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Alfred's Kids's Piano Course
Although similar to other Alfreds Piano courses that we have offered, this one is especially designed for parental instruction. It is simpler than the Prep or Premier course and very easy to use. Book 1 starts at the very beginning, with how to sit at the piano, understanding the keyboard, and learning quarter, half and whole notes before learning the names of the keys. Rests, time signatures (4/4 and 3/4) and the music staff are also covered. By the end of the book, young students will be playing simple but familiar songs like "The Wheels on the Bus." Book 2 spends a few pages on review for Book 1 and then continues into seconds, thirds, melodic and harmonic intervals, fourths, fifths, the G position, flats, sharps and tied notes. A CD or online audio access is included with each book containing all of the songs so students know what they should sound like. Each of these levels has 47 softcover pages and sets are transitioning to DVDs with MP3 audio. These new sets also include online access to audio/video content. The DVD follows the book exactly and is great for the student who learns better from a video lesson than from a book alone.
The Complete books contain everything in both the first and second book in addition to worksheets to help cement musical concepts. These 139 softcover page books are available with or without the DVD, which is a combination of the Level 1 and Level 2 DVDs. DVDs contain video lessons and MP3 audio demonstrations.
If you have little to no musical experience yourself, but you want to teach your child piano, you might want to opt for Teach Your Child to Play Piano, which features the same content as Book 1, but with teaching instructions for the parent on the left-hand pages. The parent guide page is divided into steps for introducing the page, practice suggestions and tasks for review and reinforcement.Billed as "The Easiest Piano Method Ever!" this is a great choice if you'd like to start your early elementary child on piano but aren't sure about signing them up for lessons yet.
