Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star for beginner piano and late elementary piano students. Starting with a plain melody on middle C, your students can add left hand chords.
And the first arrangement of Twinkle, with chord symbols...
Please scroll down the page for the free downloadable PDF links:
Look down the page for SIX versions, from super-easy (music with letters!) to a broken chord left hand accompaniment.
Here is a rather sweet video of this nursery song by "Super Simple Songs":
The chords in this song can all be played by beginners right around the left hand C chord, with no reason to change hand position.
A "little F" chord just requires the thumb to stretch to an "a", and the G7 chord can be a "pinch" - "g" and "f" side-by-side.
See the version AFTER the one below, to see the chords spelled out in the bass staff.
The next arrangement is the same as the first one, above, but I added fingering in line one to show how finger replacement can work to make the reach up to "a" smooth:
In spite of the fingering I have placed in the music - the five to four and four to five - your student is most likely to COMPLETELY IGNORE those helpful suggestions and just play "1 - 1 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5..." or something like that!
It's up to you, the teacher, to ingrain the finger replacement technique into your student AT SOME POINT; is now the time?
In their method books, they may not encounter this skill for a while, but in this song, it is easy to understand and imitate, if you take them through the process every week until they GET IT.
But... it depends on you and what you think is most beneficial at this stage of your student's learning. Perhaps just reading the notes and adding left hand chords in the coming weeks will be accomplishment enough!
Finger replacement is actually a difficult and advanced technique, though eventually we hope that it will become second nature to our piano students.
Now the following arrangement of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star shows how chords can be added to this song:
Following is a broken chord version of this little song that is very pretty.
I set it high (good practice for your late elementary/ early intermediate students, to read the left hand in treble clef!) where it has a delicate sound:
Transposing this arrangement is excellent practice for your late intermediate students who need to firm up their chord inversions in all keys.
Actually, transposing ANY of the arrangements on this page would be useful, but this one with the broken chords is very pleasant to play!
Here are the VERY EASIEST approaches to Twinkle Twinkle, below; a version entirely composed of music notes with letters inside, and a "helper" version that has only a few lettered music notes.
Here is what the Helper version looks like:
Download links for the plain melody:
Download children's song "Twinkle Twinkle" for beginner piano students
Download Twinkle melody with fingering
Download links for melody plus left hand, and fancier Twinkle:
Download Twinkle with left hand chords and notes spelled out in the bass
Download broken chord arrangement, with high melody
Download Twinkle with letters in the notes, two versions:
Download Twinkle Twinkle sheet music with lettered notes
Download Twinkle music with only a FEW notes with letters inside
Check out more easy songs with a reach of just 6 or 7 notes:
Egyptian Dance - not as hard as it sounds! Very mysterious & beautiful.
I'm a Pirate - a good song for young boys! Several settings.
Indian Dance - one of the most popular & accessible songs for beginners here
Irish Wedding (easy version) - all my students want to play this high-energy song!
Kum Ba Yah - very pretty and easy - just 6 notes.
Lavender's Blue - young girls love this music, especially if they have seen Lily James' Cinderella!
Winds in the Willow - scale practice disguised as a mysterious, pretty minor melody.
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A perfect read aloud storybook
for little boys or girls.
The Adventures of Tonsta highlight the travels of a very young boy with a good heart, who goes about helping folk in trouble.
With a red cap on his head and a sack of tools slung over his shoulder, Tonsta seems to meet people in distress wherever he goes.
Lots of trolls in this book - including one who gives him a Christmas gift!
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