Yes, Orangeboy knows how to play the piano keyboard. But he hasn't actually played the keyboard, other then turning on the demo setting, and so he hasn't actually learned TO PLAY, he has just learned HOW. He learned HOW by reading all the instructions and by reading a couple of elementary piano lessons books from cover to cover.
This adventure into the world of music started when I was trying to discover something for Orangeboy to be interested in other than math. More specifically, I wanted him to stop spending so much time in his room filling pages with columns of numbers and then adding them all up and checking his own work.
I took him to a store and asked him if anything looked interesting. He hmmm...d for quite awhile and so I finally suggested that maybe an electronic keyboard would be fun, since he liked pressing buttons and fiddling with switches. He agreed that "MAY-be" it would be fun.
So we bought the keyboard and a couple of lesson books. We set it up in his room and I went over the first couple of lessons with him. I explained the numbered fingering diagrams and notes on the staff. He seemed to be catching on and I left him with it, his hands poised over the keys.
Over the next few days, I didn't hear or see him playing the keyboard, so I asked him if he was still working on his keyboard lesson. He would say that he was working on it. I reminded him that it could be difficult to learn some things and that he should practice the exercises several times before going to the next one.
Finally he came to me and told me he had finished the piano/keyboard books.
Silly Mom: "You have? You finished them? But I didn't hear you playing."
Orangeboy: "Well, I finished."
Silly Mom, thinking it over, "Did you practice each lesson? I didn't hear you, did you keep the volume down?"
O: "No. I mean, I just finished the book."
Silly Mom: "So, you read the whole book? And you didn't actually PLAY on the keyboard? You just read?"
O: "Umm. Basically, yes."
Silly, Silly Mom: "Usually people learn to play the piano by actually PLAYING the keys. You know, PRACTICING each lesson by actually DOING what the book says to do."
O: "Oh."
And so the keyboard is now an expensive alarm clock. I push the Demo button each morning and let it play him awake to the tune of "Funiculi-Funicula"or "La Cucaracha".
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