A Fun Way to Reinforce Landmark Notes on the Piano
Letter names - when do students really need to know them?
In my studio and throughout the first level of PianoForte Level One, learning how to name the piano keys after alphabet letters is not a priority, in fact it doesn’t even happen. The first thing a student experiences is sound and tones, how to hear them, how to sing them and how to play them on the piano. The fixed nature of names in this early phase would interfere with the moveable quality of pitch and so it is left until later to avoid confusion.
However, in order to read notation students need to learn the letter names. Indeed, one of the first things introduced in Level Two is the musical alphabet, and subsequently how this relates to the piano keys. This stage of learning is busy. It is not uncommon for students to take a while to remember how all the letters fall on the keyboard - where is what and what is where.
The following chant is a super fun and effective way to reinforce the keys on the piano - specifically G and F.
