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Parents come in all different styles. How do you treat your kids when they do activities? It could be piano lessons or the baseball team, you are involved in some way. As a piano teacher for 25 years, I have seen many different types.

What parent type are you?

The “non-caring” parent: these parents drop off their kids and I never see the parents. The kids never practice. Half the time they don’t even bring their books.
Parent Motto: “I just want an hour to myself.”

The “Busy kid” parent: The kids have so many activities they can’t practice. They want their kids to do everything. I think they believe their kids are superhuman. These kids have some kind of mutant power that enables them to never stop going.
Parent Motto: “I want my kid to be a soccer, baseball, piano playing, religious leader, doctor, lawyer someday.”

The “Scared of their kid” parent: These are parents that will not ask their kids to practice. Let me correct that, they will ask the kids to practice once in a while, but not enforce it.
Parents Motto: “I told him to practice. He did not want to”

The “Micro-managing” parent: Some of these parents sit in the lesson and the kid can never fully be himself because the parent is there. They answer for there kids, no matter how many times I talk directly to the kid. Others just tell you how to do my job.
Parent Motto: “Don’t talk to me now, I am too busy answering for my child.”

The “Pressure” parents: These are the parents that pressure there kids to be great without understanding that they are people.
Parent Motto: “You will do it, because I couldn’t”

The “I force my kids to play piano” parent: These parents force their kids to take piano lessons, which might be OK, but then they don’t enforce practicing. Do you know what a kid will do that doesn’t want to take piano lessons…not practice.
Parent Motto: “I force my kid to take piano and he does not practice. I just want him to experience music.”

The “smart phone” parent. When this parent sits in the lesson the phone rings 20 times. If they are not answering the phone they are texting. When they wait in the waiting room they don’t answer when you speak to them. The don’t listen when their kids speaks.
Parent Motto: (I’m still waiting for one of these parents to talk)

The “Musician” parent (or enter your own activity like soccer parent). All they want to do is pass to their kids all of their bad habits that they have acquired on their instrument.
Parent Motto: “I never had to learn the correct fingering.”

What kind of parent are you? Are their more types I missed?

Here are some more I thought of that needs no introduction.

The “I yell at the baseball coach” parent (or enter your own activity)
The “I yell at my kid no matter who is watching” parent
The “My child is the best” parent
The “My child is the worst” parent
The “I will talk about anything in front of my kid” parent

Any one of these to the extreme is probably not the best way to handle your kids activities. I love when parents are involved enough to ask questions and make suggestions and just be a part of the whole experience. Then they back off enough to let their child experience something, occasionally peaking back into their life to make sure they are on track.

Please add your own, I would love to hear some I missed.

www.mikedesroches.com – Solo Piano Music
www.scogeojam.com – A Tribute To Chick Corea

Parents come in all different styles. How do you treat your kids when they do activities? It could be piano lessons or the baseball team, you are involved in some way. As a piano teacher for 25 years, I have seen many different types.

What parent type are you?

The “non-caring” parent: these parents drop off their kids and I never see the parents. The kids never practice. Half the time they don’t even bring their books.
Parent Motto: “I just want an hour to myself.”

The “Busy kid” parent: The kids have so many activities they can’t practice. They want their kids to do everything. I think they believe their kids are superhuman. These kids have some kind of mutant power that enables them to never stop going.
Parent Motto: “I want my kid to be a soccer, baseball, piano playing, religious leader, doctor, lawyer someday.”

The “Scared of their kid” parent: These are parents that will not ask their kids to practice. Let me correct that, they will ask the kids to practice once in a while, but not enforce it.
Parents Motto: “I told him to practice. He did not want to”

The “Micro-managing” parent: Some of these parents sit in the lesson and the kid can never fully be himself because the parent is there. They answer for there kids, no matter how many times I talk directly to the kid. Others just tell you how to do my job.
Parent Motto: “Don’t talk to me now, I am too busy answering for my child.”

The “Pressure” parents: These are the parents that pressure there kids to be great without understanding that they are people.
Parent Motto: “You will do it, because I couldn’t”

The “I force my kids to play piano” parent: These parents force their kids to take piano lessons, which might be OK, but then they don’t enforce practicing. Do you know what a kid will do that doesn’t want to take piano lessons…not practice.
Parent Motto: “I force my kid to take piano and he does not practice. I just want him to experience music.”

The “smart phone” parent. When this parent sits in the lesson the phone rings 20 times. If they are not answering the phone they are texting. When they wait in the waiting room they don’t answer when you speak to them. The don’t listen when their kids speaks.
Parent Motto: (I’m still waiting for one of these parents to talk)

The “Musician” parent (or enter your own activity like soccer parent). All they want to do is pass to their kids all of their bad habits that they have acquired on their instrument.
Parent Motto: “I never had to learn the correct fingering.”

What kind of parent are you? Are their more types I missed?

Here are some more I thought of that needs no introduction.

The “I yell at the baseball coach” parent (or enter your own activity)
The “I yell at my kid no matter who is watching” parent
The “My child is the best” parent
The “My child is the worst” parent
The “I will talk about anything in front of my kid” parent

Any one of these to the extreme is probably not the best way to handle your kids activities. I love when parents are involved enough to ask questions and make suggestions and just be a part of the whole experience. Then they back off enough to let their child experience something, occasionally peaking back into their life to make sure they are on track.

Please add your own, I would love to hear some I missed.

As a musician, sometimes trying to figure out what to practice is a hard decision to make, especially if you do not have a teacher. Lets explore what would be the best path to choose when picking the pieces you want to play.

The big questions every musician has is should I choose easier pieces or more difficult ones? Should I practice old pieces? Sometimes doing easier pieces is the faster road. You may have a lot more fun with them as well because you will be able to play them a lot faster. Sometimes more difficult pieces are better because you can feel the challenge and it motivates you to get yourself to your instrument. On top of all this, you don’t want to forget your old pieces.

So how do you solve this problem? For those that do not have a lot of time to practice this is especially difficult. The best approach is to do all 3 and organize your time. Have an easy and a hard piece to work on at all times and continue to play your old pieces. Organize your time with splitting your practicing between the 3, or for less time only practice 1 of the 3 pieces a day, but make sure you do a run through of the other pieces, at least one time through, so you don’t forget what you did.

Here are some guidelines when choosing your pieces.

Your easy pieces should take no more than 1 week to complete. How can you define completed? This is how many times in a row can you play it without making a mistake. That may be up to you, but here are my general rules for this. If you are just playing for yourself it should be 3 times in a row, if you are playing for family and friends, 5 times in a row, if you are playing this piece live somewhere, then 10 times in a row.

How do you define not making a mistake? Here are the factors that are important; notes, rhythm, pauses, articulation and dynamics. So you should be paying attention to these important factors in determining if you are making a mistake. Sometimes you may want to isolate just the notes that are in a section. That is something different. To define a piece as completed, you must be able to do the whole song a number of times in a row without a mistake. If you are not ready for that, you should be isolating sections of the piece and working on them until you are ready.

Your hard piece should take you a couple of months to master. This piece should be challenging enough that you are not learning the piece too quickly, and easy enough that you can at least feel like you are making progress everyday you practice.

Another issue is which older piece should you be playing. For some of you, playing your whole repertoire is not possible everyday, so how do you organize it. First make a list of all the songs you know, or any old ones you may want to refresh. Pick 1 song a week, and play it once a day or once every other day. Some songs may take a little longer to refresh and some you can pick back up right away. On the weeks that it is an easier piece you can play it just a couple of days that week. If it is a piece that you are not completely comfortable, you may need to take a couple of days and relearn some of it. When your list is getting to big, you can go back and cross out some of the easier ones. This will keep your list manageable.

If you have 2 pieces at all times that you are practicing, and one piece you are reviewing you will be getting a well rounded education. The easier pieces will keep you finely tuned in the level that you are in and the harder pieces will push your limits beyond what you are comfortable with. It is important to organize your time. Make sure you pick the piece a day you want to work on.

Above all, remember to have fun.

Mike Desroches

www.pianoinstrumentalsongs.com

www.mikedesroches.com

www.scogeojam.com

Goals are very difficult to determine for someone that does not know you, but here are some things you can consider when creating your goals

Who would you model what you want to be after. In other words, what kind of musician do you want to be. If you had to pick an artist that plays who would that be. Who is inspiring you to play your instrument. Sometimes it could be someone you know. What style of music do you want to do, Classical, jazz, rock, pop. Do you want to play in your house only by yourself, or play for family and friends, or do you want to play live in front of an audience. If you want to play live, what is it you want to do, play solo, in a rock band, a jazz band, originals…etc.

Once you have determined some of those goals, then it is time to think about how to get there. Here are some ideas to get you there.

Do you need a music teacher? What kind of teacher do you need. I would find a teacher that does what you want to do already. Find a teacher that has a lot of experience teaching. The teacher may be great at playing, but maybe not good at teaching. Do you need to learn how to read music? Do you need to learn how to play chords, or songs, or theory?

Once you have some of these goals determined, it may still be hard to see what will happen in a year. That will depend on how much you practice, how fast you learn and how narrow your goal is. You can make goals at the beginning, but you really have no idea how long anything is going to take, so you should be prepared to change your goals as you are going along.

I think the best way to set your goals is in this order.

piano playing goals
1) lifetime goal.
2) 5 year goal
3) 1 year goal to get there
4) monthly goals
5) weekly goals
6) daily goals.

Working backwards will keep you focused to where you want to go. If you don’t know where you are going, you will not know how to get there.

I hope this info helps.

Hey everyone, Mike here. This website is mainly to learn how to play the piano without learning how to read. Check out the links and here is a description of each link and what you can find there.

Easy Piano 123 newsletter – Click on this to receive weekly updates on how to play the piano from the beginning.

Chords and Theory – Click on this to develop an understanding of the piano and the theory behind it.

I will be adding a song link where you can learn how to play all your favorite songs.

Thanks, this site is a work in progress, so bare with me as I start to add stuff.

www.pianoinstrumentalsongs.com

www.mikedesroches.com

www.scogeojam.com