This afternoon, I started (again) music lessons for beginners in our small church in our small city, Kidapawan, Philippines.
I’m writing this just to document what I am doing so that if this lessons will happen again in the future, I can refer to this post again for ideas on what to teach.
I had 4 students.
Before our lesson started (after the Bible reading and prayer of course), I made them listen and watch Greg Howlett play “His Eye is On The Sparrow”.
[In case you are interested, Here is his blog post about his work on “His Eye is On the Sparrow”]
After watching that, I asked them if they want to become as good as Greg Howlett.
They said “Yes!” of course!
Then I told them that I am not able to make them as good as Greg Howlett 
… but I am able to teach them basic concepts about music and the piano.
I told them that if they want to become like Greg Howlett, they can make him their teacher someday, and learn lots of stuff from him, when they already have a job and can be able to pay for his online music school.
Then I told them that we will not be calling our sessions “Piano Lessons” because I think I am not the best piano teacher they can have. Instead, we will call it _“Music Lessons: Using the piano as our primary tool” (I intend to use the voice as our secondary tool).
Outline of the Lesson
I. The Three Elements of Music
- Melody - (ang gina-kanta)
- Rhythm - (the counting/beats)
- Harmony - (ex. SATB, chords)
II. The staff and the notation being used by musicians today
- C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C
- do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do
- 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8
- I-II-III-IV-V-VI-VII-
- i-ii-iii-iv-v-vi-vii-
- where is middle C on the staff with a G-clef
III. How to locate C on the keyboard.
- using the group of 2 black keys and the group of 3 black keys
III. How to play “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Stars”
After the lessons I gave them a copy of the sheet music of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Stars” which I downloaded from www.music-for-music-teachers.com.
