The Early Years Learner  

In this line of work many learners come to me at age 7 or 8 to begin piano lessons. It’s more unusual to have piano learners starting at age 4, 5 or 6 but can be so rewarding and worthwhile. I want to share with other teachers and with parents of prospective early years learners the benefits of learning at this age and how to go about teaching or supporting a young learner.  

At what age can a child learn piano? 

How long is a piece of string? It really depends on the learner and what you mean by ‘learn piano.’ If you mean at what age can the average child begin to understand how to read music successfully and work towards playing fluent hands-together pieces with good levels of control and dexterity, then yes age 7 or 8 is a good reference point. But at age 4, 5 or 6 they can also begin some really worthwhile music education at the piano in one to one or small group lessons in addition to their classroom music lessons which they might be receiving in school.  

Why start piano lessons so young? 

There are lots of advantages to starting any activity at an early age. That’s not to say older learners are at a big disadvantage, they have other strengths that 4 year olds don’t, but the old adage ‘children are like sponges’ is absolutely true according to psychologists,¹ in fact, the younger the ‘spongier’ so why not strike while the iron is hot?  

They also tend to be super-enthusiastic about new things while they are young and find everything fun. Not many 9-year-olds are that thrilled with playing Hot Cross Buns to start with.  

In my experience, those learners who have started off piano lessons very early on have a better foundation and grounding of musical skills and knowledge. They haven’t rushed through the basics to get on to reading music and straight away and attaining grades. When this happens you often find big gaps in learner’s basic knowledge – they might be able to play a grade 2 piece perfectly but it has been learnt by rote and they have no idea of what key they are playing in or how to read the music from the page.  

They have progressed to more exciting repertoire by the time they begin to crave playing it as they’ve got all the simple stuff which we often learn through nursery rhymes learnt and in the bag. 

Piano or keyboard lend themselves particularly well to learning at an early age because you don’t need much strength and the perfection of difficult technique to make a nice sound. If a 3-year-old presses any key on the piano is will sounds nice. String, wind and brass instruments require more control and strength in various ways.  

So if your 4/5 year old child is interested in music there’s no harm in giving piano lessons a try, and teachers out there who start from age 7 or upwards, I would really encourage you to have a go at teaching this younger age group.  

Are there any drawbacks to learning young?  

The one and only drawback in my opinion is that a very young learner’s dexterity is not all there yet – their hands aren’t quite fully developed so it’s bound to be the case. But this won’t be a problem if lessons are structured correctly and everyone has the right sort of expectations.  

What will lessons for a young learner be like? 

Everyone needs to be aware lessons at this age will look a little different from those for a 7 to 9 year old. Just as lessons taught in reception class at primary school are very different from those for year 3 to year 5 pupils.  

In piano lessons for ages 4 to 6, including in my video course and e-book I focus on these key bits of learning with my beginners: 

• Feeling the pulse and playing with a good sense of a steady pulse 
• Understanding general concepts like high and low pitch and going up and down in pitch 
• Keyboard geography – knowing what notes are where – focusing on the white notes only and even building these up very slowly.  

• Building a small repertoire of very simple tunes beginning with only 3 notes using one hand at a time, then eventually progressing to tunes that share the melody between the two hands but don’t yet use the hands simultaneously. Depending on the learner you may attain varying levels of fluency with these.  
• Playing with accurate rhythm by internalizing the tunes before playing 
• Establishing good basic technique of using next door fingers for next door notes and a relaxed curved hand shape. Because of hand development and level of dexterity at this age as mentioned previously, this might only be three fingers to begin with – the index, middle and ring fingers are best to start with – referred to as fingers 2, 3 and 4 
• Engendering creativity by exploring and improvising on the piano 
• General musicianship skills  

How do we do this:  

• Internalizing the music before playing is a big part of my lessons at this stage. I sing to the learners, they sing along too. We do actions or movements with the music. We clap, we stomp, we draw the pitch of the tune in the air. The learner needs to know the sound they are aiming for before doing it.  
• Copying. When first playing new tune at the piano once they have internalized it we learn a lot by rote – simply showing learners a few notes at a time and getting them to copy, then gradually building up longer sections and following the note-names written on the page in front of them too.  
• Games. I’ll be doing further posts soon to expand upon this, but to give you an idea some of my ‘go-tos’ are copy my rhythm (with a clap or stomp, or on a drum or on any key/keys on the piano), octave chase (I play a C they must play the C 1 octave higher, I play E, they must play E one octave higher) guess the tune/guess the line (I play a tune or a snippet of a tune and they tell me which one or which part it is). The possibilities are endless and as long as they are learning or solidifying their musical skills or knowledge in some small way it is really worthwhile use of lesson time or practice time with the help of a parent.  
• Off-stool activities. Little ones of this age can’t be expected to sit still for very long. Work with that. I love using the floor piano to do our tunes on a bigger scale. We also use a pointing finger in the air or use our whole bodies to represent three different pitches in a tune sometimes – standing up straight is the highest note, bent at the knees is the middle one and crouching touching the floor is the lowest note. Using shakers, bells, hand drums etc. Can be a great break from the piano and ideal for learning rhythms. Singing with actions is also a regular occurrence in my lessons. If you start kids doing this while they’re young and never stop it won’t be awkward for them while their older either.  
• Repetition, repetition, repetition. I find a lot of method books and perhaps a lot of teachers shy away from repetition and rush us through the learning process. To get a good foundation repetition is key. I don’t just mean playing your new piece 20 times through during a lesson, but I do mean going over concepts and skills in different ways, revising things, revisiting things. A LOT. 

• Improvising. It is fantastic to breed creativity by sitting at the piano and making up your own music in the moment as you go along, but it’s also a really useful tool for solidifying learning such as finding Ds by improvising a piece using only this note, or exercising certain fingers or patterns. Again, there will be a more detailed post to follow which will be of use to teachers, parents and adult learners. Watch this space.  
• Rewarding. While some learners this age are very self-motivated or thrive on your praise alone, others might need some carrots to help them stick to what you have asked them to do, either in lessons or at practice time. “Play this line two more times for me then you can….” Some of my rewards include stickers (obvs!), ‘choosing time’ – they get to decide on which musical game we play, making teddy dance to the music I am going to play for you next, using some technology – a musical app, synthesizer etc.  
• Forget about traditional method books to start with – I do not start my young beginners on any of the books on the market until we have a good grasp of all those things I mentioned earlier. I use my own materials which have only written out note names in to begin with then note names written above note symbols of very simple values. I don’t think it’s worth diving into using notation straight away with them. This comes a little later. 

Parents, my great value video piano course for young learners is available now and is a fun and flexible way to give piano a go with your little one at a very young age. It is helpful if an adult can watch and help out during viewing.

The simple e-book I use within my video courses and when teaching face-to-face lessons, Piano Success, is also available separately and might be of interest to families that perhaps have some musical knowledge already, or might be useful to teachers working with this age group or thinking of doing so. Find out more on our shop page.  

¹ Vanessa LoBue Ph.D. – Pshycology Today –  Why Children Are So Good at Learning | Psychology Today United Kingdom