Debbie Cavalier of Debbie and Friends, a music
educator and dean at Berklee College of Music and one of the top children’s music artists in the nation just published the  Learning To Play Piano for the Very Young book this fall. Cavalier created the book with her grandfather, noted arranger/composer Marty Gold.

With this fun, new pre-primer piano method, young children may:
• learn to read the treble clef and note names using colorful pictures.
• get started playing familiar melodies with their right hand.
• learn to play seven well-loved songs including favorites such as “Twinkle, Twinkle” and “Jingle Bells.”
• enjoy family sing alongs with the guitar chord chart, included.

Learning to Play Piano is designed for the parent and child to experience making music together. The pre-primer method book is filled with active participatory activities: writing in note names, tracing hands, writing in finger numbers, clapping, singing and playing melodies. The pull-out Keyboard Tent (included) provides a fun visual reference to associate notes on the page to keys on the piano. Children learn to play familiar melodies with their right hand gain the readiness skills needed to graduate to any commercially available piano method. The full-color book is filled with words of encouragement and
praise from the familiar Debbie and Friends cartoon character.  Cavalier says Learning To Play Piano is a readiness method for the parent and child to experience together. It prepares kids for further study with a piano teacher using any of the commercially-available methods.

“The melodies are familiar, so there’s immediate satisfaction as kids learn to play songs they know. Parents don’t have to be trained musicians to enjoy working through the material with their child from start to finish,” says Cavalier, who has written several other music method books for children.  Parents and kids who have tested the book are raving about the book’s kid-friendly features.

As a piano teacher myself, one of the questions I am asked the most is, “What age should I start piano lessons for my child?”  I almost always say they should wait until they can read, but after reviewing this book, I think that a child as young as three would be able to understand the concepts taught.  By using pictures instead of letters to help identify each note, any child able to match pictures would be able to play these songs.  My two daughters (ages 4 and 5) were able to play every song in the book without much help.  After a few lessons they started understanding that some notes are longer than others, but since they knew all the songs it came easy.  I would recommend this book to anyone thinking about putting their child in piano lessons.  It would be a perfect introductory course that the parent could do with their child before hiring an actual teacher.

Learning To Play Piano for the Very Young is a great book for preschool aged children and can be purchased on the Debbie and Friends website and retails for $9.95.

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Disclosure: I received Learning To Play Piano for the Very Young for free in order to try the product and form an opinion for this review. I was not compensated in any other manner. The opinions expressed above are my own.