Music Class

When the school year started a month ago, I was given the opportunity to give Natalie-Rose a short little music class each day as part of her "pre-school". Since she is only 3 years old, each class would be no more than 15 minutes and it would be very basic; pretty much just learning to sing simple songs together.

That went very well and Natalie was so interested, that I started showing her different things about the piano. She seemed to want to learn more, so I decided to teach her to play a simple song on the black keys. I found some number stickers, put 1, 2, and 3 on a set of black keys, and wrote on a marker board the numbers for Mary Had a Little Lamb. Then I showed her how it worked. She picked that concept up so quick! She even found a way to help herself keep track of where she was in the song: she would point to the number on the board with her left hand while she played with her right! She did so well after a day or so, that I took the numbers off of the keys. So here's a video of her first song:

Then, I remembered I had a level one book of the curriculum I use for my students on the shelf. It has in it some basic songs written for the black keys. So I got that out to see what would happen with those. I explained to her how it worked (pretty much the same as the way she learned Mary Had a Little Lamb) and off she went! Here she is using her left hand and playing with two fingers!

Yes, her big sister is a piano teacher, but honestly, I can't take credit for this. All I did was notice her interest and am giving her the tools she needs to learn. What a blessing.