This level builds on skills that students acquired in the Initiation Level. Topics covered in this level include:

  • time signatures (3/4, 4/4, 6/8)
  • letter names
  • intervals
  • reading and writing notes on the double staff
  • playing on the pentatonic scale (on white and black keys)
  • playing around with motifs (creating sequences, inverting motifs, etc.)
  • the forms ABA and AABA

We also work on essential musical skills such as:

  • ear training (accompanying with three simple chords (tonic, dominant and subdominant)
  • harmonizing a simple melody
  • improvising over a simple chord progression
  • transposing known songs to a few tonalities
  • changing the mode of known songs from major to minor and vice versa
  • changing the meter from 2/4 to 3/4 and vice versa

Students move from children’s songs to classical repertoire for beginners (Daniel Turk, James Hook) along with simplified arrangements of popular pieces by Bach, Mozart  and Beethoven. Building on the creative approach started in the Initiation Level, students also start to get a taste for improvisation and composition, and learn to play an easy blues and a pop song.

The Workbook has many reading and writing exercises that allow students to become fluent readers and writers of music notation on the grand staff. Students also practice their Solfege and composition skills. Starting from two pieces by Daniel Turk, students also get a taste for the classical technique of composition in the form of Theme and Variations.

Rewards include sheet with 40 stickers, happy face stamps and points for Workbook assignments.