Stringbabies

03/10/2026

02/10/2026

Sometimes the best moments in teaching happen when you step back and let your students take the wheel.

I’ve been exploring how we can extend the Stringbabies creative pedagogy well into higher levels, using existing repertoire as a launching pad to generate brand-new compositions and introduce technical skills.

In a lesson today with a Year 5 cellist, we were looking at "Full Moon" by Katherine and Hugh Colledge. The piece is in A minor, and last week I set her a small task: use the rhythm of the first four bars to compose her own tune. She came back today with a completely perfect four-bar phrase in D major!

That simple task led to an amazing spin-off. It gave us a natural opening to explore both the A minor and D major scales, look at why D major needs an F sharp and C sharp, and chat about the pattern of tones and semitones that makes up a major scale.

Then we took it a step further. I asked her to think of an alliterative animal name, and she came up with "Felix the Fox." Exploring the natural rhythm of those words, she decided the tune belonged in 6/8 time. Together we built a new melody, which let us dive into the technical milestones she’s currently working on, including 4th position E and harmonic A.

What made this moment so special for me is that it’s the first Stringbabies piece I have co-created in a very long time... probably at least a decade. Seeing those creative sparks fly didn't just light up my student; it reignited my own passion for creating music, too.

I love this way of working. It’s wonderfully creative, completely unpredictable, and genuine fun for both pupil and teacher alike.

Have you ever had a moment in a lesson that unexpectedly reignited your own creative spark? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

01/10/2026

Special Offer until 31st October!
Grab both Starter Books for £33 (plus 48H Tracked® shipping through Royal Mail) and we’ll tuck in a copy of Henny the Hen® (RRP £8) absolutely FREE! Order by emailing us: [email protected]

30/09/2026

30/09/2026

Arr matey! 🏴‍☠️ A 5-year-old’s guide to pirate songwriting…

Yesterday, I was continuing a project with one of my youngest students (just 5 years old). We’ve been working on writing our very own pirate song, and what she pulled off on the whiteboard blew me away.

Teaching early years music, you get used to seeing kids clap rhythms or learn basic stick notation (ta, ti-ti). But yesterday, she took a spoken phrase—"scrub the decks"—listened to it, and completely independently translated it into a full musical score.

Not only did she accurately dictate the rhythm by ear (audiation in action!), but she also went way beyond basic stick notation. Without any prompting, she added Stringbabies shaped note heads (of her choosing) and even drew a clear crochet rest at the end.

For a 5-year-old, coordinating fine motor skills, spatial awareness, and auditory processing like that is exceptional. She didn't just copy a prompt; she genuinely synthesized how music works on paper to tell her story.

Moments like this remind me why encouraging young students to invent and compose their own music is so powerful. She’s not just learning an instrument—she’s becoming a musician. 🎶

A magic moment this week.

26/09/2026

The night before a lesson recently, I had a phone call with the mother of one of my teenage cello students. She mentioned that her daughter had spent hours at home transcribing a pop song she loved, trying to work out the chords and the guitar solo on her cello.

The next day, she arrived at her lesson brimming with enthusiasm. The song in her mind was "Mirror" by the band The Last Dinner Party.

Wanting to capture that spark immediately, I suggested we listen to it together. Right away, we worked out the key and the chord progression. I sat down at the piano to play the chords and invited her to try improvising over the top, which was clearly what she had been experimenting with at home. As we listened closely to the recording, we realized that the guitar break that had originally inspired her was itself an improvisation. That became our doorway into the lesson, and she loved it.

From there, we explored the harmony further and introduced the A Dorian mode. Moving beyond traditional major and minor scales opened up a completely fresh sound world for her to play with.

It made me think (yet again!) of Sir Ken Robinson and his observations on education: when students are engaged in something that genuinely captures their interest, their potential opens up, and they make extraordinary progress.

For a student like this, creative freedom is essential. Learning to be imaginative and untethered in your playing is vital for every learner. When we build lessons around what genuinely excites a student, technical and musical growth happens naturally.

Photo by Fauxels

22/09/2026

Mondays are easily one of my favourite parts of the week, especially when spent with my littlest Stringbabies. Yesterday was such an incredibly creative day, full of that spark that makes teaching so rewarding.

I have three Stringbabies on Mondays: a three-year-old in nursery, one in reception, and one in year one.

With my nursery student, it was only his second lesson, so we introduced the shapes used to represent pitch in the Stringbabies method. He had already managed to link his strings to the toys last time, and this week he connected the shapes to the toys straight away. We even worked through some very basic crotchet and quaver rhythms!

My reception student arrived with her ginger toy cat, so we picked up where we left off last week and continued composing a song for it. Following on from the little tune we devised together, we spent time exploring combined crotchet and semiquaver rhythms.

Then my year one student turned up wearing a full pirate costume! I sensed a song coming on, so between the two of us we devised a brand-new pirate piece. She had absolute bliss choosing the notes, identifying the rhythms, deciding which parts she wanted to play, and then learning to play it herself.

Days like yesterday remind me why I love what I do. Building musicianship through play, composition, and a child’s own imagination makes the learning stick so naturally.

18/09/2026

The first two weeks of term have been unbelievably hectic. Added family pressures landed out of nowhere, leaving me juggling unpredictable days while trying to keep up with work. But despite the chaos, the start of this year feels genuinely exciting.

I’ve finally been putting my long-brewing thoughts about Stringbabies beyond the beginner stage into practice. It’s such a lovely, creative way of teaching: taking a piece of standard repertoire, exploring it together, and using it as a launchpad for improvisation and composition. This hands-on process allows students to dig so much deeper.

At the same time, I’ve started adapting Stringbabies for my children's church choir. Most of them can't read music, so for our first lesson yesterday, I used simple shapes for pitch and sol-fa for rhythm. They got it instantly. They walked out of the room smiling, leaving me with the foundations of a much more general adaptation that I’m carefully documenting as we go.

To top it off, I found the courage to share my draft piano book with two esteemed colleagues. As a cellist, I spent years waiting to find a pianist who thought like me and could commit to seeing a massive project through to the end. I’ve finally realized I don't need to wait. I can write the core concepts down myself and let other pianists test the work. Hearing both colleagues say the material is really good, and that they’re eager to see the finished article, feels like a huge milestone.

There have been a few hurdles this week, but overall, it feels good.

Photo: Bruno Croci on unsplash

14/09/2026

Please do feel free to get in touch… we still have a few books left at the special discounted rate but they are being snapped up!

Happy New Academic Year to all my fellow music educators! 🎻🎶

As fresh timetables take shape, I want to help teachers who are completely new to our community kick off this term with a brand-new approach to early music reading.

If you haven't used Stringbabies or Musicbabies before, our play-based shape notation system makes learning to read music relaxed, rewarding, and fun—especially for young starters, adult beginners, and SEND learners.

Big News for 2026: We now have a full 5-book series available for EVERY instrument in our range! That means 5 progressive books each for Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass, and Recorder.

To give new tutors a boost this September, we're opening up 25 Starter Sets at 25% OFF for first-time buyers:

✨ 5 Violin Sets ✨ 5 Viola Sets ✨ 5 Cello Sets ✨ 5 Double Bass Sets ✨ 5 Recorder Sets

What you need to know:

To run the method successfully in your studio, new tutors need both the Teacher’s Workbook and Pupil’s Workbook for their chosen instrument.

Regular Starter Set Price: £33.00 + packing & postage
Your Special 25% Price: £24.75 + packing & postage

How to claim your instrument's starter set: 1️⃣ Send an email to [email protected] 2️⃣ Use the subject line "NEW TEACHER OFFER" 3️⃣ Tell me which instrument set you teach (Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass, or Recorder)

We will process your order manually and ship out your starter set to get you up and running straight away!

Know a colleague who has never tried Stringbabies? Tag them below! 👇