BOUNTIFUL — After years of being musically involved in many different ways, Bountiful resident Lela Christensen now gives piano students a unique style of learning with her self-created piano teaching series, “The Missing Link to Magic Piano Keys.”

Christensen said this original series was born after spending a lifetime playing in band and orchestra, serving as a regional MIA music director, singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for more than 20 years and teaching piano lessons for more than 50. Because of her great love of music, she had always wanted to provide a simpler and more effective way to teach piano.

“The Missing Link to Magic Piano Keys” was written for teaching beginning piano in a new and exciting way, and it is visual, auditory and tactile for everyone who wants to learn piano quickly,” she said. “Students learn to read notes and play them on the piano keys in two months, and they learn how to count their music and become good sight readers. For anyone wanting to learn to play the piano, it is truly a self-teaching method, as if a seasoned teacher were sitting by the student giving them instructions.”

The series comprises five different books, a CD and a game, all of which are designed to encompass different ways of learning the piano. “How to Teach Piano” is the primary teaching manual for “The Missing Link to Magic Piano Keys.” It guides the teacher to know how and when to teach the different concepts of learning piano step by step.

“The main manual, ‘How to Teach Piano,’ is perfect for everyone including piano teachers, students, parents of piano students and even parents and children involved with home-schooling,” Christensen said. “It has word-for-word instructions for the new teacher and a ‘short-cut’ for more experienced musicians to follow.”

Other books in the series include “Rhythm, Music’s Heartbeat,” which teaches how to count all rhythm and “Pick, Play, Say, Jump Around,” which teaches notes on the piano by having them and their location in the music and piano keys taught right on the music page.

“There are three books with ‘Pick, Play, Say, Jump Around’ including a manual, an exercise booklet, and ‘The Magic Word’ and ‘Jingles’ songbook, which instills fundamentals of music into the memory in a fun way,” Christensen said. “It also comes with the ‘Pick, Play, Say, Jump Around’ game, which is a game used with black felt dots that helps students learn notes and associate them with where they are located on the music staff of the page and the keys of the piano. There is also a CD, “The Magic Word, Jingles and Rhythm,” where students hear the exact beat of different rhythms to help them count different note values to an even pulse beat.”

Christensen has also written a book, “The Spirit of Music: A Missionary Tool,” and is the hospitality chairman for the Davis County chapter of UMTA (Utah Music Teachers Association). She uses “The Missing Link to Magic Piano Keys” with her own piano students and cannot stress enough the importance and effectiveness of the series.

“I started writing “The Missing Link to Magic Piano Keys’ 25 years ago and really did some hard writing for the past 10, and I feel I have found a new door; a new effective way to teach beginning piano,” her husband said. “She would walk barefoot across town to teach kids piano with this method because she think it’s so needed. It is the missing link many teachers have been looking for to teach beginning students how to read notes correctly and do it in a short period of time.”