#2 - Time To Play Your First Song!
FOR PARENTS OF BEGINNERS
Now that your child is able to find all of the notes on the piano at will, they are ready to play their very first song! If they didn’t go through this first step yet, please refer to my Piano Orientation blog post that shows how to find all notes on the piano with playfulness and ease.
Since your child is likely not yet familiar with music notation, we will use a song written in letters. The benefit of this step is that your child will gain experience finding different notes on the piano by using the anchor notes learned in the previous lesson. Also, they will be playing an actual song!
The song we’ll use for this purpose is “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, which is shown below. To help them see what letter comes before or after C and F, print out this Piano Orientation sheet, and place it next to the song.
OK, ready? Here is how to do it!
LESSON
1) Ask your child what is the first note in the song.
2) Now, ask them to find it on the piano. If they are having a problem finding it, ask them, for example: “Where is C? To the left of two black keys or three black keys?”. Or, if dealing with a different note in the song, ask them, for example: “does G come before or after F? By how many letters? Here is the order of the alphabet for you to use”.
3) At this point, it does not matter which C they play, as the goal is for them to feel comfortable finding the different notes anywhere on the piano. It is actually great if they play all over the keyboard, since it shows that they can find the note they are looking for anywhere across it!
4) Continue until the end of the song.
A FINAL THOUGHT
Congratulate your child on playing their very first song! Try an additional three to five lettered-songs with them (below), depending on their level of comfort, to strengthen their confidence of finding notes all over the piano. Once you and they feel that this is clear, continue to my next blog post, “Reading Music Can Be Easy!”, where your child will learn how to read music notation with joy and ease!
Brother John | Itsy Bitsy Spider | London Bridge | Ol’ McDonald | The Wheels on the Bus