Learning to Play Piano: For the Very Young, Debbie Cavalier & Marty Gold

I have just learned that Debbie’s Grandfather, Marty Gold, passed away on December 14th. “Marty enjoyed a diverse career in music. He toured with an 18-piece swing band called the Korn Kobblers as an arranger/pianist in the 1940s. Their best-selling records played on 175 radio stations daily in their heyday. Marty left life on the road and soon became an A&R man for RCA Records in NYC. He arranged and produced such artists as Sarah Vaughn, Peter Nero, Lena Horne, and Marian McPartland. He also led The Marty Gold Orchestra and arranged, conducted, and recorded dozens of records for RCA, Decca, and others.”

Debbie Cavalier, of Debbie and Friends, and her Grandfather Marty Gold have introduced a new free eBook designed to introduce young children to the piano keyboard and the concept of staff reading. Learning To Play Piano is bright and appealing. The pages are never cluttered. Graphics and mnemonics are used to help the student remember the names of the keys—A=Apple, C=Cat, E=Elephant, etc.

Only the right hand is used in this book. The student uses five fingers successively until they reach A and then finger 5 is simply played twice in a row. Being of the close/open hand and fingers follow school, I do disagree with the focus on s-t-r-e-t-c-hing the pinky. Why introduce a tension laden word if you don’t have to? Moving the pinky over one key doesn’t require that much effort even with a 3-5 year old hand unless, of course, you are still holding down the C. (but that is another blog post entirely)

A Piano Tent comes along with the eBook. The tent slips over the keys to remind young ones which white key is which. I recommend using a heavier weight paper for this. There is a disclaimer that the Piano Tent only works on full size piano keys and is not meant for smaller keyboards. Since it is a PDF file, it can’t be scaled down through the computer print function. However I managed it by printing a full size image and then using the copier to reduce the size. You do have to print in best quality and be willing to do a bit of experimentation but you can customize the tent to fit a smaller keyboard (probably not a toy piano though.)

Learning to Play the Piano is a great way for families to introduce the piano to their young children and to get them excited about further musical study. There are 7 songs in the book including the favorites Jingle Bells and Are You Sleeping. Guitar chords are included with each song so that the young ones can participate in family music making.

Theory Time Ear Training Videos, Heather Rathnau

The folks at Theory Time have introduced free Ear Training Videos to go along with their books and materials. They are available on the Theory Time YouTube Station. The videos make it possible for students to complete the ear training portions of each level at home or in a studio computer lab. In classroom situations, they can be shown on a monitor, freeing up the teacher.

The directions are simple and clear with no distractions.  The recording quality is fairly free of distortion. Be warned, there is no bookmark feature. After the first activity, students will need to use the high speed scrubber bar to find their place again. To avoid frustration and possible excuses, I recommend that students write down the time under the bar (i.e. 1:59) on the page at the end of each session. I’ll bet that if they do forget to mark the time, it will only happen once.

One of the advantages of the video format is that students can watch an activity all the way through as many times as they need to—before or during their work. Still, very young students or those who struggle with ear training and/or reading & writing may be completely overwhelmed trying to complete these activities by themselves.

It is completely up to the teacher to do the instruction prior to each activity. The ear training activities are located in a group at the end of each book. It is understood that teachers will include the sounds of each theory element, as the written activities are completed, in preparation for the ear training pages.

There are a few free downloadable theory podcasts available on the Theory Time site on figured bass, intervals, and 4 part analysis. Hopefully, more will be added soon. These are quite useful as references between lessons or for those who are learning theory on their own. I do wish the theory book level and page were given in the podcast titles.

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