When Andrew Ingkavit’s son wanted to learn piano at age 3, no teacher was willing to take him. This started him on his quest to find a way to teach his son and eventually lead to the creation of the Musicolor method for preschoolers and other beginners.
Listen in to learn how Andrew integrates colours into his method, how it is sequenced and his philosophy on music teaching.
Transcript
If you’d like to download a PDF transcript of this episode, please click below.
In this episode, you’ll learn
- Why Andrew decided to create a method book
- How colour is used in the method
- Why the Musicolor starts with vertical notation
- How it avoids position or finger number based thinking
- Andrew’s 7 core principles of music teaching
- Which type of student this method is particularly suited to
Links Mentioned
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Does the Musicolor method approach appeal to you?
Did you agree with any particular part of Andrew’s teaching philosophies? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. 🙂
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3 Comments
Enjoyed the interview, Tim. I think you were able to bring out what needed to be said about the method.
Thanks Tim and Andrew for this interesting podcast and thank you Tim for mentioning my piano method.
As to reading vertically I have the same experience as Andrew. It’s easier for beginner students to understand and it’s really no problem for them to adapt when the sheet is rotated by 90 degrees so that they have to read in the regular (horizontal) reading direction.
As professional musicians we are used to read horizontally. Therefor we experience reading from top to bottom (vertically) as awkward. Not all teachers are aware of that now and then it is crucial to differentiate between what is natural for themselves and what are the needs of a student. We do that all the time. Just one example: Young students are taught about steps and skips but of course professionals think seconds and thirds. Wouldn’t it be extremely awkward to discuss a melodic contour with a colleague and use step an skip instead of the professional terms?
My method (PianoSeesaw.com) is designed for students at the ages 7-10. I tried it though with my 5 year old daughter some years ago. She just understood intuitively the simplified notation (which transforms during the method step by step into the regular notation). And here’s my point: If reading can be done intuitively, the teacher doesn’t need to use much time on teaching it and has therefore more time to focus on other things like playing by ear, musicality, keyboard awareness, technique and so on.
University of Tromsø, Norway
Thanks so much for a wonderful interview Tim. Great questions. That was so fun! I hope to come down under one day and meet you. Cheers from Brooklyn!