How do you play 'love' on the piano?
So there we were in Italy, one of our Play a Story themes from Travel Notes.
We had learnt the Italian ’spaghetti’ motif and the kids were having so much fun putting the motif into different ‘sauces' - C F and G positions.
Part of the story takes us into romantic chocolates and roses and we didn't know how to play it. Searching for a way to create a romantic sound with a spaghetti motif, I asked them if they knew someone in love... mum, dad, relative, friend? How would they describe love? There were lots of descriptions like huggie and kissie, and happy, a few wrinkled noses... but mostly hugs and kisses.
How do you play that on the piano?
In a flash of inspiration we started to play the same spaghetti motif but we changed its essence, placing it into Am and Dm positions that they know so well from previous stories. When we played the minor positions in ‘Heart Song’ they sounded lonely and sad, but when we played the spaghetti motif in minor positions they sounded like ...well love... amore. We were playing beautiful hugs and kisses! It was huge fun.
Give it a go. Play your world on the piano and fall in love with your inner musician.
Do you think it’s ok for young children to explore emotions that they may not yet have experienced? What about fear, sadness or even loneliness? If you had to create a motif for ‘Amore’ what would it be?
