Beginner Kids Piano Lessons

[Mike Singh]

Hi Everyone
My daughter started piano lessons last year. Her teacher and I have started to put together a video series based on the lessons in the book TUNES FOR TEN FINGERS. The aim of these videos is to provide an aide mémoir for the child and supervising parent, following their lesson. It is not designed for purely online learning. It is expected that the child will read the notes from the book and play as per their teacher’s instructions and not just copy the finger movements on the video.


The main features of the videos are:
1. Short and to the point. No distracting elements.
2. Focused to show only the range of keys used.
3. Played slowly so that the child can follow.


The video was filmed on a Canon R6 with the in camera microphone. I edited the video on VSDC: brightness, contrast and colour correction. The audio was exported to Audacity with the following alterations done: noise reduction, click removal and normalise. There is an annoying hot spot on one of the left white keys. IÂ’d appreciate your feedback. We will hopefully do series 2 soon. Please see the below link for an example of our video.

https://youtu.be/pLQDKcRG84A

Mike

[TimStannard]

Only in the context of what you've written above (as a turorial itself it woudn't work at all) I wouldn't sweat the videoi quality too much. The sound is pretty poor though. Forget tidying up the in camera mic. Get a mic close to the piano. Even something like a Zoom H1 will improvie on this. Syncing is really not difficult. Make a sharp nose (clap) which will create a spike in the wafeform of both the video's audio track and that of the avudio only recording - easy to line up. Having said that, many software editing packages will do this automatically anyway.
I would have liked to see a visual representation of the beat.

[Mike Singh]

Only in the context of what you've written above (as a turorial itself it woudn't work at all) I wouldn't sweat the videoi quality too much. The sound is pretty poor though. Forget tidying up the in camera mic. Get a mic close to the piano. Even something like a Zoom H1 will improvie on this. Syncing is really not difficult. Make a sharp nose (clap) which will create a spike in the wafeform of both the video's audio track and that of the avudio only recording - easy to line up. Having said that, many software editing packages will do this automatically anyway.
I would have liked to see a visual representation of the beat.

Thanks for your feedback Tim. I have since bought a Rode videomic to plug-in. I can move the mic closer on the extension cable. We are a zero budget team!

I have neither the skills or the time to do a video representation of the note or beat. We don’t want the student to look at the screen whilst playing. They must read the notes from the book. It’s the only way they will progress with note reading. I do appreciate that everyone’s learning style is different and some students may benefit from that.

Mike

[Jediboy]

As someone who has recently started piano lesson and watched loads and loads of Youtube videos, I found this to be helpful.
Tim has already commented on the technical aspects of the video much better than I could, but as a simple tutorial I could get on with this.

[Mike Singh]

As someone who has recently started piano lesson and watched loads and loads of Youtube videos, I found this to be helpful.
Tim has already commented on the technical aspects of the video much better than I could, but as a simple tutorial I could get on with this.

Thanks Jediboy. We kept the video as simple and straightforward as we can. It works well with the accompanying book.
Mike

[TimStannard]

. I have since bought a Rode videomic to plug-in. I can move the mic closer on the extension cable. We are a zero budget team!

An excellent choice. Experiment with different mic placements and make sure you check the recording levels before going for a take. Err on the side of caution - recording too quitely can result in increased background noise, but at least this can be addressed. Recording too loud results in clipping which (like overblown highlights in video) cannot be fixed in post.

[Mike Singh]

An excellent choice. Experiment with different mic placements and make sure you check the recording levels before going for a take. Err on the side of caution - recording too quitely can result in increased background noise, but at least this can be addressed. Recording too loud results in clipping which (like overblown highlights in video) cannot be fixed in post.

Thanks for the advice Tim. The in camera recording levels allows to keep an eye to the audio levels.
Mike

[TimStannard]

Thanks for the advice Tim. The in camera recording levels allows to keep an eye to the audio levels.

Mike I strongly recommend doing a quick test recording with both audio and visual indications. Neither tell the whole story on their own. I know whenever I try to short cut this I regret it. Record a bit and play back though headphones as well as watching the level indicators. A couple more minutes at the beginning of the session may just save you from having to re-record the whole lot.
Also, if possible, (and I can see the R6 has a headphone jack) monitor the audio with headphones while recording. Not only are we checking for clipping here, but it's a great way of checking for momentary (or even longer) drop-outs. Sure, the display on the LCD will show you, but you will have so many things to concentrate on, you might not notice.

[Mike Singh]

Mike I strongly recommend doing a quick test recording with both audio and visual indications. Neither tell the whole story on their own. I know whenever I try to short cut this I regret it. Record a bit and play back though headphones as well as watching the level indicators. A couple more minutes at the beginning of the session may just save you from having to re-record the whole lot.
Also, if possible, (and I can see the R6 has a headphone jack) monitor the audio with headphones while recording. Not only are we checking for clipping here, but it's a great way of checking for momentary (or even longer) drop-outs. Sure, the display on the LCD will show you, but you will have so many things to concentrate on, you might not notice.

Thanks Tim, I'll try your suggestions.
Mike