TEACHING MUSICAL INTRUMENTS _COGNITIVISM

I was a piano teacher who experienced with traditional classes. I would like to share my teaching method and then come up with my own conclusion about the underlying theory.

First days, I will show my students black and white keys, high and low tone areas in the keyboard, and finger number. After about one month, I will teach them about staff, 7 notes and their positions in the keyboard. The students are expected to read scores, play, and sing along. They also need to learn musical terms and signs. As a result, according to their technique skills, they can read and play any new pieces. They become musically literate. Personally, my method is cognitivism when my students learn step by step musical ideas which are stored and retrieved over the time.

There are some apps which does not explain nor teach structurally. They simply show a keyboard and light up keys which should be played. What children have to do is watching where those keys were and press on them. After spending hours for practicing, they can play a whole piece. The way in which students learn to play a piece is behaviorism. Lighted keys are stimuli reinforced time over time and contribute to the children’s passive learning. Even though they can play, they are not musically literate at all.

In my opinion, in learning to play musical instruments, traditional classes with it cognitive perspective are irreplaceable. Apps are obviously much more appealing, they can help to stimulate children’s interest at first but will not work for long-term.