Previously I talked about some of the books my son uses to help him learn to read music. Today I'm going to show you some other books that he uses for other aspects of his playing.
Most important of all are, of course, his Suzuki piano books. This is his current book:
Unsurprisingly, his first book was Suzuki Piano School Volume 1. He actually wrote on the front cover of this book 'by Bettey' when he was four. His teacher's name is Betty and he naturally assumed she was the composer!
It's worth pointing out that these books aren't as well thumbed as you might imagine. Suzuki students start off by listening copiously to the CDs of their books, then pick out the first tunes, the 'Twinkles', themselves by ear. All of the Book 1 songs are learned by ear, one hand at a time. It's only once learning and playing by ear is well established that they begin to learn to read music.
We're having a great time with Book 2. There are some catchy tunes in there, which makes hearing them over and over again more bearable. Also, by coincidence, one of them, The Happy Farmer, is the theme music to one of my son's favourite Japanese animated films, Ponyo on the Cliff. He's really looking forward to learning to play this one, and we're just about to start it.
There are also many simple children's books available for learning about musical notation. We've used this one:
and its partner the Treble Clef Theory book. I like the simple activities for children in these books. Lots of little quizzes and cartoons to keep the child interested. They introduce the basics of musical notation without making it all seem very dry and boring.
Less interesting, but something you may well come across if your child is working towards conventional music awards are books such as this:
This covers much the same material, and more, and in greater depth, than the previous book, but, as I said, it isn't so accessible. I would advise using simpler and more enjoyable workbooks in the beginning at least.
A final book recommended by my son's piano teacher is The Manual of Scales, Broken Chords and Arpeggios. This has been invaluable to me as a non-muscial person in helping my son learn the correct fingerings for scales. He's currently learning them gradually but without this book to refer to I know I would forget what goes where, and it would be a waste of lesson time to relearn them.
Aids
Perhaps even more motivating than an interesting workbook, here is one of my son's learning aids. (Sadly, this is emptier now than it appears in this photo). The simple reward of a sweet at the end of a practice session, or one for whatever target achieved, has been quite effective for us. These are only small sweets, but he has learned to associate piano practice with something nice and has tangible evidence of the positive consequences of putting some effort into something. This jar sits on top of the piano so also works as a visual reinforcement.
I have also found it worthwhile putting some effort into creating interesting practice records, which my son completes as he practises. I make roughly ten at a time and they each last a week, so I'm changing the design every two and a half months or so. My son works with me to create a new one and I deliberately include him so that he feels as though he's at least partly owning the process of his learning. Here are two we've used:
You will notice that Sonic and Mario are a recurring theme!
He puts stickers or a stamp in each task as it's completed.
We have pages and pages of these, going back years, and occasionally we'll look at them and marvel at all the hard work he's done.
Just lately I designed a new kind of practice sheet as a surprise for him, with dragons attacking his practice boxes.
I hope this post has given you some ideas for things you can use with your own kids.
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