Simply Music and Play-a-story: who has experience?

[green]

I have three nephews all doing Simply music piano lessons, one for three years, the others for 1 year. I like the approach, I see flaws, but the one thing that has sold me is how enthusiastic my sister and brother are about the program, real excitement, they love it and are very pleased with the results. I am in the process of setting up a piano studio, and am considering teaching simply music 5-up, and play-a-story for beginners age 4-6. Do others have experience or can offer advice about this program?

[bmajazz]

I was recruited by simply music. They accept teachers with no background in music and require teachers to pay for "certification" levels. These two facts turned me off.  If they are taking non-musicians as teachers they ought to pay me to join!  Besides, how can non-musicians give the same depth to teaching?  I remain skeptical.

[green]

Absolutely. They are launching a new marketing scheme very soon, I see their point about not wanting to exclude teachers who may not have the formal training, but who do have a love of music, and may be natural working with people and kids, but there are a host of other concerns which are being dismissed in the process. My brother and sisters kids have been on the program for a few years and they love it, I was caught up in their enthusiasm, and because I do have a background in music, I could see the faults, but I was more taken by the fact that everyone seemed so happy with it, that why try to pop their bubble? If the kids are motivated and parents happy and supportive, then why try to knock it down? It seems to work, and thats the proof of the pudding as they say.

The majority of students i teach do struggle with reading, and despite my background in music, I had never thought of another path beyond a reading based approach. But having said that, you are never just teaching 'reading music', starter books also have a simplified notation, the songs with hal leonard have a nice variety of styles, and students usually do just memorize and you teach by rote as well.

BTW in the starting stages I think rote learning is not as bad as it is made out to be, we learn by imitation in the beginning stages, kids internalize the gestures you show them very quickly, that is not something you can get off a page. Appropriate modeling is often over looked and not given its due attention in the beginning stages, so that may be a plus for simply music.