{Music Journey} Little Handsome's First Band Performance!

It has been 1.5 years since I had started little E on his piano lesson. We enrolled him into audition on the recommendation of his tutor, to our surprise he was selected to participate in the band performance for the annual concert! Honestly I don't think he is great at the keyboard, far from being a child prodigy, but he enjoyed playing at his own pace and loved challenging himself in learning new song.

My little handsome at the audition. He was the first in queue, he played calmly with many pair of eyes watching behind the glass door, myself included.

This was his first band performance at 5 years old and he was the youngest among the whole lot. Although he was only one of the 8 keyboard players, big guy and I were feeling really proud of him. He was steady on stage, got along well with all his band players, diligently practiced his piece at home and totally enjoyed himself on the stage; no stage freight, no chicken feet. Way better than his mommy. I still recalled how nervous I was during my first story telling contest at primary school, I avoided eye contacts with any of the audience and just starred at the ceiling fan the whole time... Urrgg, let's not dwell further on that topic.

The band. The drummer and lead singer not in sight.

Their band performed "Do You Want to Build a Snowman", they did not made it to the top 3 among the 17 bands performing that day, but the exposure gained was priceless.

I am so glad we made the decision to let him tried out the piano lesson when he was 4, otherwise he would not had discovered his interest in music. The Piano Guys has been his role model since I first introduced their youtube clip to him, Big Guy and I had done our parts to encourage him by playing with him (I actually learnt the song at home and play side by side with him, and mind you I have no music background..). I make recording of his progress whenever he mastered a new piece, that really give him a sense of achievement. 

You may read more about the benefits exposing little ones to music here.

As for our little girl, we have yet to discover her music talent. She seemed to be more interested with singing and dancing albeit she likes to play with the piano at home pretending that she's practicing. Well, we shall see as she grow older, there is no need to hurry as learning shall be a journey to be enjoyed, not rushed. 

My little diva all dressed up to attend the concert. Isn't she looking beautiful? :)

Copyrights © Pui Hua and Fun With Little Ones, 2012 - present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any materials/photos within this website without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pui Hua and Fun With Little Ones with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. 

Fun With Music: Let's Play Piano (A Year Later...)

It's been exactly 1 year 6 months since captain E enrolled into the Yamaha piano lesson. He has been attending the weekly lesson under the guidance of the same teacher, diligently practicing at least twice a week with the electric piano we bough for him at home. 

Here's the key milestones check:

• He is now able to understand and recognise all the symbols (Treble clef, Base clef), notes (crotchet, minim, dotted minim, semi-breve, quaver), articulation marks (staccato, accent etc) and counting. This is after completing 2 theory books and 2 piano lesson books. 

• He is able to read and play with both hands simultaneously, among some of his favorite pieces are Mickey Waltz, Not So Easy Polka, My Grandfather's Clock, 500 Miles and Long long Ago.
• He has good control of the beat, he used to play at random speed (depending on his mood I suppose?) but now he is able to find his pace and play with right counting.

What really surprised me was that, he no longer fears to play in front of the crowd. When the teacher asked if he wants to sign up for the audition for the mid-year student concert, he hesitated  at first but after some thought he told me he is ready to sign up for the audition. It's clear that he has his fear (I explained to him what's an audition) but he overcame his fear of crowd. From a shy boy who would quietly shake his head to now braving himself to face the challenge... my little captain made me one proud mom. :)

We were the first to arrive for the audition, and he did a really steady performance despite there were many participants watching from outside glass door with me. Not the best performer, I would say, but he calmly greeted the 3 judges, played his chosen song and paused to re-continue when he made a mistake. I didn't expect him to be chosen for the concert, but the fact that he found his courage and took the responsibility to practice at home, I know my little captain had reached a new milestone. 

Apart from being able to play quite a many children and classical songs now, I noticed my little captain had learn to be more patience and responsible - practice on his free time without being forced. I didn't fixed a practice schedule for him, I want him to enjoy the music and play on his own will, not to play just because mommy says so. I'm glad things are working out well and I look forward to the day he will play like Jon Schmidt from the Piano Guys. *wishful thinking hits me again...*

By the way, if you do not know who The Piano Guys are, do check them out. The pair Jon Schmidt  and Steven Nelson plays the most inspiring music with their piano and cello.

If there is anything else to add, it's that this mommy also managed to learn some keyboard skill and played few pieces after practicing with him for sometimes. That is definitely a bonus for me!


To Sum It Up...
In case you would like to know more, here are some known benefits of introducing music to a child's development. There may be a lot more other recognised benefits, but I am only picking those that really matters to me as a parent:


#1 Music has a positive influence on young children's cognitive skills, such as spatial learning and memory, it helps to connect the cells in the brain. Research has shown that children who are actively involved with music (either play it or sing it regularly):

• do better in reading and math when they start school
• are better able to focus and control their bodies
• play better with others and have higher self-esteem

Translating the note to finger positioning requires good cognitive skill.

#2 It's a confident builder and helps children to break the social shell. "They find that they can develop a skill by themselves, that they can get better and better", expert says. 

#3 It teaches discipline. It is more than just attending classes on time, but instead music requires one to practice, practice and practice. The children will learn that to play their favorite piece of music they need to have the discipline to practice. We may not aim for prodigy (not me at least), but we would appreciate a child who know self discipline. 

#3 Last but not least, Music makes the children HAPPY. Let them experience the joy of listening and experiencing the music. Play along, sing along or even dance along with the them, make it an enjoyable experience that enriches the childhood.

That's all from me. May your little one has a happy music discovery journey too!


Copyrights © Pui Hua and Fun With Little Ones, 2012 - present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any materials/photos within this website without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pui Hua and Fun With Little Ones with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. 

Fun With Music - Let's Play Piano! 认识音乐第一章

When Ethan was around 18 months old, we bought him a Casio keyboard. Since the price was rather reasonable, we figured it's more worth it to get him a real functioning keyboards instead of a toy keyboard.

Ethan really loved it, he can sit and practice all by himself until he finally got the right tune. In particular, he was working hard to get "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" right, and he finally did. I can still recall the sparkles in his eyes when he played that song to me and hub for the first time, he was so proud and pleased with himself that he kept asking us, "is it nice?". We too, were feeling proud of him.

Soon after, he learnt to pluck the same song on his little ukulele bought by Daddy, it's a really lovely handcraft ukulele with a bear shape halo in the center. That's when hub and myself decided that he is probably ready for some music lessons.

Unfortunately, when we asked around few music centers, we were told the enrollment age was 4 years old and some suggested to let him try out music appreciation class, so we let him attended a 30 min trial session, where a group of small kids did clapping, body movement, tapping maracas etc under the direction of an instructor... He clearly did not enjoyed that so we decided not signed up and let him continued with self exploration under our guidance. This is to stick to our principal - we want him to enjoy what he does, not to do the things because we wanted him to.

Until one fine day, I passed by a nearby Yamaha school and I noticed they offer holiday class of 30min with choice of musical instruments from piano to guitar and drum for RM29 (weeekdays) and RM40 (weekends) per lesson. So I thought, no harm to give Ethan a try and see if he likes the class and is interested to start attending piano lesson.

Ethan during first piano lesson - learning to use bot left and right hands.

He was 3.5 yo then, and to my surprise, he totally enjoyed the class despite he was rather shy at first. The music teacher was obviously experience in handling young kids and managed to break the ice with Ethan, so eventually he opened up his heart and let the music flew freely.

It's been more than 4 months now and he still happily attend the classes every weekend, does his practice and homework at home (we got him an electronic piano). Even I got to learn the basic since parent is allowed to accompany the child, from chord recognition, note reading to playing simple songs; so it is indeed a fun activity that both mommy and son enjoyed. :)

In the middle of his lesson while teacher stepped out, he paused to let me snap a picture :)

So here I am now, sitting on the side of the piano watching my little handsome playing "We Wish You A Merry Christmas". It's amazing to see his determination to learn, memorise and to have the discipline to practice by himself (albeit we often had to remind him to complete his homework, after all who likes homework? ;)

Ethan practicing at night.. Some how this picture really touched my heart, I admired his self-initiative at such young age.

One can easily tell how much he enjoyed his lesson judging from his smile..

Sharing from My Experience

To end this post, here are my sharing with parents who cannot decide if its right time to enroll their kids into music lessons:

train up little one to master the finger skill through activities like building puzzles, drawing, playing blocks etc. playing musical instruments require good brain-eye-hand coordination (recognizing the note, translating it to the key and pressing the right key with right timing), so having those basic training certainly helps to give a good head start.

Enroll the little ones only after he/she learns to read and write and holding pens, the very least will be A - G, the music chords.

Doing his course work

Prepare music instruments at home for little ones to freely explore, give guidance and encouragement where possible. Since I had not acquired any music instrument skills since young, I often just sing aloud to my duo and play different types of music at home or while traveling, including my personal all time favorite - Beatles!

The educational DVDs, Baby Einstein and Little Einsteins are ideal options to introduce classical music to little ones since young. Ethan can recognize quite a number of classical pieces thanks to these videos..

Most importantly, get the right music teacher who can "click" with your little ones. The teacher should knows how to encourage and guide your little ones, and should be someone who genuinely likes kids. Attending trial lessons certainly helps to assess if the person is a right coach who can bring out the potential in your kiddo. I'm thankful that we found a right teacher in first trial, what a luck!

That's all folks. This post comes from the point of view of a music novice mommy, I welcome constructive feedback for the benefit of myself and other readers. Otherwise I hope you find this useful :)


Last Note...
This is only the beginning of Ethan's music journey and I'm determined to let him continues for as long as he remains interested. I do not expect him to be a great musician, but knowing how to play a musical instrument is definitely a useful skill, besides it helps to build patience and most importantly, music is food for our souls, just like reading. Since the fee is reasonable and my little boy had fun, I don't see a reason not to continue :)


Phew, what a long post... If you've read this far, thank you for reading and hope you find something useful here..

Ciao!



Copyrights © Pui Hua and Fun With Little Ones, 2012 - present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any materials/photos within this website without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pui Hua and Fun With Little Ones with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.