A Very Irish Piano Improvisation Game for St. Patrick’s Day

Looking for a way to celebrate the season in your music teaching studio? Dagda’s Harp is the perfect way to ramp up the fun on St. Patrick’s Day with a piano improvisation game.

At the risk of sounding gushy, I do love that people all over the world celebrate my little country’s national holiday. 🍀

To make it easier for music studio teachers to join in the fun, I’ve created some great St. Patrick’s Day games so piano students can have fun practising note names, music symbols and improvisation while learning a bit about Dublin and our folk stories.

One of my favourite activities for St. Patrick’s Day is a piano improvisation game based on the Irish folk tale about Dagda and his magic harp. It’s so much fun that I thought I’d share a free sample of the game so you can try it out in your own music teaching studio.

Keep reading to grab your free sample, learn how to play and see me use it in a real-life piano lesson.

Note: Our blog posts with music theory games for St. Patrick’s Day were originally published in March of 2018 and 2019. They were combined and updated in March 2025.

The Story of Dagda and his Harp

The activity will be infinitely more fun if you first briefly explain the story of Dagda and his magic harp that would cast spells on people.

Only Dagda could play the magic harp. In the legend, he played the harp in battles to defeat his enemies by making them laugh hysterically, cry uncontrollably or fall asleep.

Let’s Improvise!

With a bit of preparation, you and your students can be improvising your way to fun with folklore and magic spells. 🪄 So let’s get started.

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Members of Vibrant Music Teaching can download the full game in the Member’s Library. Not a member? You’re missing out on so much gamified-teaching fun! Visit vibrantmusicteaching.com to learn more and join today.

Learning Objectives

Through this piano improvisation game, students will learn about scales, chords and Roman numerals, seeing how they all work together to create music. There’s even a bit of ear training thrown in since players have to listen carefully for Dagda’s spell.

How to Play

1. Choose, at random, one each of primo, secondo and magic pattern cards:
   • The “primo” card determines the scale that the player on the right will use to improvise.
   • The “secondo” card determines the bass pattern for the player on the left.
   • The “magic pattern” card is the solfa-melody spell that the secondo player needs to listen for.
2. The primo decides what will break the spell. This should be an action that lasts 4 beats. For example:
   • Freeze for 4 beats.
   • Tap the fallboard 4 times.
   • Clap a specific 4-beat rhythm pattern.
3. Begin improvising together with the secondo playing the specified bass pattern and the primo playing a melody in the specified key.
4. While improvising, the primo should play the magic pattern spell occasionally. When they hear the spell, both players should immediately perform the spell-breaking action.
5. The secondo should play a low do to signal the ending.

Whether it’s Spring, Christmas, Halloween or some other holiday, the “Special Occasions” section of our Music Theory hub page has just what you need for year-round fun.

See it in Action

This video shows a short excerpt of Georgia and I playing this St. Patrick’s Day piano improvisation game.

Members of Vibrant Music Teaching can see an expanded version of this video in the Library, where Georgia and I play the full game beginning-to-end. The Library also includes another video of how the game can work when you have two students.

Make it Work for Every Level

Piano students don’t have be advanced pianists or theory whiz kids to have fun with this St. Patrick’s Day improvisation game. To make it work for younger, less advanced or mixed-level students, you can modify the rules to suit.

Here are some ways to switch things up:

• Have the student play single root notes in the bass pattern rather than full chords.
• Stick with pentascale patterns in the primo.
• Create your own magic spell together rather than using the solfa “magic spell” cards.
• Use sticky flags on the 5 notes in the primo’s pentascale or on the secondo’s bass notes.

How do you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in your music teaching studio?

Whether you improvise with Dagda’s Harp, practise note names and symbols with Journey to Phoenix Park or use some other Colourful Keys worksheet or activity, tag us on Instagram @colourfulkeys and share your thoughts in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you. 🙂