This doesn’t require you to be at the piano and can be practiced anywhere and anytime, you can practise on your table, in the bus, or in the train and you’ll find it achievable in no time!
During piano lessons, we try not to let the wrist collapse and rest on the keys, this needs gentle help from teacher by supporting student’s wrists with a pen or ruler, and rest assure that the more you do it the better it gets!
Once improvement is shown, try balancing a fifty cents coin on the back of one of the hand, don’t put on both hands right from the beginning, start with single hand first before doing both hands, and try to strike the keys without the coin slipping off! A little challenge always helps!
Try both hands together once they have learnt each hand separately, with both thumbs starting on middle C together, then continue with both hand’s fingers 2s-3s-4s-5s and repeat this exercise again. This is a good exercise for them to practise both hands together, so very positive experience! Good try for a first piano lesson! Sounds nice and a good start too!
Teaching kids how to locate the keys by introducing animal’s characters for each note makes a interesting concept immediately manageable and kids can locate the notes on keyboard easily and with the time value of notes so much easier to remember. Make sure to remind that these are their nick-names, and keep reminding the note names by linking it up as a story, which can be called linking memory technique to memorize the note names.

9 Ways To Motivate kids to attend piano lessons and home practice
1)We strongly believe that children who refuse to go for piano lessons or home practice is due to difficulty or stress that they encounter during lessons, so what we do is to focus on solution to sort out the technical difficulties, make sure all problem like reading notes or technical difficulties are solved during the lessons, after that it will be much easier for the child to just repeat and revise what they do during the piano lessons.

2) Children nowadays are busier than adult, their schedule is packed with tuitions, enrichment classes and all kind of activities, hence creating a practice routine which suits the child’s daily time table is important. One of the effective way is to agree that piano practice should always be done before any fun time is allowed.
3)Organising piano concerts with children of the same age so that they get a chance to share their piano music with other children and build confidence by playing to each other regularly.
4) Reward a sticker for every new piece, so that you can keep track the progress of each new piece’s time frame by completing a goal.
5) Allow the child choose a specific favourite piece that sounds catchy and easy to sing or remember the tune – it always couraging if it’s their choice!
6) Make sure the piano is placed in the main living room, but not chucked in the corner or quiet room, children like applause from family members as an audience, they dont like to be left out!
7) Since the piano is placed in the living room, you should allow the child give you a mini ‘concert’ for 10 minutes before going to bed. Make sure you concentrate and pay attention to what he/she plays, this can be great time for you and your child create bonding.
8) Prepare a birthday song for a birthday surprise for Grandparents, parents or whoever’s birthday in the family.
9) Do a video recording of them playing their favourite piece to send to friends or relatives – these will be memorable times when they’re all grown up!

Let’s get started with first piano When do you know if your child is ready to start learning the piano? How can I tell if they are going to like it? My child is only 4 years old– is it too early for her to start piano lessons – will it be a waste of time and money? These are very frequently asked questions by parents who are interested to send their children for piano lessons.

There is no age limit to start piano lessons, because firstly, it is important that the child shows interest and is keen in playing the piano, and is able to sit still and concentrate for certain period of time, approximately 15-30 minutes, and is happy coperate with the piano teacher.

It is a lot easier if they can already recite alphabet, so that is probably best time to give a head start, and not to stress them with too much information at once! It also helps if they have strong tiny fingers, although this can be trained through daily home practice, but if their hands are still very small, it maybe better to give them some time that allows their fingers and bones to grow stronger.

We design some fun music games and activities for first young kids’s piano lessons, to help strengthening the recognization of notes and 2 hands co-ordination. They are presented in a fun and couraging way that doesn’t cause the child to be stressed during the lessons, they will find the activities very engaging and motivated hence will encourage them to practise the piano at home.

With these made easy methods for kids piano lessons, parents will be able to help and revise their own child in the basic of playing the piano. This will also help to build the foundations in a engaging and easy way, giving children the incentive and confidence to go for proper one-to-one lessons and be in a cheerful and relaxing environment to learn and make the most of them. Improvement will be much faster, and they will be more likely to progress and develop a life time hobby in playing the piano.

Fun and easy way to start your first piano lesson:
1. Sitting in front of the piano, at middle C position, tell your child that the right hand plays the keys at higher register, and the left hand plays the keys at lower register, and explain that it is more comfortable to let each hand handle each side of the piano keys. Allow them to discover some high and low sounds, and ask them what are the differences.
2. Ask them to play the groups of 2 black keys and 3 black keys, from higher descend to lower notes and from lower notes ascend all the way up to higher keys. And remind them to use right hand for higher notes and left hand for lower notes.
3. Teach them how to locate the middle C note by finding the group of 2 black keys in the middle – C locates right before these 2 black notes. Introduce the middle C by telling them that a cat is staying in this room, and look for all the cat’s position up and down the piano, by playing all the high Cs with right hand and all the low Cs with left hand. Move around by finding for the group of 2 black keys. Help them to realize that there are always the same intervals of 8 notes away from each other each time, the distance of every 8 notes is called an Octave, just like a caterpillar with 8 legs!
4. The animal that stay next to the cat is a dog, D for dog! And the dog stays inside that room which is located between the 2 black keys, look for all the Ds across the piano’s keyboard, repeat what you did when learning the C’s note.

5. E is for ELEPHANT! Elephant stay at the right most position of the 2 black keys, because elephant is big enough to protect the 2 little animals cat and the dog. Repeat the exercise of finding all the E notes by hopping up and down the keyboard, keep reminding them that Es locates at the right most position of the 2 black keys.
6. The next note is F for FISH! Repeat the hopping exercise in the same way again, reminding them that it locates in front of the group of 3 black notes.
7. The next note is G for GOAT, look for all the Gs across the keyboard, this time we can use the middle C as starting note, make sure that the right hand plays all the Gs at right side of middle C and left hand plays all the Gs that are at the left side of middle C.
8. A for APPLE comes after Goat, beside hopping across the keyboard with same way, also help them to discover that the standard piano keyboard starts and ends with the As.
9. The last one is B for BOY – repeat the hopping exercise, and remind them that the Bs locate at the right most position at the group of 3 black keys. After that revise the notes by teimallling them that next note after B for boy will be C again, from there we can start another cycle of C, D, E, F, G, A and B again we have reached C again!
Now give them a worksheet to see if they can recall all the animals from C to B again by pasting removable stickers on piano keys, children always fascinated by colourful stickers and will enjoy activity like this. Although this seems to have too many notes to be learned for the first piano lesson, children would really enjoy the game of pasting correct animal’s stickers on the correct keys and find out the correct sequence of the animals, and after these games they will like to show that they can remember which animals go to which notes. Start every piano lesson with this game by motivating the child until they can name all the notes quickly and confidently, from here we can start to jumble up all the notes and pick different notes randomly, if they can name all the notes correctly, then we can move on to higher level.
First time here? Make sure you go through our introduction to First Piano Lessons before you start!
Up and Down the keyboard. The first piano lessons should be fun and exciting, after locating the notes we can start to introduce the fingerings and hand position by drawing around the hands of the child so that she can see the shape of her hands on a sheet of paper, after that try to praise that the shapes look beautiful! Otherwise, you can show her the finger chart that can be found easily in piano beginner’s book. Ask the child to write down the number 1 -5 on both hands beginning with the thumbs as 1 and the little pinky as 5. Tell them that on piano score we label our fingers numbers to so that we know which notes is played by which fingers. Show them that each finger take turns to play it’s own note.
Using the game of naming animals as a method to find middle C, place the Right Hand’s fingers 1-5 on CDEFG keys. Ask the child to play C,D,E,F,G accordingly with correct fingerings, and each note repeat 3 times clearly and slowly – call this exercise Up And Down the ladders and stairs. Explain that 4th and 5th fingers are normally weak than other fingers, because they are normally a bit sluggish and lazy to do anything on their own – that is why it is tough in the beginning, but just like learning how to write your name or learning to swim, regular home practice will always help to improve! Repeat this activity with the Left Hand, with the finger No.1 (thumb) on middle C and the rest of left hand’s fingers going down one by one in the opposite direction.
* The fingers should be able to lift up independently after striking each note, difficult in the beginning, but frequent home practice can help to improve.
* Make sure each note is played clearly before you strike the next key (children often have a habit of holding two or three notes down due to lack of muscle control, so remind them and give them a little help by lifting their fingers up each time after they strike a key and before moving on to the next key)

Each type of ABRSM/Trinity diploma has 3 levels of Accrediation system in United Kingdom.

Associate level – The standard is equivalent to the 1st year of a full time music diploma course in Music conservatory/college, candidates obtain diploma certificate in this level is expected to give performance at confident level.

Licentiate level – The standard is equivalent to that of a final year full-time bachelor degree music course at a music conservatory/college and is expected to perform the repertoire at the level of professional pianist during the exam.

Fellowship level – The standard of the dipoloma is equivalent to that of a full-time postgraduate course. candidates are expected to perform their pieces at professional concert pianists level, and being able to express his very own artistic thought and inner most feeling of composer’s musical intention.

Besides working on interpretation of exam pieces, ABRSM diploma piano exam consists of viva voce section, you will also learn to explore a wide repertoire for the performance component widen your knowledge of pieces from different classical composers, and choosing the most appropriate pieces to bring out your strength, jenny also help to practise the viva voce section and she is able to work on most possible questions asked.

ABRSM diploma piano exam also consists of quick study section where candidates will be given a totally new piece to sight read and play on the spot. Teacher Jenny is very experience in coaching sight-reading for the quick study section, she offers a very direct method to help students who are weak in sight reading, after using Jenny’s method, students are able to play a total new piece confidently upon the first sight.

Trinity piano diploma exam doesnt consist of viva voce and quick study sections, and that’s why this exam is more popular among piano students in Singapore. But both above mention piano diploma exams require candidates to submit program notes base on the pieces they play for the diploma exams. Teacher Jenny provides relevant information to help students in writing the program notes, she provide a guidelines for students to follow so that the program notes will meet the expectation of the exam boards.

There are 3 types of piano diploma courses in Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), they are:

– Diploma in Music Performance

– BA (Hons) in Music (Validated by the University of Wales, UK)

-Diploma in Music Teaching

Diploma in Music Performance:

Duration is 3 years, students are required to attend the full time course that comprises of main subjects such as music composition, music harmony, aural, choir, music history, music form and analysis, performance practice and etc.

In addition of those main subjects, students are allowed to choose a few music elective modules such as orchestration, conducting class, music therapy and etc.

Diploma piano students in NAFA are encouraged to join piano ensembles and accompaniment classes also, which means they will be arranged to practise piano duets with another pianist or playing accompaniment for other woodwind or brass instruments, and get chances to perform at the end of school terms to gain performing experience on stage.

BA (Hons) in Music

Duration is 1 year, students are required to attend the full time course that comprises of main subjects such as piano main study, music ensembles, composition writing, piano repertoire, performance practice and they have to submit a thesis before graduating as a holder of music bachelor degree.

Students must clear all subjects and earn enough credits from 3 years diploma course before continuing to pursue BA(Hons) in Music at NAFA. The course is accredited by the University of Wales (UK), and it has a strong focus on performance skills and personal development, it is specially designed as a recommended music study extension for students who has completed NAFA diploma course.

Diploma in Music Teaching

This is a programme designed for MOE (Ministry of Education) to train O’Level holders for Music Teacher Training Scheme. The duration of this course is 4 years which consists of double diploma course, they are: Diploma in Music Teaching & Diploma in Music Education

Students have to attend 3 years at NAFA, and 4^th year at NIE (National Institute of Education), after graduating from this course, they will be qualified to teach music at government schools or offered a job as piano teacher in private music schools. The certificate of taching diploma from NAFA is not only widely recognised in Singapore, It will be recognised in other countries such as Australia, Canada, UK and etc.

A music teacher with a Diploma in Music Teaching has a deep knowledge of music theory. They are generally better equipped to teach advance music theory such as ABRSM grade 8 theory .

Traditional method of piano playing originates from Europe. There are 3 schools that dominate traditional piano playing method, they are German, French and Italian. Jenny’s method of piano teaching is from German school, because most of the classical composers such as Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Schumann and Liszt are German.

Being successful in piano requires a scientific method, and Jenny has found a ‘formula’ that can help students to score distinction for their piano exams, students who follow the ‘formula’ closely will stand a high chance to score distinction.

The formula is X+Y+Z= Distinction for piano exam

X=Accuracy of notes and rhythm, and sense of continuity and appropriate sustained tempo.

Y=Observation of musical details such as dynamic contrasts and well shaped phrases.

Z=Being able to play at full speed, sensitivity of tonal awareness and convincing performer’s style.

Jenny has invented helpful templates for piano scales to help students to memorise fingering for piano scales. So that students are able to master their scales playing and they can spend more time to work on exam pieces as the 3 pieces weightage is 90/150.

In order to help students achieve accuracy of notes and rhythm for exam pieces, we offer some resolutions to improve student’s technical skills such as how to develop strong & independent finger works. With special designed exercises created by Jenny, students start to develop firm finger touch and multi layer of tone colors. She also demonstrates how to play passages with many wide leaps with sideway wrist or finger actions.

Besides technical aspects, musicianship is also a main factor to score distinction. Jenny offers effective strategies to create varieties of dynamic range, tone colors and observation of musical details via different postures of wrist, arm and shoulder weight.

Jenny has created her own systematic teaching system in helping candidates to excel in piano exams. This system is applicable to all levels, be it for advanced piano lessons or basic piano lessons.  Teachers or students who are interested to learn more about German school of piano playing please contact us. 98256286