Group Music Classes

Piano: Pre-K

Fun and educational for parents and students alike, this 45 minute class gives each student an opportunity to learn music the way children learn best: through play.

Using music to teach music, students move between activities in the rhythm circle, to note reading at the board, to sitting at one of our 10 full size keyboards, all within a positive setting where students and parents alike can grow musically and socially.

Here are some basics of what students will learn:

• Solfege: Students will learn the language of music through singing solfege (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do.) By using Kodaly hand signs, we add kinesthetic movement.  This solfege training leads to audiation, the child’s “inner hearing.”  Students will be able to look at music and “hear” how it sounds in their heads, without actually playing the music on an instrument.
• Pitch: We sing or play pitches at every opportunity - when placing magnets on the board, when playing the keyboard, when cleaning up instruments, etc. Students develop phrasing and dynamics through their voices, which will later translate to their fingers.
• Keyboards: Using one finger to first track, students will soon begin to use a full and correct hand position to play pieces they have been singing in class.
• Rhythm: Students will feel rhythms in 2, 3 and 4 through large and small body movement. Students will then learn to read the rhythms that they feel, including quarter notes, quarter rests, half notes, dotted half notes, and whole notes.
• Ensemble: Students learn exceptional listening skills by experiencing keyboard and rhythm ensembles. 
• Note reading: Children will recognize the grand staff, bass and treble clefs, line and space notes, notes that are stepping up and down and skipping up and down. Students will also learn Middle C - Treble C in the treble clef. 

Keith, Scott and Tess Coulson all started out in our Beginning Piano class program: