Friday, May 4

Free Piano Lessons

I try not to gush about products on here for fear you'll miss the sincerity of how truly great I think a product is. But I've found a program that is completely gush-worthy and I absolutely have to share. It is Hoffman Academy and my kids love it.

I love the piano and I really want my children to at least know the basics of playing the piano. But it would thrill me to no end if one of them fell in love with the piano and pursued it more seriously. I'm a homeschooling mom and I've had plenty of piano lessons myself, so why not just teach them? Because, like I said, I really want them to fall in love with it. This is one area where I just can't seem to relax and teach the love the lesson to my kids. If I taught their piano lessons, the lessons would end in tears. But this program is taught by a nice teacher who makes it fun to learn the piano.

The instructor is Joseph Hoffman, M.M. and he has a gift for teaching piano to kids. My girls are 6 and 8 and they immediately picked up on his lessons and absorbed what he taught. They loved running back and forth from computer to piano to try out their new skills. The lessons are approximately 10 minutes each of recording, but practice is essential, so lessons will obviously need to be longer than that.

The lessons really are free, but there is a downloadable ebook available. It is full of activities which help reinforce the video lessons. It is a great book and my girls enjoy doing the lessons. It doesn't contain any silly fluff, such as crossword puzzles or mazes, it's real piano lesson material that is enjoyable. The book is very helpful for solidifying the concepts learned in the lessons and I strongly recommend it. The ebook part isn't free, but how much do piano lessons generally cost? How about the piano books that go with those lessons? How about multiple copies of piano workbooks for all of your children? In reality, that ebook is hundreds of dollars cheaper than a year of piano lessons. Something I really appreciate about these lessons is the lack of advertising on the site. It is clean and professional. Even if I didn't like the ebook, I'd happily pay it as a donation to a great program. But I do, I really do, love the ebook.

The quality of the lessons is impressive. I have one son that did a year of piano lessons and never learned to read the notes. With Hoffman's method, students begin creatively learning the order of the notes on a scale in the 2nd lesson. Students also learn chords as they quickly move along. I hope it is a rare thing for a program not to teach chording, but through 7 years of piano lessons, I never had a piano teacher teach me chords. On the opposite extreme, some "quick" methods only teach chords.

As all of the lessons are available online for free, it's easy to sample and see if you like it. And if you purchase the ebook but decide it isn't worth it, you can get a refund within 60 days. Not bad, right?

1 comment:

Nezzy (Cow Patty Surprise) said...

I'd be tempted myself if I hadn't given the keyboard away. Heeheehehe!!!

Sound fantastic!

Have a great day and wonderful weekend sweetie!!! :o)

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