Tip for playing toddler piano lesson: don’t measure the music, just pour it
Does your toddler take piano lessons or does your piano student stop at every bar line of music? Would you like to see them play through your music without these unnecessary interruptions? Here’s an easy way to help your child break the habit of stopping or pausing on the bar lines.
Here is a demonstration that you can give your child, even if he does not play the piano, that will explain how music should be played. Remember that when your child watches this demonstration, they will stop pausing at the lines on the bar. So don’t worry, don’t scold your child or criticize their way of playing. Just take this demo and they’ll get it.
You will need a large pitcher of water, several small Dixie glasses, and a sink. Pour the water from the pitcher into a Dixie cup. Then stop, put the cup down and fill another Dixie cup. Then stop and have another Dixie cup and fill it up. Do this four or five more times. Then ask your child in piano lessons to imagine that the water in the jug is a musical song that you are playing. To pour the entire song into the Dixie cups, you would have to stop pouring the water when each cup is full and leave it and have another cup to carve, etc., until the entire pitcher is empty or the song is finished. If you imagine that each bar line and new bar is another Dixie cup to pour your song into, you will have to stop at each bar to fill another cup. But we don’t want music in Dixie cups, do we? Therefore, we do not need to pause the bar lines.
Now pour all the Dixie cups of water back into the pitcher and teach your student how to pour the music when he plays. Lift the pitcher up and gently to squeeze out all the water until it is empty. Take your child home back to the piano to listen to his song, and as your child plays, explain that you don’t have to pause on bar lines or every measure like Dixie cups. Just let the music you’re playing flow past the bar lines until you reach the end of the song and all the music on the page has been poured.
Try this at home and I guarantee that your child will flow through your music and remember the lesson of how to pour the musical jug of water so the music flows beyond the lines of the beat.
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