今井音楽教室/ピアノ教室
Since April, 2020
Welcome to the website of Imai Music Studio! We are a bilingual Piano and music school centered in the skip shopping street, which is conveniently located from JR Musashisakai Station in Musashino-shi in Tokyo. You can take piano, music theory, and Kinder Music group class in Japanese or English. It is a cozy and friendly music school where students of all ages, levels and nationalities attend from all over in Tokyo.
PIANO
The piano is special compared to the violin and other musical instruments. Unlike stringed instruments such as the violin and monophonic instruments such as wind instruments, to play the piano, you play the melody and harmony at the same time. The difficulty and splendor of playing the piano is that the player becomes the conductor of the orchestra and plays the accompaniment, melody, and parts of various instruments alone. For that purpose, we will read a lot of sounds and improve the reading comprehension of the score. At the same time as reading the sound, I will study the beat and the rhythm. Sound is just one element of making music. If you can feel the harmony between sound and rhythm, you can feel the music itself and experience the joy of music. We do not have a fixed textbook, etc., as we will proceed with the lessons according to each person's pace and personality. At the very beginning, use a textbook that you can enjoy, and gradually narrow down the direction according to the individual. The lessons are comprehensive.
Students / children course to learn the piano for the first time
The lesson will proceed with the basic form plus. The basic form is rhythm and on-yomi.
-
Rhythm and reading notes
keeping steady beat and reading notes are not an easy task. I a band, the drummer keeps the beat, and the bass, guitar, and vocals ride on it. If the drummer's beat isn't right, everyone will fall apart. When practicing the rhythm, it becomes a set with the beat. It's easy to focus on reading notes, but you can think of beats and rhythm as more important elements of music than the notes when playing the piano. If you can grasp that feeling, the sound will flow naturally.
-
Solfege and perfect pitch
Singing song in pitch (Doremi) is called solfege. If you are able to sing in mind when you see the score, it will be much easier to play. I will try to imitate the song on the piano (except for some contemporary music). The more you hear it as if you are singing, the higher the level of performance. The piano is a keyboard instrument, and it is also a difficult instrument to express compared to strings and wind instruments.
At the same time, it seems that the sense of pitch leads to the self-confidence of children. "Sing in pitch" cannot be learned just by learning the piano. It is a skill that you can definitely master in Solfege.
-
Teaching materials
Faber and Faber, Thompson, Piano Dream, Solfege for children are often used text books. . Since the textbooks are designed for beginners, each textbook has its own characteristics. For example, the position of the hand starting from the C position, starting from the black key, starting from the 1st finger, and avoiding the 1st finger etc. Students often use multiple textbooks and print-outs, and try to shift to the real compositions by Gillock and Kabalevsky as soon as possible.
Students / children course within 3 years of learning the piano
It depends on the age at which you started, but when you are in the second or third grade of elementary school, you may be able to play Burgmüller, Sonatine, etc. From around this time, it was time to come into contact with various composers in combination with textbooks. You will also be able to play Gillock, Kabalevsky, and Mozart's menuets. It's a little more difficult than a textbook, but the songs are good, so you can feel like trying. It is around this time that the level of difficulty and skill level rises.
In the middle grades with understanding, music theory books are often used together. The good thing about music theory teaching materials is that you don't have to spend too much lesson time doing your homework at home. It may sound difficult to hear as a music theory textbook, but at first it is a book that summarizes essential things for reading music, such as how to read sounds, names of rhythms, and meanings of time signatures. It will come out in the lesson, but it is difficult to remember if there is a lot of information. We will use it in the textbook to accurately reinforce the parts that we do not understand.
Start practicing the scale as soon as possible. The scale is the basis of piano technology, as it can be said that there is no song that cannot be played if the scale is played.
Advanced course
If you do your best in your daily practice, you can play Beethoven, Mozart's sonatas, etc. in the upper grades of elementary school and junior high school students. Go back to the basics and practice a lot of scales and technique practice. We will deepen our knowledge and consciousness by expanding the range of musical and philosophical elements and composers to study.