Playing with a new piano student...

[Growler]

A friend of mine's 5yr old kid is just starting piano lessons, basically just playing very simple middle C/D/E half-note patterns with left hand and then repeating with right hand etc...

I was thinking of bringing over my bass and practice amp and pretty much playing along with him, same notes, same patterns etc.

I'm really just trying to make it more fun for the kid to practice. Neither of the parents can play piano (or read music). What do you guys think of this? Any suggestions on how to make this more fun? Also, on the bass is the A(3rd fret) in the same key as the 'middle C' on a piano? I'm not a piano guy so I've got no idea what key a pianos middle C is..

[ahbassman]

http://www.thevirtualpiano.com/

[MalcolmAmos]

A 5 year old. I think you would confuse more than help. Those little guys' attention span is very short and they really wake up in a new world each day. Don't get involved unless you sign on for the duration. Getting both hands doing something different is taking all his concentration right now.

[Growler]

Let me clarify a bit. What we're doing now, is that we sit at the keyboard with book propped up in front of us and he plays the notes in the book. Typically a "song" is four bars long. He'll play about 4-5 songs per practice session as I know he mentally tires out after about 15minutes. We do this each time I'm over at their house (2-3x a week). He's also doing the same "songs" with each hand, not left hand doing something differently from the other, basically one hand at a time.

I'm just trying to make his practice more fun as his parents will often have him "go upstairs and practice your piano..." then sometime later (30 min?) he'll come back down. Right now his practice is a pretty solitary activity or the parents (who are not musically inclined) sit and watch.

For example, his book tells him to "sing" the notes as he plays them, so I thought it would be fun for both of us to be singing and playing the notes together.