Piano with a Smile

I'm so impressed with how quickly this class of Littlies have mastered their musical alphabet. They recognise all the letters, understand that A follows G and are fluent from any starting point👏🎉 Now to find G and A on the piano for our Whizz Dragonfly song!💙

Tempo is this term's musical element for Storytellers, explained through the tale of the Tortoise and the Hare. This week, a little Schumann (Of Foreign Lands and People) and a leisurely lap of the room to experience Andante💜😊
https://open.spotify.com/track/4CBRHXfxihKZfNoS2VYQCK?si=65a70383226844e9

This term Play students are off round the world exploring music and movement in a new workbook entitled 'Dance'. First stop: Cuba and The Rumba🪇 We're learning about the features of Latino music, African rhythms, call and response, and even trying a few steps for ourselves💛💜

We've added a fourth program at 3pm! Foundations 1 is for Storyteller graduates who are ready for reading. The topic this semester is Momentous Melodies and we begin with Pachelbel's Canon in D, learning about sharps, stave steps and layered ostinati💜

What's next for piano Littlies? The wonderful world of Minibeasts! In today's class we:
🎵chanted bug rhythms
🎵danced La Cucaracha with scarves
🎵wiggled and wriggled fingers 1 and 2
🎵found C and D on the keyboard
🎵flexed our best spider handshapes and
🎵performed 'Hurry Scurry Beetle' together.
AWESOME playing everyone - especially newbies!💜🦋

It was Storytellers turn to wow us this weekend - and indeed they did! WELL DONE students for a superb afternoon of 'Goldilocks':
✅ You had practised
✅ knew your starting positions
✅ you played in time with each other and the backing tracks
✅ you recovered from mistakes
✅ displayed good posture and performance etiquette
✅ you played amazing solos ...
You delighted us all!💜😊

Congratulations to our latest class of Littlies for a wonderful Watching Week on Saturday, super performances from everyone (including parents😉), lots of giggles and three well-deserved certificates🏆🏆🏆. Meanwhile, for Storytellers, an opportunity to pull out the dominoes... 💜

Everyone is nearing the end of a workbook here and busily preparing for Watching Week, new classes and stories are on the horizon 🌅.
Stories and themes are a feature in KeyNotes, but why do we need them? Why are they important? 🤔
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1GmpGEmgpJ/

Why we use themes in KeyNotes

In KeyNotes, themes are not a decorative add-on or a way to “dress up” learning. They are a deliberate teaching choice, grounded in how children learn, understand, and retain musical ideas.

Music is an expressive language. Children intuitively understand that music can suggest movement, character, mood, and story long before they have the technical vocabulary to explain it. Themes give us a way to connect new musical concepts to ideas and experiences that are already meaningful and familiar to them.

For example, when teaching articulation at the piano, we might use imagery from an Under the Sea theme. A crab pinching helps children understand short, detached sounds, while a jellyfish drifting through the water represents connected, flowing sounds, both further portraying movements needed to achieve these sounds. These images are not simplifications of the music; they are entry points that allow children to internalise how different articulations feel, sound, and function.

The same applies to rhythm and pitch through programmatic storytelling. Goldilocks skipping through the woods lends itself naturally to dotted rhythms. Climbing the stairs becomes an embodied way to experience rising pitch. Children do not need to be convinced that these musical choices communicate something — they already know this. Our role is to provide the language, structure, and musical tools that allow them to recognise, describe, and intentionally recreate those ideas at the piano.

Themes also play a vital role in learning design. KeyNotes follows a cyclical and spiral curriculum, where skills and concepts are revisited and developed over time. Rather than repeating material in the same way, themes allow us to re-present core ideas in varied contexts. This deepens understanding, supports transfer of learning, and keeps engagement high without sacrificing rigour.

By encountering the same musical concepts through different themes, students build flexibility, confidence, and a more connected understanding of music. They are not just learning what to play, but why musical choices matter and how music communicates.

In this way, themes help us honour children’s natural musical understanding while supporting long-term, meaningful learning at the piano.

We are up and running again from this Saturday🥳 Enrol now for openings in May:
💜 Little KeyNotes age 5-6 from 16 May
💜 Storytellers age 6-8 from 23 May
💜 KeyNotes Play age 9+ from 6 June.
Contact Alex on 0410 704 385 or head to the website:
https://www.pianowithasmile.com/

Think it's too late to enrol for Term 2? Don't stress, new classes begin mid-May😊. Register here from 20 April: https://www.pianowithasmile.com/contactdetails