What to Do at Home Before Piano Lessons Start

The Australian music education researcher Gary McPherson and colleagues followed 157 children who started school instrumental programs at age 7 or 8, beginning before their first lesson. According to a chapter summarizing the work (McPherson, Davidson and Evans, “Playing an Instrument,” in the second edition of The Child as Musician), many of the children who later quit had expected, before starting, to practice more than they actually did.

A child who hasn’t started yet has no idea what practice is like. That is only natural. Still, I think there is a lot a family can do at home in the months before lessons begin. This post covers what to do at home before piano lessons, including in a home without an instrument.

Singing

The easiest thing, and in my view the most important, is singing together. Nursery songs, songs from preschool, anything works.

A song a child can sing becomes a song they want to play. When the melody is already in their head, they start looking for it on the keys. The first pieces in lessons are usually short children’s songs, so the more songs a child knows, the more often they get to say “I know this one” in the first lessons.

Rhythm games

Clapping, walking, stopping. Moving the body to music is something you can do at home.

Many early childhood music classes draw on the method of the Swiss musician Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865 to 1950). According to the Dalcroze Society of America’s overview, Dalcroze Eurhythmics teaches beat, rhythm, meter and phrase through physical movement, rather than only through reading or listening.

At home, clapping on the beat while singing, walking faster for a fast song and slower for a slow one, and freezing when the music stops is plenty.

Touching the keys

If you have a keyboard at home, let your child play freely. Higher to the right, lower to the left. Press hard for loud, softly for quiet. Children tend to discover these things by touching before anyone explains them.

It also helps if they notice that the black keys come in groups of two and three. The first explanation in a lesson goes in much more easily. I wrote about this in How to Find C on the Piano.

Calling the fingers by number, thumb 1 through little finger 5, is another game for home. Piano Finger Numbers covers how to teach it.

Will it get in the teacher’s way?

Many parents worry that playing at home first will create bad habits.

I don’t think free play is anything to worry about. What I would be careful with is drilling hand shape or fingering at home. I’d leave that to the teacher. Teachers start in different ways, and two different explanations confuse a child.

If you tell the teacher at the first lesson what your child has been doing at home, the teacher can build on it.

Talking about practice

Back to the study at the top. Before starting, children have no way of knowing how much work practice is. So I think it helps to talk about it a little before lessons begin.

Something like “You’ll see the teacher once a week, and play a bit at home too” is enough. I don’t think you need to make them promise a number of minutes a day. That can be set once you see how it actually goes. For the days when practice becomes a struggle, see When Your Child Refuses to Practice Piano.

Without an instrument

Without an instrument, you can still sing and play rhythm games.

To learn the layout of the keys, a printed paper keyboard has long been used. It makes no sound, but it is enough to look at the groups of two and three black keys and to place fingers by number.

A piano app on a tablet is another option. Because it makes sound, it feels more like play than a paper keyboard. It can also bridge the gap while you decide whether to buy an instrument after lessons start.

What to watch in a trial lesson

Many teachers and schools offer a trial lesson. These are the things I think are worth watching.

• How the teacher talks to your child. At the child’s eye level, in words the child understands.
• Your child’s face. And what they say on the way home. You can often tell whether they enjoyed it from how they talk about it.
• The teacher’s view on home practice. How much they hope a child plays each day, and what to do if there’s no instrument at home. Better to ask early.
• How easy it is to get there. Distance and day of the week. Lessons can last years, so a place you can keep going to matters.

When to start is in What Age Should a Child Start Piano?

Kinder Piano before lessons

Kinder Piano is a piano app for iPhone and iPad for children from about age 3 to the early years of primary school. I made it for my 4-year-old daughter.

Before lessons, I’d start with Free Play and let the child play freely. You can choose between an Easy and a Normal keyboard. Easy shows large keys from middle C up to the E an octave above. There is also a Record button that saves the keys pressed and plays them back.

All 21 nursery songs are free. The practice screen highlights the next note, shows the finger number, and lights up the key to press. Slow mode waits until the right key is pressed. The app uses real treble and bass clef notation, so when a child sees sheet music in a lesson, it already looks familiar. Reading music is covered in How Kids Learn to Read Sheet Music.

An app does not replace lessons. A teacher watches the child’s hands, listens, and corrects on the spot. I see the app as something for before lessons and between them.

The first classical piece and the first ear training level are free, and a one-time purchase opens the rest of the classical pieces and every ear training level. There are no ads and no subscription. If you have a digital piano or keyboard at home, you can connect it over MIDI (How to Connect a MIDI Keyboard to an iPad or iPhone).