After everyone in the class have become more familiar with the piano keyboard, it's time for everyone to improvise a little tune on the piano - whether they actually know how to play the piano or not. Improvisation is a form of creative art which allows one to exercise one's creativity within a particular set of rules. For example, jazz players improvise all the time but they they don't just play random notes; they need to understand what notes fit into the scale and goes well with the music as a whole. So, for children, if we can set appropriate rules for them, they can surely start improvising at any age!
I have invited everyone from the class to improvise a "black-key tune" with me with me playing an ostinato with the black keys and they are asked to improvise a melody along. Some are reluctant at first because they feel that they don't know how to play. But by following the black-key rule, everyone could come up with a great tune - then they realize that the music can't go wrong as long as they stick to the rule and their songs actually sound quite nice.
2 students improvising on the keyboard
And obviously, the reason is that they're improvising with the pentatonic scale - experience preset a perfect stage for the next lesson when they'll learn about this scale.
To further children's skills in note recognition, I use the following game from Classics for Kids. Click the link below to access to the game:
