What to Know About Piano Lessons for Kids
There is hardly a better gift to give your young child than love and appreciation for music. But, piano lessons for kids offer much more than simple musical education and the capacity to carry a tune. The benefits of enrolling your child in piano lessons have many benefits that will impact every aspect of your child’s life.
At Pianokids, it is our belief that musical education is an important gift that will help to provide a well-rounded education to your child which can ultimately allow them to live a fuller life. In the following article, we will cover what you should know about making this wise investment of time and focus. But before we get into that, let’s look at some of the most important benefits piano lessons can have for kids.
7 Benefits of Piano Lessons
Musical Understanding
The most important thing to know is that piano lessons for kids will provide far more than simply the capacity to play out an accurate tune by striking black and white keys. But, it is important to realize that being able to understand music and musical composition is one of the primary benefits of enrolling your child in piano lessons.
While much of what they do seems like the practice of scales and melody, what they are really doing here is collecting experience that will introduce them to the way that music is arranged and how notes flow together to create the music they are playing. Ultimately, piano lessons for kids don’t just teach them how to play music but provide the introduction to the function of music as a form of communication.
Much like learning a new language or any other form of expression, piano lessons will create a foundation that will guide your child as well as their interests and pursuits through life.
Improved Academic Performance
Music is not an abstract language void of all logic, design and substance. On the contrary, the skills required to apply and practice musical ability are founded in mathematics and language. It is actually scientifically proven that the skills acquired through musical practice are also applied in a variety of academic pursuits.
As a matter of fact, music lessons have been found to improve a child’s performance in school as well as boosting their IQ considerably. This fact was discovered in a study, the results of which were detailed in the Journal of Educational Psychology.
The study itself followed the performance of children aged 6 to 11. It was found that for each month of musical lessons, an increase of 1/6 of an IQ point was accrued through the practice. Therefore, a child that was given 6 years of music lessons could feasibly improve their IQ by a full 7.5 points over other children who are not enrolled in musical training. This alone is an important reason to provide your child with music lessons, even if neither parent has had any background in music.
Promotes Teamwork and Social Skills
Teamwork is an important skill that is highly valued in professional, academic, and even personal lives. While most people assume that enrolling in sports or dance classes will be the best way to gain this skill set, musical education is also very important in this regard.
A child taking up piano lessons for beginners will work closely with an instructor and this in itself will be an important part of teaching them to work with an authority figure. This will greatly improve their capacity to interact with teachers, leaders, bosses and other superiors they will find in their life. This will allow them to gain greater knowledge and experience as well as improve their positions in a number of academic and professional endeavors.
As their skills improve, children in music classes will begin to play their instruments as a group or band. This takes patience, understanding, and most of all collaboration as they work as a unit toward a common goal. The capacity to take cues from peers and adjust personal performance to accommodate the performance of others is essential to building strong teams.
Improved Coordination
It takes a special set of skills to properly play an instrument. Through regular musical practice, the hands, fingers, feet, arms, and muscles of the body are fine-tuned and coordinated with the mind and breathing. It takes full focus and awareness to play well and this can take some time to get right. Much like juggling or flipping a pancake, it can seem overwhelming at first but with the right online piano lessons for kids, it will soon become easy, fluid and fun.
After a few months of regular dedicated practice, what was once difficult can become very easy. The movements and timing necessary to play a piece of music properly will soon become a part of muscle memory and eventually can be executed with hardly any thought provided. This greatly improves hand-eye coordination, the benefits of which extend to every aspect of life. From playing sports to tacking up other forms of art and expression, many aspects of physical accomplishment will be promoted through this increased agility and dexterity.
Improved Character Traits
As a true character-building practice, musical arts bring insights, experiences, and perspectives on the path of life. True prodigies that seem to excel with hardly any effort are few and far between. Most of us will have to sit through hours of endless practice while maintaining intense focus and tapping on inner discipline to be acceptable musicians.
Humility and determination will be tested at every corner. It starts with maintaining proper positioning and critically executing each note and chord into rhythms and melodies with greater and greater precision and grace. This is how music is made.
Your child will also cultivate a greater self-esteem as piano playing provides them with attainable goals that lead to greater and greater capacity as time goes by. Throughout the difficulties of the practice, your child will find great rewards in the results of their hard labors.
Through committing to a regular routine of practice and progress, an appreciation for the results of discipline will also be established. These are all positive lifelong traits that will ultimately determine the character and personality of your child.
Cultural Exposure
A great perspective on cultures and time periods is another important benefit of enrolling your child in the best online piano lessons. Music is one of the greatest expressions of times, cultures, and interests. This is an important part of what will shape their view of the world as they become adults.
What to Know When Getting a Child Enrolled in Piano Lessons
There are so many advantages to enrolling a bright young mind in piano lessons. Obviously, this prompts many questions. For example, you would probably want to know the best age to begin piano lessons with a child. Or, whether musical practice is even going to be an interest they have.
All of these questions are common to parents and other caregivers when considering how they will provide training to a child. The real answer is that there is no right age for a child to learn to play the piano. But there are some important points to keep in mind when considering piano lessons for kids.
Interests
The last thing you want to do is force your child to practice for which they have no interest. But, don’t assume that because your child has other interests they may not come to love the practice and expression of piano lessons.
Our piano lessons for kids keep the fun alive by beginning with short lessons of up to 15 minutes and always leaving off on an interesting and rewarding point.
Reading Level
It always helps if your child can read a little. The capacity to read demonstrates a level of mental awareness and readiness for the tasks and challenges ahead. Furthermore, if they have not begun to read, they will probably be beginning this shortly and the combination could be too much for their young minds.
Size of Hand
One of the most important points to consider before enrolling your child in online piano lessons for kids is their hands. Take a look at the distance from across the keys, you will notice that the capacity to strike five keys apart can be too much for small hands. Furthermore, you will want to make sure that a little hand has the strength to push the keys down. But, strength is also something that comes with practice.
Ready For Piano Lessons for Kids
At Pianokids, we have designed a program that allows parents to assist their children as they walk through the first steps to a lifetime of learning. This is a great way to get over the initial challenges of the process and give kids an incentive and the confidence to begin.
Then, when they begin to take lessons through instruction they will be miles ahead and have the confidence to understand what it is they are trying to accomplish. Our program includes a Children’s Beginners Piano Book, that your child will use to begin learning to read music while following the online piano lessons.
