Compositions are on the Rise!

I've been encouraging quite a bit of creative composing over the last month and it has yielded some amazing results!  Several of my students have risen to the challenge and have been working on and completed some fantastic pieces. 

This brother and sister team decided to take one of the songs they were working on out of their lesson book and add a duet part.  I think it seemed more fun for them to play together rather than always having me play with them!  It was wonderful!  So very creative and so enjoyable for me to see them work together as a team!

Here is the result of a written composition by a 5-year old!  She is currently working through the second book of Pianimals so she plays by reading letters only at this point.  Because of all the theory I've been working on with her, she knows that eventually she will read notes rather than letters.  Here is her version of "My Country Tis of Thee"!  Totally adorable! 

She sat down to play it for me and although it didn't sound like the version we all know, she play very distinctly, one note at a time!  She told me that the very long note at the beginning of the piece meant that she should hold that note longer!  Works for me!

She was very proud of herself and was thrilled when I made a copy to keep.  She was also very proud of the way she played and very excitedly told me, "I'm remembering my curly fingers!" (code for rounded hand shape!).  LOL!  Don't you just LOVE this job?!

I hope you are encouraging composition in your studio as well.  I find that my students get very excited to work on their own pieces and the more they do it, the more they come to love it.  It's especially exciting for them to take it to another level and perform and record them!