Learning to play the piano first will provide valuable lessons in music theory, while allowing the child to experience success right from the first lesson. Children whose first instrument is piano will have a leg up on other students when they go on to learn other instruments.
When a parent is first considering enrolling their child in music lessons, one of the most common questions is “What instrument should they start with?” Piano is an excellent first instrument, providing a solid foundation for your child’s musical education. Learning to play the piano first will provide valuable lessons in music theory, while allowing the child to experience success right from the first lesson. Children whose first instrument is piano will have a leg up on other students when they go on to learn other instruments.
It Sounds Good / Immediate Gratification
One of the main benefits of learning piano first is that it is easy to make it sound good, even for inexperienced players. As an instrument, the piano is the easiest to dive right into, as it does not require frequent tuning. This allows students to create crisp clear notes simply by pressing a key. Even young students can quickly learn to tap out the melody to basic well-known tunes, providing a feeling of success that helps motivate students to keep practicing and playing. (Parents will also appreciate listening to practice sessions that are far more pleasant than beginner wind and string instrument practices often are.)
Piano Provides a Solid Foundation
The piano plays a wide range of notes, with a greater range than any other single instrument. With notes laid out in an intuitive fashion – lower notes on the left, higher notes on the right – and sharp and flat keys easily distinguished, students can easily pick up the early lessons of music theory. Sheet music, in both bass and treble clef, translate very well to the layout of the piano keyboard, giving the student a good foundation in reading music that will later extend to other instruments. Concepts such as whole- and half-steps are much more easily visualized on a piano.
The piano also allows students to develop a good sense of pitch. A properly tuned piano will create a perfect sounding note, each and every time. When children start learning to play piano young enough, they can often develop “perfect” pitch, allowing them to easily distinguish notes. This keen ear will help them in many aspects of their musical education and other areas of life.
Improved Coordination
Piano is one of the few instruments that allows the left and right hands to play equally. As students progress they learn to play both the melody and the accompaniment, coordinating their hands and their brains to play two sets of notes at one time. This type of coordination strengthens the hands and the mind, which can serve music students in many areas of life, improving musical performance as well as academic test scores. It also allows students to experience first-hand how the notes and chords come together to form a cohesive piece of music. While other instruments often need to be part of a larger orchestra to create a full-sounding piece, piano can serve as a stand-alone instrument.
When choosing an instrument for your budding musician, you can’t go wrong with introducing them to the piano first. Students will enjoy the easy early success of creating music that sounds good, while developing a strong ear, and a solid foundation for their musical education. Music students who begin with piano can easily go on to play any other instrument they desire, already knowing how to read music and understand both bass and treble clefs, as well as important concepts of music theory. Piano makes a great first instrument for anyone interested in learning to play music.
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Aretha Franklin's 'Respect' named Greatest Song of All Time by Rolling Stone. (WTRF) – Rolling Stone has released its latest list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and the Queen of Soul is at the top. Aretha Franklin's “Respect” topped the list as the No. 1 song, according to the entertainment magazine and website ...
(WTRF) – Rolling Stone has released its latest list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and the Queen of Soul is at the top.
Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” topped the list as the No. 1 song, according to the entertainment magazine and website.
The outlet said the 1967 hit “catalyzed rock & roll, gospel, and blues to create the model for soul music that artists still look to today.”
“Just as important, the song’s unapologetic demands resonated powerfully with the civil rights movement and emergent feminist revolution, fitting for an artist who donated to the Black Panther Party and sang at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.,” Rolling Stone added. “In her 1999 memoir, Franklin wrote that the song reflected ‘the need of the average man and woman in the street, the businessman, the mother, the fireman, the teacher — everyone wanted respect.’ We still do.”
Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” which took the top spot last year, came in at No. 6 this year.
Here’s the list’s top 10:
1: Aretha Franklin — “Respect”
2: Public Enemy — “Fight The Power”
3: Sam Cooke — “A Change is Gonna Come”
6: Marvin Gaye — “What’s Going On”
7: The Beatles — “Strawberry Fields Forever”
8: Missy Elliott — “Get Ur Freak On”
9: Fleetwood Mac — “Dreams”
10: Outkast — “Hey Ya’
Rolling Stone first published its Greatest Songs list in 2004, and it says it’s “one of the most widely read stories in our history.”
Click here to see the full list of the top 500 songs.
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