won't have any muscle problems, because Soft Mozart helps to SEE where to go and take stress from the muscles away. Your job to gently guide you child to the right direction. With the same goal in my mind I made the teaching videos.

Also, when we do Musette in P5, maybe the notes moves very quickly, the notes are kind of shaking and seems irritating to eyes.

Then try to do it on 6. Also, I would like to see, how the program works on your computer. Hope to see you on Skype and check, if it is properly tuned.

Actually, when she plays well, the notes flies quickly for other songs too, when I sit not sidely, I was alright, but when I tried in her position, facing directly, I feel a bit dizzy.

It also may be a size of your monitor... We need to check this!

I am near-sighted and we use the SM quite long, 1 hour per day, she is interested. So wonder if there is any suggestion, maybe we should cut the time?

Yes! With Soft Mozart the best practice is like meals Many times, but with small portions. Since the program works with beginner's mind through several channels, you learn... between learning. It is amazing! But it is like to learn how to skate or to ride a bicycle. Once learned the skill will never go away.

Or try a set up to make the screen far-away. Concerned about eye-sight.

If the screen is large and too close, of cause!

We have been doing sight-reading 8-9 days, Nursery Primer done and move to favorite classic, she did under 5 mistakes in "Can, Can" in P3 and some other songs.

P 3 or P 5?

However, when I tested her using a book, some very simple tunes, she still does not know left, right, left 7, right 2 well. Is that I missed something or we shall just wait more time for this happen? we put stickers on the keyboard. And we just do once for the songs in P3 for R, L to avoid familiarity.

Yes!
The first rule here should be: music notation has to be modified to satisfy our perception - not vice verse.
When we giving kids first books to read, they have to be with large print, little amount of lines on page, with pictures. Also child can point to each letter or follow with his/her fingers among the lines.
After picture books come chapter books - less and less colors, more and more abstract information - more lines and smaller print.
This is exactly how it should be with reading music.

If your child is on the 'picture books' stage, would you offer him 'War and Piece' format to check, if he got his skills ?

Our problem ( and I mean global problem with music reading) is that we all came from old ages, when our visual perception of music was disregarded. I went through this and it will take maybe generation or two to get use to this ('friendly interface') concept.