Music should be fun. It just should be. 

Which is why when it comes to my piano lessons in Kelowna  I make sure to wrap all the fundamental things like reading musical notation, and practicing rhythms into fun games and activities.

Below is an overview of my lessons, so you know all the ins and outs of what a lesson looks like, what books we use, and what expectations we should have for kids in their first year.

Our goal: Familiarity vs Fluency

First off, for most kids, heck most beginner players, we’re not looking for perfection in the lessons, especially early on for beginners. Instead, we’re looking to form good habits, and get familiar with the processes and terminology that go with playing an instrument and reading music.

Which isn’t to say I won’t correct the kids on things like fingering or which hand to use for what clef, but is to say it’s more important to get them used to the world of music – things like treble clefs, the pattern of the black keys on a piano, etc…

The more familiar the world is, the more second nature things will be down the line when we invariably move on to the nitty gritty of all the details it takes to perform fluently.

Length

As we’re all aware an hour is generally a big ask for any child to focus, which is why for everyone under ten I do only half hour lessons – so we keep things short, and quick moving. 

That way they don’t 1. Get bored – which is important because we want them to have positive associations with the instrument – and 2. So that we get the most out of the lesson.

It’s been my experience teaching kids all these years that a few tidbits of easily digestible info repeated over multiple lessons will go a lot further than overloading them with a bunch of info they won’t retain.

First Lesson Free

This makes it easy to find out if lessons are right for your kid, especially for 4-5 year old’s who might not be ready to focus yet.

If they do take to it, you can find my pricing here, but basically it’s $35 a lesson, or $120 for 4 lessons ($30 per) paid upfront.

Books

I wait a lesson or two to decide what book is best for you child – this gives me time to figure out where their playing level and comprehension is at – but in general I use the Alfred Premier piano books for my students.

I go into more depth of which books for ages in my Parents Guide to Piano Lessons in Kelowna article, but basically the Premier 1A book is good for kids under 7 – features kid friendly illustrations and easy to understand instructions (for kids and parents) on how to play the songs.

You can pick this book up at Wentworth between $15-20 bucks or online at Amazon here.

What A General Lesson Looks Like

First, you’ll enter my fiancé and I’s lovely apartment and get settled on either our living room couch (in front of the piano) or on a nearby chair to take in your child’s lesson.

Your child and I will start on the piano and get to work.

The key to a strong start to a lesson for me is creating positive momentum for my students which is why lessons generally start with an “easy win”. Something that is simple, yet still a bit of a challenge and thus makes your child feel accomplished once they complete it. From there we roll into progressively more challenging material.

I tend to try to get most of the “harder” stuff done in the 10 minutes after our easy win. This is the chunk of the lesson that either brings in new information for your child to learn, or hones in on tightening a specific thing they are working on. By doing it early it allows us for a recap at the end of the lesson to go over what we covered.

For kids under 8 you’ll probably see me jump around from playing piano, to doing rhythm and colouring activities. I try not to do too many back and forths between activities and the piano, because I find it can cause too much chaos for the kid’s, but one or two times is enough to create an engaging and digestible lesson.

These activities are all designed to reinforce things like musical theory and other skills. For example, I often have beginner kids draw treble and bass clefs for me and then identify to me what hand we play with each one (left for bass cleff, right for treble). It’s a great way for them to learn the different musical symbols and I’ve yet to have a kid who didn’t enjoy picking their marker and drawing during a lesson.

Once we’re done with the activity we then return to the piano where I’ll either pick a song to work on or have your child choose between some options I present them with. I find giving the kids some sense of choice over what they are doing makes them feel more ownership of the lesson even if they’re just picking between two options I’ve made for them.

For kids over ten, we tend to not do activities but we’ll instead move on to working on musical pieces they’re interested in. Again, this gives them some element of authorship over the lesson, and is ultimately why we’re here, to get them to play the music they love.

After doing all of that, we then recap what we learned, and I give them their “quest” (homework) for the week. 

Oftentimes, I’ll get the parents to come over and watch so that they can understand what their child should be doing. I tend to provide ebay to understand music sheets like the one below, so parents can understand what notes their kids should be playing. I also have video resources for the kids to refer to for practicing.

And That’s It

That’s what a piano lesson in Kelowna looks like with me – music, games and theory all wrapped into one ball of fun.

Thanks for reading and don’t forget the first lesson is free, so if you want to give it a try shoot me an email at alex@upnotesmusic.com or fill out the site form here.

Have a phenomenal week!