The Bajkowska Method
The best music teaching method for beginners!
The Bajkowska Method
This method is based on a musical fantasy tale and learning through play. Both the story and play aspects make the difficult music theory easily understood by even the youngest pupils. This knowledge is learned in the most natural way – i.e. through children’s imagination (not through learning by heart).
The personification of music notes in the Bajkowska Method and its main tale:
Music notes turn into characters of the story. Their adventures explain the whole music theory necessary to play piano form the score.
New effectiveness in teaching
The Bajkowska Method quickly provides 4 results to students who begin to learn music:
- Conscious listening to music – through its structure and emotions.
- Fluently understanding the notes / reading the scores (on a basic level).
- Playing piano from the score (not by ear).
- Conscious composing music even by the youngest children – i.e. finding new melodies on the piano and writing them on music stave using notes.
All these results are achieved by anyone – including:
- children just 3 years old (during individual lessons),
- pupils just 4 – 6 years old during classroom lessons (at nursery schools / kindergartens / primary schools),
- during the first piano lesson (older children, teenagers and adults).
No other music method is so easy and so quick to let 3 year old pupils start composing their own melodies and using notes as a tool for it, or to let older children start playing piano from the score and composing music a!er a single lesson!
Three method's steps
The Bajkowska Method consists of 3 steps:
1. Conscious listening
Firstly children need to fall in love with classic music that’s why they learn how to listen to it through its structure and emotions.
If pupils start to learn some concrete music skills before becoming interested in music, such education brings much limited results. But when we first explain them the basic music structure (i.e. 4 music contrasts) and teach to recognize this structure in any music (classic one, modern one, etc.) then their passions to music education become much stronger and our teaching results are significantly improved. That’s why the first step in the Bajkowska Method is to encourage children towards music and allow them to consciously listen to it.
This step can be used also with the youngest children – e.g. 2 years old.
2. Conscious re-enacting / playing
This second step teaches pupils the basic music theory (music terms, music notes and the rules of music notation) as well as playing piano as the easiest instrument.
All pedagogical activities in this step are based on music tales and play-learning.
This education is so simple that can be easily performed even by teachers without any music background. They effortlessly learn the music theory and to play piano simultaneously with their pupils.
3. Conscious creating
This third step can be used when pupils already read the first music scores and find its notes on the piano keyboard. Special music exercises are proposed to open and stimulate pupils’ creativity. They start to compose their own music by discovering new melodies on the piano and writing them on the musical stave.
However, these exercises are just a ‘trick’ to repeat the music theory. Building music compositions allow children to strengthen their knowledge and playing skills. Instead of using tests the Bajkowska Method concentrates on play-learning what ensures children a lot of fun.
Composing music is the most favorite activity for all children! Moreover, it makes their parents exceptionally proud.
Furthermore, this is the best creative education that can be provided to children!
The music tale
The main music tale of the method was published as Ms Lidia Bajkowska’s book ‘Song Girl and the Little Notes’. Since 2020 this title is available in English.
- One of the biggest bestsellers on Polish book market.
- The first book in Poland with UNICEF’s patronage (since 1995).
- The only book in the world from which children themselves learn the rules of music notation – even without the help of a teacher.
- It has been widely used by music teachers in Poland for last 25 years
(however it hasn’t been republished / sold for last 20 years – since 1996 !!!). - It fits perfectly to the requirements of professional music schools, private piano teachers, primary schools, kindergartens / nursery schools, etc.
Selected tale’s characters:
Song Girl and her Chorus Dog
Seven Notes Children
Sample pages from the tale
The adventures of Song Girl introduce music, its structure and emotions to children.
Her passion to learn to play the piano develops the same passion between young readers.
The adventures of seven little Notes Children easily explain all difficult rules of music notation.
The book includes many ‘interactive’ activities for children.
Read more about ‘Song Girl and Little Notes’
Examples of children's play-learning
Music terms and notes that turned into characters of the book allow children to easily memorize them and quickly start to play from the score, as well as to actually notate their first compositions.
The whole method can be taught through the story activities that engage all children from the classroom. Depending on children’s age those activities may be different – e.g. for children in nursery schools / kindergartens there should be more ‘entertainment’ and fun. For children at primary schools there should be more ‘music making’. And so on…
Examples of music composed by children
The youngest pupils require approximately 6 to 10 months to start composing. Older children can compose a first music piece and write it down on the stave even at their first piano lesson.
Click a picture below to enlarge it.
3 years old
4 years old
6 years old
7 years old
Why music can be consciously composed by as young pupils as just 3 years old? Well, that’s easy… Music notes are like toys. You can play with them, as you want. Anyone can do it 🙂 Especially children! The key to success is the right pedagogy…
All those music compositions were published in our book ‘The Fairy-Tale Notes’. It contains 35 musical works made by 28 children (3 – 9 years old).
Download those examples for free: PDF
Teacher training
Our training sessions explain how to effectively use the Bajkowska Method both during the individual lessons at music schools (or private lessons) and the group-activities in the classroom at nursery schools or primary ones.
The book = The Bajkowska Method
Ms Lidia Bajkowska with her legendary book leads teacher workshops in Poland (2016)… This is her 40th year on the stage.
‘The tale about Song Girl and the Little Notes children’ contains the main elements of the Bajkowska Method – everything what you need to start playing a music instrument from the score. They are presented in a so simple and easy way that anybody can quickly learn to play piano from the score and compose music, as well as learn to teach music and achieve all these results – including adult teachers without any music background; those who don’t understand music notation today (they simply learn it together with their pupils during teaching).
But the whole Bajkowska Method is much more…. Over 40 years of Ms Bajkowska’s experiences are summarized in all her other books and our training sessions (lead by her or authorized trainers).
‘Music is the most beautiful language of the world, common to all people’
The original UNICEF’s motto published in each edition of
‘The tale about Song Girl and the Little Notes children’
In 2019, the Education with Values Foundation implements the project iIntroduction to the development of music and educational products for English-language markets’, as part of which it is developing a prototype of Lidia Bajkowska’s book ‘Song Girl and Little Notes’ in English. The book will not be available for sale. Its dissemination will include our foreign partners.
Co-financed from the Culture Promotion Fund by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic Poland .
Since 2020 we will star sharing the Bajkowska Method in English between selected teachers, schools, universities. If you are interested in taking part in this project, write to us.