Demonstrating the Piano Drum With Music When Teaching Piano to Kids

Video Transcript

"California Music Academy talking about rhythm and teaching it to children. We just talked about the right and left thing, seeing it on the staff. A cool way to enforce what we've just been doing with them, and playing it on the piano drum, is to put it with some music. So, I have here some cool music. And we're going to play with them. Wait a little bit, just to hear the beat. One, two, goes like this. Play, play, play, play, one, two, one, rest. Play, play, play, play, one, two, three, rest. So, in that case, I just played with one hand, and I was just worried about getting those rhythms right. Now, the next piece is that I will put it together with the right and left, like we had just done, where we had talked about going from right, and then going together, and then right, left, left, left, just as the music says. Now we're going to put it with that. So, it looks like: one, two, five, six, here we go. Right, right, right, right, together, together, rest. Right, left, left, left, hold, two, three, rest. Right, right, right, right, together, together, rest. Right, left, left, left, hold, two, three, rest. You might have noticed, as I did that, that I used several different words. There's different forms of vocabulary to play those things. Try to keep it consistent within the take. What you want to expose the child to is many different ways of understanding this. You're teaching them, not only rhythm, but also the right and left thing. So, I was using, "Right, right, right" or "Together, together" or "Left, left, left." That sort of thing. Another thing that you need to make sure that you do, and we talked about this earlier, was making sure that they start counting on the one. They can't start playing, and then start counting later. Obviously, Natasha's not going to wait for you. So, I flip back and forth between my vocabulary that I'm using, and you may have to do that also. But just make sure that you have in your mind a couple languages that you want to stay consistent within. If you use the "play, play" language, then a half note can be called a "sit down." It can be called "hold, two." Just choose something and stay consistent with it. "Rest" pretty much works as "rest." And then when you have a dotted half note here, that could be "hold, two, three" or "sit, down, more" or something that you want it to say. And you also notice that I have not been using the vocabulary of the counts yet. I have not said, "One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four." I have not used that yet. And that will come. It will come very soon. But not quite yet for most kids."