Transpose

(Blatant parental bragging to follow.)

Abbie loves to play the piano. She will sit down and just mess around for awhile. She will make up songs and she will goof off with the songs she is learning, alternating ddynamics speed or mood. She just gets so caught up in the music. She also has an amazing little gift that she got from her father called, "Playing by Ear." She is much better at hearing something and picking it out than sight-reading it blind. When she hears a song, and is reading the notes she does her best.

She has been learning the song Pat-A-Pan for her Christmas recital. It wasn't difficult but she didn't have a lot of time to learn it. One Sunday I heard her playing the song, over and over while I was fixing dinner in the kitchen. Then Russ came up stairs.

"Did you know she can transpose that song into the key of A, and the key of G?"

Nope. Didn't know that. I've never transposed anything ever. And my daughter was doing it in her free time.

When I talked to her teacher about it I learned it is very common for kids who learn by ear to do this, because they are identifying patterns rather than notes.

Lucky kid. Didn't get that from me.