- Level: Elementary
- Pages: 11 pages; 7 of music, covers included!
- Style: Big and bold
- Series: Rote and Reading®
- Format: PDF instant download
This African Adventure Bundle contains 3 dynamic Reading and Rote piano pieces. Each elementary piece comes with its own unique cover. Plus you get the vibrant African Adventure Bundle Cover with this bundle as well. Here is a short description of each of these elementary piano solos:
- African Safari
This is the most popular of the Rote and Reading® pieces with a deep bass sound that’s easy to play, even for elementary students. The right hand plays a creepy like melody that sounds like a “spy movie” as one student said. Teach it by reading or rote and students will love it. - Savanna Stalk
Savannah Stalk has both a big and grand sound, as well as a beautiful melancholy section. It’s perfect for both young students, teens, and adults. Very satisfying! - Romp and Raid
This playful piece turns intense as students play accents in a series of repeated chords…a little Stravinsky like. Romp and Raid is a dramatic piece that tells the story of hyenas on the prowl in the African wilderness.
What levels are the African Adventure Bundle pieces?
These Reading and Rote piano teaching pieces are approximately mid-elementary. They can be taught easily by rote, but we encourage you to use the score to help students begin to tie what they are playing to something on the page.
Rote and Reading® – a balanced approach to teaching piano
The African Adventure bundle capitalizes on the concept that we can play much more advanced music than we can read when we are first learning. If you only allow students to play music that they can read, they become discouraged that they are playing “baby music” because indeed, that is the sound of beginning music. But their fingers can do much more than they can read. So, giving them pieces like the ones in this bundle and teaching the pieces by rote, will help them to feel like they are playing more mature music. Combine this with a method that teaches them to read as well, and you’ll end up with much more satisfied and motivated students who stick with piano lessons much longer.
To learn more about why reading and rote teaching complement each other, read: How Long Does It Take to Learn to Read Music?
Irma Khouw –
African Safari is a HUGE hit!
Patricia Neufeldt –
I just bought and downloaded “Savanna Stalk” yesterday and already had the opportunity to teach it to one of my young students…I don’t think I’ve ever seen a student that impressed with himself. Thank you for helping to make this lesson fabulous, and helping to make my student excited and proud!
Helen Haynes –
Wendy’s pieces are great! She writes for beginners, songs that sound harder than they are, and the kids love them! I’m really loving these rote/read pieces.
Kristi –
I bought the African Adventure bundle today. I have a teen boy who started lessons last spring, and he really needed something wonderful to learn…something not lesson-book-y. His eyes absolutely lit up when I played the songs for him, and he was SO STOKED to learn something by rote (I very, very rarely teach by rote.) He had a very successful lesson, and I think he’s really going to practice this week.
Rachel Wilke –
African Safari wins again! I have two more new teen students who have just had 3 lessons and wanted something that sounded impressive to play even though they can’t read or play much yet. I gave them a choice of which one of your songs they would like and both chose African Safari. African Safari is the all time favorite for most of my students.
rp –
Exciting pieces to teach to beginners. My students loved the titles and the way the pieces moved all around the piano when I showed them for the first time. I’ll use them over and over again!
Krista Warnock –
We’re having a nature themed spring recital, and both the African Safari and Canadian bundles have been top picks for my beginning students. Wendy’s name will be on the program a lot! Students absolutely LOVE these pieces, and want to play them over and over, developing excellent technique and musicianship as they do so. Some students are also using the pieces as springboards for their own compositions or improvs. These are some of the very best beginner pieces I’ve come across in 25 years of teaching!
Jeannne –
I have been enjoying Wendy’s rote pieces in Piano Safari for awhile now. I was very pleased to get the African Adventure bundle for one of my students. She has an excellent ear but is very weak in reading music. The read and rote aspect of these makes her feel accomplished while learning to read notes painlessly. It is a win-win!
Julia –
My students LOVE them! I taught them to some of my older beginners and they Love being able to play all over the keyboard and they are having so much fun with them. It gives them the ability to show-off when they’ve only been taking lessons for a couple months. Thanks!
Angela Foong –
These pieces are great fun. Well-written and I’m sure will be great show-off pieces at concerts. Thank you Wendy!
Karen Long –
I’ve NEVER taught pieces by rote in piano lessons……I guess I’ve always thought it would be “cheating”. However, right now I have a student who feels like the beginning lesson stuff is boring and childish. While poking around the web one day I found Wendy’s pieces…..and thought I’d give the African Adventure pieces a try. And WOW! my student who is bored is now excited. (I’m teaching him the piece by rote — Savannah Stalk.) I also have a little girl student who is not catching on to reading very quickly, so I’m teaching her the African Safari piece by rote — and she’s really enjoying the good sounds she’s making. My only wish is that the books weren’t quite so expensive — so that I could talk parents into buying the physical books of Wendy’s music for their children. My husband is afraid I’ll soon bankrupt myself buying the pdf versions of Wendy’s pieces to hand out to my students….any thoughts on how to pass the cost along? (print pdfs on nice paper, have them bound, and charge a buck or two per piece???)
Regardless, I’ll be adding more of Wendy’s music to my library! *L*
Wendy Stevens –
Hi Karen,
Thanks for asking for ways to build your studio license library in a way that fits in your budget. Lots of teachers charge a materials and music fee at the beginning of the year, so if you do, I’d just increase that fee for every student and then explain to parents that this will enable you to purchase more of the studio licenses to give your students more styles of music and more pieces.
If you don’t charge a materials and music fee, I’d just increase your registration fee for each student and explain why you did it to parents (same as above). Parents will love knowing that you’ll be providing more music for the students and they don’t have to go out and purchase it themselves.
You can’t resell the music in any way, but you CAN charge for the price of printing the piece. However, I think it’s better to just increase the registration or music fee by $15-20 per student and then just call it good as it wastes valuable time and energy to chase down a small amount like $.75 for every piece that you print for a student.
Hope that helps!
Alison Mitchell –
Love love love these pieces and so do my students.
The biggest challenge is to get them to be confident about moving their hands around the piano. Once they are off and understand what they are doing there’s no stopping them.
Who am I kidding? I love them too.
Angelika –
My students love these pieces, especially the boys and the wilder girls. And so do I. In Austria we have some facilitations of the lockdown now and I brought these pieces as presents to the first face to face lessons and the children loved them.
Audrey Smith –
African Adventures is a wonderful collection of easy elementary pieces that can be taught by rote. I feel my students love the “catchy” tunes, the use of pedal, and the various ranges they get to explore on the keyboard.
Candace –
All of these pieces are terrific! They are wonderful to use with early beginners to give them the confidence they need to feel like they are making great music. They sound so impressive yet are easy to teach by rote.