Sarah Bonsignore’s Chord Shape Charts are designed to make learning harmony simple, visual, and accessible from the very beginning. Instead of seeing chords as a collection of individual notes to memorize, students learn to recognize shapes, patterns, and consistent hand positions that they can return to again and again.

By developing these familiar chord shapes, young musicians build muscle memory, keyboard awareness, coordination, and an understanding of how chords relate to one another. As their skills grow, those same foundational shapes can be expanded into inversions, different accompaniment patterns, more sophisticated harmonies, and eventually lead-sheet and chord-symbol reading.

Best of all, learning chords gives students the freedom to make real music right away! Once they understand a handful of common chord shapes and patterns, they can begin to sing and play along with hundreds of songs they already know and love—turning music practice into something creative, rewarding, and genuinely useful.

Ms Sarah’s goal is not simply to teach students a song, but to give them a musical vocabulary they can keep building on for years to come: see the shape, hear the harmony, find the pattern, and PLAY! 🎹

BONUS!! Sarah included three song sheets to try once you know the simple shapes! Two popular songs you may know, and one she wrote for her students for Thanksgiving. Keep calm and Sing Play On!

Five Little Pumpkins is a favorite traditional children’s song, made even more fun with Ms Sarah’s SingPlayStudios Shape Chord Method! In this playful arrangement, young musicians sing, move, act out the story, and play the harmony using simple chord shapes.

By combining singing, actions, rhythm, and chord playing, children begin to hear how harmony works while building coordination, musical memory, listening skills, and confidence at the instrument. Ms Sarah’s shape-based approach helps even very young students recognize and play chords before they are ready for more complicated music notation.

With pumpkins rolling, witches flying, and plenty of opportunities to sing and move, Five Little Pumpkins turns early harmony practice into a musical Halloween game—perfect for piano lessons, group classes, and music-making at home. 🎃🎹

Sing it. Move it. Hear it. Play it!

Pass the Pumpkin is a playful fall music activity and tradtional song arranged and adapted by educator and composer Sarah Bonsignore. She uses the song (and Loona Dorn backing track) with both her Pre-K group classes and her piano students. Combining singing, rhythm, movement, and play, the song gives young musicians a fun way to experience important musical concepts before they even realize they’re “learning” them!

Set in D harmonic minor, Pass the Pumpkin introduces students to the wonderfully mysterious sound of the minor scale while reinforcing simple ti-ti ta rhythm patterns. Students can clap the rhythm, play it on the piano, tap it with rhythm sticks, or sing along as they begin connecting the sounds they hear with the musical patterns they see.

And, of course, there’s a pumpkin!