Tips for Teaching Music to Children

Series Summary

All the experts agree, music is fundamental to a child's development. Not only do kids learn basic concepts of math, they also learn how to use different aspects of their developing brain. Children love to learn new things! However, due to children's short attention span, it can be a daunting task to teach music to kids. To be successful at this endeavor, a teacher must make music theory both fun and challenging.

If you are looking for ways to teach music to kids, this video series is perfect for you. Our expert, Hope Wells, shows you some basic ideas for teaching music to children. Using a piano, Hope teaches basic beats, reading notes, and staffs. Learn how to introduce children to music books. With these simple ideas, you can make a child excited about playing music.

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Hope Wells and I am here on behalf of expertvillage.com, to help you understand how to teach music. And if you don't know how, if you don't know music already, it will help you learn a little music on your own. I am a music teacher. I teach private voice and piano, primarily piano for a studio in Westlake Village, California. It's called California Village Academy. I also teach privately, and I also teach group music lessons. So I teach children how to sing or I bring children together and have them do awesome things on stage. So, the first thing that I'd like to tell you about a little bit is that I began piano when I was seven years old, on account of my parents. They were like, "Do you want to do it?" And I was like, "OK, sounds fun." I studied piano later, at Audobon College with Dr. Michael Happlecorn, who is educated at the Juliard School and at the Columbia University. So I've studied with great people, he's a wonderful pianist and it's really learning from lots and lots of people how to teach that helps you learn how to teach. The first thing that you need to know when you're teaching is that every child is wildly different. And it's also true that the things I am talking about have to do with adults also, but since it's primarily children that learn music, I'm gearing it sort of towards them. Take into account their age range that will help you realize how different each child is. And take into account also the fact that they may or may not like you. They may or may not respond to you. They may or may not want to do whatever you tell them to do. All of these are sort of factors that come into account when teaching anyone. They certainly come in with teaching music because it is sort of an expression, and if the child has a wall up, it's really hard to get that person to express. So, in order to help that happen, on the very first lesson, bring drumsticks. If you don't have drumsticks, bring wooden spoons, or bring a really cool dejembay, you can get them for like sixteen dollars at toy stores. Anything, anything that's not a piano that's a percussion instrument that has fun banging on. Kids like to bang. There's no problem with banging and they're OK with that. Even if they don't like you, they still like to bang. So, let them bang. Let them bang, in fact, however they want to for the first time. Just be like. Make sound, it's totally fine. Then, get them to harness their sound. See if you can get them to play something four times. This is more difficult than you think. What you'll have a lot, is that they can't count to four, or they can't separate the sounds into four. So that will take a lot, to know that one touch is one sound. And that's what you mean when you say "Count to four." But, it will happen. See if you can then get them to count to five! Play to five. See if you can then get them to play to six. And then, see if you can get them to count to four, twice. So it sounds like this: One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Over and over and over. If they can get the idea of repeating, the fact that repetition is all that music is based on, they will be good to go."