When choosing the right teacher for lessons in NYC, it’s important to choose right the first time. You don’t want to waste time building a relationship you’ll outgrow, or worse, find yourself dissatisfied with your teachers’ methods. But if you follow these three tips you’ll be able to know that you’re getting a piano teacher worth your time and money.
Classical piano training
First of all, make sure that your piano teacher has been classically trained. Many of the teachers at this piano instruction company, have studied at elite institutions such as Juilliard, Columbia University, and the Manhattan School of Music. Some of our piano teachers have played around the world and performed with internationally recognized musical groups. The bottom line is that they’ve spent decades refining their craft, so that teaching it comes naturally to them.
Teachers with musical passion
It makes a big difference when you have a piano teacher who loves music as their passion, who has spent their entire life cultivating an understanding and love for piano. Other piano teachers who have a side gig teaching English or doing something else, and continue teaching piano just to make an extra buck are definitely worth avoiding, since they won’t be able to take your progress seriously.
Musical fluency
It goes without saying that when your piano teachers are classically trained and love what they do, they can also read music fluently. This is crucial for helping you to play more advanced pieces, for teaching you how music works and helping you gain greater proficiency during your piano lessons overall. Being able to sight read allows you to understand musical theory, which is crucial to becoming an advanced musician. If you don’t know how to read music, or if you eventually stop piano lessons and forget how to read music, it’s easy to plateau as a musician, so that all of the hard work and practice you put in over the years falls away, taking you to the point of where you were a few months after you first started piano lessons.
A piano teacher who meets the above three criteria is the kind of piano teacher to keep working with for years. You won’t outgrow your relationship despite how good you become. When you choose piano lessons with Music to Your Home, you can expect some of the best teachers in NYC.
New York City kids — they’re a breed of their own. For better or for worse, they grow up seeing and experiencing more culture and diversity at every corner than many other people will in their entire lives. From the second they touch pavement, New York City kids are bombarded with sights and sounds unrivaled by any other city in the country — maybe even the world. One of the most unique of these experiences is the wide variety of music they’ll hear. Whether it’s passing through Grand Central Station and catching the tunes of one of the many locals showcasing their talents in the terminal or attending a free concert in the park in the summer months, music is readily available to New York City youth!
Of course listening to music is a lot less daunting (and tedious) than spending hours learning to play, so don’t be discouraged if and when your kids are resistant to learn. When it’s time to enroll your kids in their NYC piano lessons (or any other instrument they want to play!), there are a handful of ways you can get them pumped to get started. Try these ideas to get your NYC kids excited about piano lessons!
Buy Tickets to the Orchestra
One of the best ways to encourage your kids to get excited about learning music is to expose them to people who have an immense passion for it — so much so that they do it for a living. New York City offers so many opportunities for your kids to see some of the best, world renown musicians that they won’t get anywhere else! Take them out for a night to the orchestra, and let them see the glamour and excitement of the orchestra; expose them to a formal side of music and give them insight on how the musicians onstage got their own start. If they can think that their own piano lessons can help to get on a grand stage one day, they will be more excited to learn! Try a night listening to the New York Philharmonic Orchestra or the New York City Symphony and tell us if you don’t have a blast!
Goof Around at Home
Whether they’re NYC kids or not, kids are kids nonetheless. And that means that they want to have FUN! The only way your kids are going to assume that their piano lessons aren’t another homework assignment is if you make them fun to begin with. Let your kids tickle the ivories and create a song of their own making — and then you do the same. You’ll also show them that you’re willing to be silly and have fun, and that’s always a great example to set from the get-go! Try this before they start their piano lessons and during them, so it mixes up the formal training with some fun. Your kids will get better at learning and start building on their new knowledge without even realizing it! Remember: Music should be an expression of a person’s own creativity, not a chore you have to do — so don’t make it seem like that and you’re golden!
Hire a Private Tutor
One of the most daunting things about learning anything — whether it’s music or math — is doing it with about 20 other kids. The pressure of standing out in a group or being too shy to ask for help can impact both your child’s learning experience and how much he/she will enjoy it. Both of these problems can be easily resolved with private music lessons. Obviously we’re big believers that this is the best way to learn music, but it’s also because we, as instructors and musicians, enjoy that one-on-one time we get with our pupils. There’s just nothing like passing on the gift of music and getting to witness that first moment when one of our students lights up because he or she hit the right notes in the right order. What a magical experience it is! Private lessons is also a unique bonding experience for teacher and student, and just as we fondly remember our first music teachers, we strive hard to make learning music an enriching experience so that our students will have those same memories to cherish for years to come!
Do you have any useful tips to help your kids to get your kids excited for piano lessons? Share them with us in the comments below or via our social media channels!
Photo Credit: PBS.org
Okay parents: We’ll be honest; even we have some sour memories of being forced into taking music lessons as kids — the long hours practicing indoors, the decrepit (not to mention ridiculously strict) teachers, the isolation from our friends playing music that just reminded us of funerals and horror film soundtracks! ‘Why, oh why? Why are our parents subjecting us to this!’ We wondered with desperation.
And now look at what we are doing, ourselves. 😉
But really — as much as we hate to admit it, our parents totally knew what they were doing. And as that old saying goes, we really did appreciate how music touched our lives from such a young age — it just took us a while to appreciate those music lessons. The instructors at Music To Your Home live, breathe and sleep music, though, and we definitely don’t want our young clients to take YEARS to love and appreciate music! And to that point, you know what other old saying we love?
Practice what you preach.
Now, before you go assuming that we’re just trying to get you to sign up for some fancy-schmancy NYC music lessons with your kids, you should know that you’re only half right. Seriously — we’re not as fancy-schmancy as you think. 😉
Now, as far as signing up for those music lessons with your children…well, why not? Oh okay, you need some convincing. Here’s a few more-than-fantastic reasons why enrolling in music lessons with your kids could be one of the best decisions you make for both you and them.
1. Keep Your Mind Young and Sharp
You may know that learning to play a musical instrument can help your children perform better in school, be more disciplined and be exposed to the creative arts from a young age. There is definitely research to back all these claims, but what you should also know is that Sudoku isn’t the only way to keep your brain working hard.
One study conducted at The University of St. Andrews and published in the journal Neuropsychologia found that, “musical activity could be used as an effective intervention to slow, stop or even reverse age, or illness, related decline in mental functioning.”
The research also concluded that people who played instruments were also quicker to recognize mistakes and correct them faster than those who didn’t! This is enough to make us want to get back in the studio right now.
2. Discover a Hobby to Keep You Healthy
Many people complain that as they get older, they find it harder to find a hobby they are truly passionate about [that doesn’t cost a fortune to maintain] and that can they do for themselves. Don’t be under the impression that learning a new musical instrument is just for kids. On any given day you can find any of us just walking to the beat of our own drum (sorry, no pun intended)!
Playing music has been scientifically proven to reduce stress, lessen anxiety and depression and possibly even help you fight off viruses better! Happiness and health all in one package?! Do you really need any more convincing that this is a fantastic hobby to pick up?
3. Set a Good Example for Your Kids
Think back of when you were a child and your parents didn’t allow you to do “grownup” things like stay up late or watch certain movies. They were trivial restrictions, but it’s often these things that left us feeling separated from their world. Learning to play music together doesn’t have to be that way!
Music lessons are a great way to do something with your children that’s beyond watching the latest movie. It promotes healthy bonding, combines your adult world with their adolescent — and did you read reasons one and two up there? And let’s not forget kids learn best by example. Showing them that you’re never too old to learn something new and work hard to achieve something you’ve never done before (not to mention the mistakes you’ll make and learn from along the way) is a priceless value you can instill in them. And didn’t you know that you’re never too old to act like a kid? 🙂
Ready to start you own little family band? Here’s some of the awesome instruments we can teach you and your family right in the privacy of your own home. (After all, it isn’t NYC if you can’t get music lessons delivered to your home, right?)