Free Music Lessons!

I didn't realize how much I actually understand about music until earlier this week, when one of my friends asked if I could teach her how to read music and play the piano. I told her that I'm no pro at the piano (or at teaching, for that matter), but I could probably help her learn some of the basics. She said that it was fine, and that she hasn't had any musical training before and that playing sheet music on the piano is something she's always wanted to learn.  

I've never taught anyone about music (my music talk tends to lose most people), let alone teach somebody how to play an instrument before, so I was kind of really nervous about the idea at first... but also really excited at the thought of being able to share something like this with another person!!! Hopefully this will be fun for the both of us! And hopefully I won't be counterproductive and teach her something that is wrong. :-/

Anyway, I'm still getting used to creating mini "lesson plans," and figuring out the best way to explain the fundamentals of music to a person who has no past musical experience... but it's like my head is exploding from all of thoughts I have about music and how to read and create it and the history and science behind it all and everything, and now, for the first time, I have to try to organize and present that information in a somewhat-coherent manner that will not overwhelm my "student," while being prepared to answer any "why?"-questions she may ask (like, Why are these notes assigned letter names? What is the significance of having multiple C's on a keyboard? Why are there different clefts? Why aren't C-sharp and D-flat the same?).  It's kind of really hard to explain something that is second-nature to you to a person who hasn't been exposed to any of it before, but hopefully, at least some of what we do in these lessons will help guide her towards achieving her goal. :)

Our first "session" was only about 40 minutes long... most of this time was spent introducing her to the idea of the equal-tempered octave and the layout of a piano keyboard, as well as explaining a few of the symbols seen in piano sheet music (note placement, the Grand Staff, the concept of a measure/bar of music, dynamics).  Hopefully she will do her homework and practice identifying which notes go with each of the lines and spaces in the Grand Staff; I'm hoping that after she gets these down, we will be able to start reading (and playing) simple melodies. Also, for our next lesson, I think it would be a good idea to introduce her to simple note/rest time values (quarter, half, whole), as well as the C major scale and how to play without looking at your fingers (fingering/coordination). Even though I'm still new at teaching music, from past experience, I feel that teaching somebody about/how to do something oftentimes helps yourself to better understand the subject, too. 

Hopefully, these "lessons" will be more useful than confusing to my friend... and that this will be a [positive] learning experience for us both!