‘Little Bunny’ by Piano Comics a piece to train tempos, dynamics, articulation and major-minor aural skills

‘Little Bunny’ is a piece by Piano Comics that I created for my preschooler beginners and transcribed it for late beginners as well ( students learning piano for over a year ) .

Here you can watch me and a 7 year old student playing it and at the end of this post you can download the 2 versions of the free scores.

1st version for preschoolers or young beginners: if you have already worked on building a habit for the hand to stand roundly and being able to play all 5 fingers legato or non legato then this piece will help. I like to firstly introduce an interesting or funny story to the kid to engage them and in this case the fact that the little bunny is having big trouble at the end is grabbing their attention. Then we can co-create the lyrics or even change the story or its ending. I will write the keys right in front of them while singing the lyrics, then with the student, then the names of the keys in sol-fa. The tempos and dynamics have to change from one phrase to the other because the scene, feeling is changing. So I write those elements as well with my student, then ask them ‘Do you think the wolf enters in a hurry like allegro? Or is he sure he’s gonna eat well and that it’s going to be easy so he kinda walks all cool or even slower like adagio? I make sure to use music language so that the kids gets used to it and immediately show the example to what it means for ex. The little bunny is happy and carefree so I think his jumps are forte or mezzo forte, making subito piano while going into the forest means something is off. And lastly, we move on to the piano where I just place their hand on the 5 first keys that they have already played so many times and tell them that’s the only keys they will need. The first 2 bars are usually a bit harder because the keys go up and down and there is a jump in the 2nd bar. The last 2 bars of each phrase are easy to understand and play.

2nd version for late beginners: if the student already knows to read both clefs we first learn the easy right hand and then practice the left. While they play the right hand I play the left like in the video so that they get used to listening to the harmonies. Then we unite hands together. I make sure to emphasize the subito piano when something is about to happen and the crescendo at the end. The tempos are simple to change because the whole scene is changing from an inoccent bunny to a clever wolf.

For more musical work you can use this piece’s melody to train transposition with more advanced in listening skills students.

Here you can download the free scores of the 2 versions of ‘Little Bunny’:

Have a fun and engaging piano lesson!