• 1. Playing and memorizing songs with the Gentle Piano software program
• 2. Keeping the record of song learning
• 3. The order of songs to start the piano learning
• 4. Solfeggio
• 5. The advanced ear training
• 6. Teaching how to play music chords on the piano
• 7. Improving the music reading skills
• 8. Writing a music dictation

1. Playing and memorizing songs with the Gentle Piano software program

1. Start the Gentle Piano program. Choose a song to practice (press F).
   
2. Press the computer key S to hear the chosen song. The sound of a song will activate the student's musical skills, especially musical ear and memory. The student may pre-listen to this song even twice or more times if she's never heard it before.
   
3. Start to play the song on the piano with the left hand (press L).  Choose a  music score representation comfortable for the student (press a key from 1 to 6). For beginners, it will be the 1^st representation, for more advanced students it may be 3^rd, 5^th or even 6^th representation. Play the song 3-6 times, gradually increasing the music score representation if the student has experienced no difficulty playing the song using the previous score representation. With small children before 5-years old, you may stay for a long time with 1^st representation, and you don't usually go higher than the 4^th representation. If the student practiced enough, you may hide the music notes (press L, and then H), and ask the student to play the left hand by memory. For playing by memory, you may return to a more comfortable score representation.
   
4. Play the song on the piano 3-6 times with the right hand (press R), beginning from a comfortable music score representation, and gradually increasing this representation. While practicing, we recommend that you sing the music note names you are playing for memorizing the song, and training your music ear. After enough practice, you may hide the music notes (by pressing R, and then H), and try to play the right part of the song by heart.
   
5. Play the song on the piano 3-6 times with both hands (press P), beginning from a comfortable music score representation, and gradually increasing this representation. After enough practice, try to memorize the song by hiding all the notes (press P, and then H). If you dedicated the entire lesson to the song memorization, we recommend, before playing by heart, to play the song several times by reading it.
   

If your song is too long or difficult, select different parts of this song, and learn them as independent songs. Use the Left, Right, Up and Down  arrows to set a time point, and press Ctrl-Enter to set the beginning of a selected part, and Ctrl-Backspace to set the end of the selected part. After you have learned all these parts, try to play and learn the song as a whole. To remove the selection, press Ctrl-Space.

2. Keeping the record of song learning

Every student must have a diary of piano practice. Dedicate a page or two for a song. Write the title of the song on the top of the page, the name of composer, and the book where this song came from. Write the date, and results of the student practice.

Use the following abbreviations:

R1 - Right Hand, 1^st representation ( vertical with pictures)
R2 - Right Hand, 2^nd representation ( vertical with no pictures)
R3 - Right Hand, 3^rd representation ( horizontal with pictures)
R4 - Right Hand, 4^th representation (horizontal without pictures)
R5 - Right Hand, 5^th representation (black and white )
R6 - Right Hand, 6^th representation (black and white)

L1 - L6 Left hand (6 different representations)

P1 - P6 Both hands (6 different representations)

R1H - R6H Hiding ( for memorization) the Right hand

L1H - L6H - Hiding (for memorization) the Left hand

P1H - P6H - Hiding (for memorization) both hands

Usually I ask my students play one thing 2 times, and compare the numbers. It is always very motivating to see how the student is progressing. For example, if my student is learning the song ODE TO JOY by L. Beethoven, the working sheet will look like this:

L. Beethoven ODE TO JOY (Introductory Songs)

7^th of February 2004

Points/Time

R1  20/35    22/20  

L1  15/20    17/10

P1  30/40    34/25

If the number of points is growing, and the time is decreasing - the student is making the strong and definite progress.

After the student quite fluently plays the song, it is time to learn how to play the right hand, left hand, and then both hands by heart. After choosing your hand, press H. The musical notes of the hand to play will be hidden. For the right hand, the result record will be:

         Points / Time

R1H        /      

3. The order of songs to start the piano learning

This order is only a recommendation for starting learning the piano. Some of these song books are included in the Soft Mozart software package, other you can find in our on-line Song Library. Any teacher is welcome to explore the Soft Mozart song library to find the most appropriate songs to learn with their students.

• Hot Cross Buns
• French Song
• Ode To Joy
• Jingle Bells

The songs from the "Introductory Songs" book are appropriate even for adults to start learning the piano with. For young children (before 5 years old) who experience difficulty to play musical chords, start with the songs from Nursery Songs Primer and Favorite Classics Primer. The student must learn how to fluently play 3-4 songs from each album, and memorize some of them to move to the next level.

• Musette

• This Old Man
• Lazy Mary
• Hickory, Dickory, Dock
• Pop! Goes the Weasel

• Largo
• Ode to Joy
• Morning Mood

After these songs, continue with other songs from Favorite Classics 1, Christmas Carols, Christmas Classics, Favorite Classics 2.

If a student have easily learned 3-4 songs from each of these albums, both reading and playing by heart, you may choose more advanced songs from our extended Song Library. It is a very effective approach to give a student, even a small child, to choose the song they would like to play. Playing a favorite song brings joy, and gives the student motivation to learn it faster and better.

4. Solfeggio

In order to develop a good music ear, and improve inner music perception, we strongly recommend to practice Solfeggio - a very important part of music education worldwide. Solfeggio includes the singing of music with the Solfeggio music note names (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La and Ti). Solfeggio provide ear training, improving the ability to sing out loud and inside of your own mind,  to "hear" any music in your mind by looking at music score, and to memorize and write down any melody by ear.

1. Start the Gentle Piano program. Pick a song with the simple tune in the right or both hands. We recommend to use songs from the Songs for Solfeggio and Learning Chords books available in our Song Library.
2. Choose the Solfeggio note names (press I). Choose the 1^st or 3^rd music score representation (press 1 or 3) to see the note name symbols.
3. Press S to listen to the song.
4. Press R to practice the right hand. Ask the student to play the song on the piano with the right hand, and sing the Solfeggio names of the notes she is playing, trying to follow the tune with her voice.
5. After practice, ask the student to play and sing the same song on the presentations #2, #4 , #5 and #6 to improve her sight reading.
6. If the student achieved perfect score (the number in the left part of monitor), and timing is also good, you may start to memorize the song. Ask the student to sing and play the song by heart (press R, choose a representation 1-6, and press H).

5. The advanced ear training

In all of the Soft Mozart games, any note, in any representation, produces sound. During the entire practice, consciously or subconsciously, a player is trained to connect the name of the note, or position of the note on the Music Staff, with its corresponding pitch. Playing songs with Solfeggio, and memorizing songs provide effective ear training. Here are some of the advanced exercises for improving musical ear of students with the help of our piano teaching software: 

After the student have practiced the Guess key game long enough to easily find a correct piano key, turn the monitor away from the student to force her to find a correct piano key only by sound of a note. Ask the student to say the name of this note, and play it on the piano. 

Using the Gentle Piano software program

With the Gentle Piano program, students can comfortably learn to play songs on the piano by ear.

1. Choose a simple song. Pre-listen to the song several times (press S).  
2. Ask student to repeat this song on the piano using one or both hands, but without seen the music score  (press R or P, then press H). Our interactive software will assists the student in difficult places. If the student fails to repeat it by memory, listen to the song again and ask the student to try again.

6. Teaching how to play music chords on the piano

All the music based on the three chord functions: Tonica, Dominant and Subdominant. Tonica is the most stable chord, a "center" of gravity and all other chords need to by "resolved" with this chord at least at the end of any composition. Dominant is the most "unstable" chord and it appears most of the time right before Tonica, because it needs to be "resolved" the most. Subdominant is the semi "unstable" chord. In music compositions it usually comes between Tonica and Dominant. 

Our program is ideally suited for students and music lovers to help them to learn how to play this chords on the piano by ear, following different melodies.

Start the Gentle Piano program. Select one of the Songs for Solfeggio and Learning Chords song books available in our Song Library. Use 1^st level for beginners, or 2^nd level for more advanced students. In these songs, the left hand part consists of basic chords accompanying the melody in particular music key. Practice all the songs from the selected song book before moving to another book with a different music key. 

Instructions for the very beginners:

1. Pick a song, preferably the one the student has previously learned how to sing on Solfeggio
2. Select to play the left hand (press L), and choose a music note representation by pressing 1-6. Choose the 1^st or 3^rd representation in case the student is having difficulties with music sight reading, or choose 2^nd, 4^th, 5^th or 6^{th (}advanced).
3. Ask the student to play the song on the piano until she would learn how to play chords without mistakes.
4. Hide the music notes for the left hand (press L and then H), and ask the student to play the chords in the left hand by heart

Instructions for the more advanced beginners:

1. Chose a new song.
2. Press S to listen to it.
3. Choose the left hand by pressing L, and then H to hide the music notes, and ask the student to play chords intuitively.
4. Check the game score with the ideal in the left corner of your computer monitor.

7. Improving the music reading skills

Besides our theory games which develop particular reading skills of the student, and playing and memorizing songs with the Gentle Piano game, gradually increasing the music score representation, you can use following effective methods to train the reading skills of advanced students:

1. Start the Gentle Piano program. Ask a student to read and play a song from an album of a much easier level than the current level of the student, with one or both hands, using the 4^th, 5^th or 6^th music score representation (press P, L or R, and then 4, 5 or 6). The student must read and play this song without first hearing it. 
2. Listen to the song (press S).
3. Ask the student to play the song again, trying to improve the result. 

The choice of the music staff representation depends on the age and level of the student. If student experiences difficulties, you may switch to the easier level, or even to 3^rd representation to see the note name symbols.

8. Writing a music dictation

After the student have learned the position of the notes on the Treble, and later Bass staff, use our piano software to practice the music dictation. Begin the practice with songs having simple melody in right hand. We recommend to use the songs from "Solfeggio Chords" song books from the Soft Mozart song library.

1. Ask the student to play a song on the piano using the Gentle Piano program, and sing Solfeggio to memorize the song.
2. Take music paper and ask the student to write the learned song down. Start with marking only the pitch of the musical notes. In the next step, ask the student to identify and mark the time values of the notes.
3. Check the result by matching the student's writing with the image on the song on the 6^th representation.

Tip: We recommend to write music notes by "sticks", not "circles", in order to make this process the fastest and the most fluent possible.

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