The central idea behind the Little Piano School is playful engagement with music. The piano is therefore not simply an instrument for the children but a fascinating toy, habouring a multi-coloured world of sounds. Through exploring the piano and music, the children discover their own skills. Then we have singing, rhythm, movement, listening and hearing musical notes in your head and other aspects of our teaching such as learning musical notation and simple theoretical principles.

One of Kim Monika Wright’s key ideas is the association of different notes with colours. This helps the children to first learn the notes in a playful way by assigning them to particular colours. All the other objects in the room are made into musical objects, too. A cuddly dolphin can represent a triad, a row of different coloured chairs can be seen as a scale or changed into a train, which the children can climb onto together to set out on a musical journey. At a later stage, the colours are phased back into normal musical notes.

A central pillar of the Little Piano School is working in groups. Instead of having individual lessons, children are taught in groups of three to seven. The children sing together, move in a group to music, improvise together or learn a song as an ensemble. That way they learn to approach and treat one another with respect, to listen to each other and to solve problems or carry out tasks together. An important goal here is to ensure that all the children feel at ease despite their differences.