"Understand-Play-Read" Method for Beginners.

As a foreigner living in USA (I am Russian), I compare learning music to learning a new language. Let's look and compare together:

Step 1.

Learning a foreign language:

First you try to understand what people try to tell you. You analyze how the language is constructed. You repeat words and phrases. I think, everyone has experienced this: you ask a speaker of a language you are learning, to teach you how to say "Good morning" or "Thank you" in their native language. It is a "famous" ;-) teaching method: "You show-I repeat after you" A lot of people make a great start with this simple technique.

Learning music:

First you try to understand music, how it is made: what is a melody, where the sounds go up, and where they go down, and so on. "You show-I repeat" method works just great here, too. That's how we can work with hand position, different touch, learning keys, even learning chords (!).

Step 2.

Learning a foreign language:

You learn new words by ear. Then you start speaking.

Learning music:

You try to find familiar tunes by ear. Then you start playing.

Step 3.

Learning a foreign language:

When you speak and understand a language, you can learn how to read. For some people this visual support is very important, so they start reading almost at the same time as speaking. This all depends on type of personality of the student. That's why psychological judgment and flexibility is so very important in a teacher.

Learning music:

When you know your keys, can play and understand what you are doing on the piano, it is a good time to start reading. You are able to control your reading by ear, and logically understand how the melody or chord is made. Thus, you don't just read note-by note, but you see a whole complex, a logical pattern. Music is all built on combinations of patterns. These patterns determine a music style.

Unfortunately, most popular teaching methods offer teaching starting from reading first, then playing, then (hopefully!) understanding what are you playing...

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