So, it’s the new year resolutions and guess what? You decided to play piano…………… yes! Playing piano is one of my favorite things in this world and of course I would encourage anyone to do it.

So, you’ve just decided that you wanted to play piano and you live in Los Angeles. You have no idea “how many hours should I practice” or “what does a piano practice consists of?”

The first thing I usually say is this: remember when you made the decision to play piano. Ok. Now, what didn’t you envision at that time.

If you decided that you want to play pop songs on the piano for fun without becoming a virtuoso, then that demonstrates quite a big gap in terms of hours of practice.

Is there a minimum commitment for taking piano lessons? Not really. It’s better if you show up to the piano lesson rehersed that way the piano teacher can show the next steps.

There’s a lot of doingness in piano. And there’s a lot of mental activity.

So depending on your purpose and the amount of time you’re willing to invest, you’ll have a good idea of how much energy you’ll be investing.

So let’s say you want to play piano for fun no stress and you are will to practice piano about 3-4 times a week for about 25 minutes each time.

I would say that’s a pretty good investment and will get you somewhere.

There’s a lot of distractions in Los Angeles… movies, beach, etc… so you have to have some kind of discipline to do that.

Now you might say “yes, but I have zero discipline” so piano is not for me.

Negative. Just like building your piano abilities, you can build your discipline “muscle.”

So, I live in Los Angeles and give piano lessons. And if you have any questions, please email me at info@lapianolessons.com. (Los Angeles Piano Lessons)

Piano practice can be real fun with a good goal and playing piano is totally achievable…. probably faster than you would have thought you could!

Happy New Year and hope to see you playing piano in 2010.

los angeles · piano lessons · piano practice

Parents usual question… “is my kid too young for piano lessons?”

A usual, typical answer sounds something like this… “all kids are different… it really depends, you know,” or “did she/he decide to take the lessons or you (the parents) decided?”…..

Well, though these “typical” answers are kind of borderline boring they are nevertheless somewhat genuine.

How do you know if kid will like piano if he doesn’t try it (that would be one way of looking at it).

But really, it only takes a few lessons most of the times to know if the person (here the child or kid) is into it. And again, the liking may grow.

I treat the kids as adults during my lessons. I don’t use the same vocabulary of course, I don’t do the same kind of jokes, etc. But don’t deep, I speak with them as adults.

These little people are real people in small bodies still…. If you start faking something, they usually know. If you treat them like a puppet, no way. The are real people.

There’s an issue that comes up in the piano lesson and I will seriously answer that child’s question, I will not ignore it.

But coming to “is my kid too young for piano lessons” question, it’s almost the same question as an adult calling me and asking “am I too old for piano lessons?” Really.

There’s a lot of factors. We know the story of Mozart and other musicians. Some other artists started later. I guess my point is that if the piano lessons didn’t work out for the first time, there’s always another chance later.

I would say the key, key factor is no forcing. You start putting some force into this and you may cut the child’s liking of music. Some pressure is fine, even us adults need pressure sometimes to get things done. But a hard, constant force is really not the best. I usually talk to the parents themselves  if I see they are applying the force and the kid is totally disinterested. And then, tell them that I may not honestly be able to continue teaching their kid in those conditions.

Keep it simple, even for this.

Don’t make it complex.

So I teach in Los Angeles at this time and if you have any questions you may email me. Thanks.

info@lapianolessons.com

children · kids · los angeles · piano lessons