Hands on Piano

My piano activity materials and storybooks are almost finished. This summer, I have been writing a series of books for parents or teachers to use in teaching music to children. Over the past ten years, I have had success in piano lessons using unique stories, hands on manipulates, and mathematical explanations. My "Hands on Piano" activity books will provide private lessons teachers, teachers of piano classes and parents with templates, worksheets and storybooks to inspire an interest in piano and reinforce theory concepts.

My students this summer have been previewing the new materials in their lessons and classes. One activity that has been a hit has been the composition templates. I created templates to teach children how to compose basic melodies and add simple harmony. Children love to compose and improvise at the piano. My beginners have composed simple songs using 3 notes at the piano that they have just learned. This gives them practice in finding and playing the new notes. My continuing students have been using one of my templates and composing music on the staff. This has also helped them to review their musical notation as well as giving them a creative outlet. So far, they have composed a four measure melody within certain boundaries. In a few weeks, they will use my newly created chord templates to add the harmony. When we are finished, we will make recordings of their songs to post on the website!! They are very excited and motivated about recording their own music.

So many times in theory we focus on naming notes on the staff. This is very important because when we sightread new music, we need to quickly recognize the notes on the staff. Children can also benefit from doing the opposite. Instead of naming the notes on the staff, composition projects and music manipulatives help the children to review their notes in a different, more creative way.