Piano

Cameron plays for the nursing home, 2011

Cameron has been taking lessons for a few years now.  We use a "modified Suzuki" method.  I liked the Suzuki method for the first moment I heard about it.  Although my father-in-law teases me that I should have gone with Kawasaki. (eye roll)

The Suzuki method was a good fit for us because it was not heavy on reading, an area in which Cameron struggles.  He also needed an early payoff to encourage him further. We are to train his ear to listen to music so that when he begins to play, he already has a frame of reference.  There is a lot of review of previously learned pieces.

Another aspect about Suzuki was encouragement to publicly preform when possible.  This is supposed to help the child become comfortable with playing.  Cameron has many opportunities to do this.  He plays occasionally for church offertories as well as at a nursing home.  He plays for his great-grandmother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and anyone who will listen.  Most of his pieces become memorized and therefore he doesn't need to tote along music to be able to do this.

The "modified" part of his lessons is that she also teaches sight reading from the start.  This means he is learning traditional piano music along side the Suzuki classical pieces.  He plays hymns and folk songs as well as Beethoven, Mozart and Bach.