Teacher Resources

Improvisation ideas and alternative notation for pupils who do not read and more. Read about the benefits experienced by learning disabled people when they have been given the opportunity to play a musical instrument. See what has been done by others.

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Join in discussions and share ideas about teaching and learning musical instruments for and by the learning disabled. Encourage others with your success stories.

Two and Three Finger Tunes

The first target for a pupil learning to play the piano is to learn to use his fingers on the keys. This can take a long time and a lesson needs to be centred around "2"s and "3"s as the child first learns to use index and middle finger of each hand on the two black notes and then the middle three fingers on the group of three black notes.

This activity can be incorporated and alternated with numerous games and duets. These games can introduce the concept of one, two, three and four beat lengths.

Encourage a lot of improvisation right from the beginning. Children with learning difficulties are often very good at illustrating pictures or stories on the keyboard because they often don't get so worried about living up to preconceived ideas and are often delightfully uninhibited.