weird piano habit

[user789653241]

My ds keeps playing songs he learned in different scales. Not different octaves.
He plays normally, then try it on different scales, and another, and another......
Is this normal things to do?
I just find it very odd, and want him to stop, but should I say something? Or should I just let him carry on doing whatever he wants to do?
I have no music knowledge at all.

Useful skill to have 😀 Particularly if he wants to accompany transposing instrument or singers who can't hit the notes they think they can

Plus all practice is good.

That's not easy to do. Might drive you mad but as PP said it's really good to practice. It's also using his brain in a way that other subjects don't so let him carry on I'd say.

Thank you. Yes, it drive me mad, but if it's good practice, I will (try to ) tolerate it!

Dd does the same, I just see it as her experimenting tbh. Mind you she has ASD so there is plenty that she does that could be seen as odd so maybe I don't tend to notice small oddness very often.

Why do you find it odd?

It's a great skill to have.

Why on earth do you want him to stop?
Let him experiment!

I wish everyone would do that. It's so very good for them, and I'm extremely impressed. I don't quite see why it's odd though.

Thank you.
I don't have a clue about music, and I wasn't sure that he was meant to be doing that kind of things. And my ds is very quirky child, so I wondered if he was doing something he shouldn't be doing.
I am glad I asked here before telling him to stop, it was kind of bugging me for a while. Good to know it's actually good for him.
Thank you everyone!

Hi -

As others said , it is a useful skill to have, and plenty of people wouldn't be able to do it, if he REALLY is playing in other keys himself. (At secondary school, our DS had to sight-transpose a piece because there wasn't sheet music in the correct key.)

But are you SURE he is actually playing it in different keys himself, and isn't just pressing the TRANSPOSE button on his instrument? That could achieve the same effect, but would not necessarily involve understanding the scale structure.

It's great, I often challenge my pupils to do that. Really useful skill and gets them thinking about the relationships between different keys etc :)

It may be indication of some special abilities. Ask his teacher what she/he thinks about it.

an indication, sorry :)

No, Ferguson.
I don't think he is using any special buttons on his keyboard, while he repeatedly plays in different scales.

I know it because he done it, played song in different key, and pressed some button and played again, said that it sound exactly the same as he played in different key or something, when he played normally.
He was doing this from very beginning. It wasn't too bad when he was learning really easy songs, when he can do it quite easily. But now he tries several times before he gets right, so it's kind of making me nuts!

I don't think he has the skills to play in different scales easily straight away, especially now, he experiments it, and get it right eventually. I don't think he has special ability.

Perhaps he ought to use headphones ('cans' the professionals call them!) so you don't have to listen all the time!

It's good that he is having fun doing this.

I would have loved to have experimented on the piano but I wasn't allowed to do that. My parents were adamant that I should practice 'properly' and never let me do anything other than practice the exercises, scales and pieces from the book which the teacher had given me. It was really boring and I got disheartened and gave up.

DS' piano book repeatedly encourages them to do exactly that :) It's good, and if he's getting all the accidentals (black notes) right really very clever.

Thank you everyone.
I will let him experiment as he likes, I don't have a clue anyway!