One of the most valuable gifts that can be passed down from one generation to the next is a love for music. Whether it is helping a child gain the ability to play, or even just giving them an appreciation for the feelings and impact that music can cause.
And here’s something important to remember: Playing the piano is about more than just music. There are numerous benefits for children from learning how to play this beautiful instrument. Being able to fill your home with music is just one of them.
Kids and Learning The Piano…
It can be tough for kids when they first start learning music. When they’re trying to learn to distinguish between high and low notes, it can be confusing. But a piano keyboard can help make it easier to understand. Everything is laid out visually, so kids can see it plainly.
The keyboard goes from left to right, starting with the low notes and going to the high notes. So it’s a much simpler way for kids to learn about the different notes and how they sound. And once they’ve got a handle on that, they’ll be able to better understand sheet music and how to play their favorite songs.
The Piano Makes Difficult Musical Concepts Visual
Every note has its own key, and there are two consistent sizes of keys throughout the entire instrument. Contrast that to a trumpet, which has three valves to play all of its notes, or a trombone that’s just one big slide. The abstract concept of sharps and flat can also be difficult for children to grasp when learning about music, and the piano makes this extremely easy to understand and visualize. These are the middle notes that are halfway between the notes around them, and they stand out clearly on the piano. Natural notes are white, sharps and flats are black. Easy.
The Piano Can Heighten Your Child’s Self Esteem
It can be hard for kids (and parents!) to endure day after day of practicing on any instrument, and the piano has the advantage that it can’t be played out of tune (though, yes, this can be done with pitch bend wheels on many digital keyboards, and yes, it’s awesome). Kids will enjoy the positive reinforcement of making some pleasant sounding music right away on the piano. The same cannot be said about novice violinists, who will find all types of pitches between standard notes and screechy bowing that could make your ears bleed.
The more that your kid works and practices, the more they can see the progress and learn that they can accomplish hard things!
Piano Can Do More Musically Than All Other Instruments
With its 88 keys, the piano has a HUGE range from very very low to very very high, spanning the ranges of bass, cello, viola, and violin combined. With violin, your child just learns the treble clef (high notes). With piano, your child learns the treble clef AND the bass clef (low notes). They learn how to improvise a high melody and how to structure a bass chord progression.
So much of music is how the notes interact with each other, and piano has this covered with unparalleled ability to play harmonies through complex chords. Clarinet and violin are stuck with just one note at a time.
As a result, piano players are basically one-person bands with ability to play bass-lines and accompaniments with the left hand, and melodies with the right hand. Piano is perfect for traditional classical music, rock, jazz, church music, electronic music, and everything in between, so your child can take the skills they learn in early piano lessons in many different musical directions.
Learning the Piano Can Teach About Other Cultures
That’s right! It’s not usually the first thing that comes to mind when you consider learning a new instrument, but it’s true! As you are introduced to new songs, you also have the opportunity to learn music from other cultures. Whether that be the French, German, Italian melodies associated with classical music, or popular songs of nations in Asia, Africa, or South America!
This could provide countless chances for you child to fall in love with cultures all over the world, without ever having to leave the piano bench!
First Comes Piano, Then Comes…?
To lay the groundwork of a strong music education (and start making beautiful sounding music!), piano is the best instrument for kids to study. It is a really strong introduction to playing an instrument, then who knows where it will take them. Let them influence the course of their musical path.
We want to hear from you!
2 comments
Ariana Smith
Hi, Thank you for this. I will share this information with my daughter who is trying to learn piano these days. She comes from school and practices piano everyday. Some times it gets difficult for her to manage piano learning with studies but she has so much passion for piano that she always takes time to learn piano.
Taylor Anderson
I like how you mentioned that the piano is a great musical instrument that is easier for kids to understand, as they can see all the different keys. I’ve also heard that learning the piano can help children develop better language and reading skills. Thanks for all the great information on the benefits of teaching a child to play the piano. Do you have any tips for choosing a great piano teacher in my area?