Piano Game For You

There are lots of fun piano game for the whole family that you can play using piano by number books. Here are just a few:

Name That Tune: One person plays the songs on the piano while everyone tries to guess the title of the song. Kids love playing the songs, so kids can take turns. You can also use the Play Along Audio CD, but kids also love being the center of attention and playing the songs on the piano.

Musical Chairs: Put chairs in center of room and when the music stops everyone has to find a chair, except there's always one chair too few. Use the CDs or have the kids (any age) play the piano.

Christmas Pageant: There's more than enough material on the Play Along Audio CD to present your own show. Kids (any age) will love putting it together, and can take turns playing along with the music or acting in the show.

Make Up Your Own Show: The Family Favorites section has 28 familiar melodies that creative kids can turn into a show about anything.

Have Everyone Try It! You'd be surprised what fun a family gathering can become when everyone is asked to play a song from the book. You'll discover that your family and friends have hidden musical talents! Most people really do want to try playing the piano, so make a game of it!

TEACHING GAMES
FOURS "Fours" is the most basic rhythm game that I play with kids. I always use it on the first lesson, and on all subsequent lessons until the child seems too old for it. It's a fun but very childish game that teaches rhythm and piano geography without using printed notes or numbers of any kind.It's important for kids to actually play the piano without the encumbrance of graphic notation (notes or numbers) of any kind. For example, you'll notice that kids in general can go to the piano and play three songs: Chopsticks, Heart and Soul, Knuckles (that funny piece played on the black keys with the knuckles of the right hand!)

"Fours" is a piano game constructed in exactly the same mold. The child plays numbers and I play the chords. If the symbols below don't line up in your browser, remember that there are always four notes (numbers) for every chord (letter.) The child begins on "Middle C," also known as the number one: "1" The teacher plays the letters, or chords.

1111 2222 3333 4444 5555 6666 7777 8888
C G C F C F G C

I play a kind of funny Chico Marx oom-pah accompaniment using the chord pattern (C G C F C F G C, etc.) Kids find this very easy and refreshing. We play up the piano keys, moving to the right, with the natural goal being for the child to reach the highest key on the piano. I'm pretty "strict," that is, if the child breaks the rhythm or misses a key, we start over. Strangely enough, kids love to go back to the beginning and start over as much as they love going all the way to highest key.
Fun variant: Ask them to count up the white keys until they reach the highest white key (starting from Middle C, which to them is #1) and tell you what the "number" of that white key is (it's 29.) This has no musical value except that it makes the child an explorer of the instrument.The object of these games is to make the child a keen and enthusiastic observer of their instrument, something impossible to do when the child is locked into reading only sheet music from a book. Kids need to improvise, however humbly, and essentially all of my games are designed to make fun music outside of sheet music, numbers or conventional.

"Fours" teaches a child that
Sheet music is not always necessary to have fun with music
They have to count while they play
Music is divided into numbered units
Piano is a fun thing they can do right away.

Easy Piano Sheet Music

Easy piano sheet music is a printed musical notation for piano. Before phonograph and radio became popular, sheet music was used by musicians to make their compositions known to the people. Many of these were piano sheet music since piano was the most popular musical instrument back then.

In the late 19th century, piano sheet music became even more popular as parlor music became a massive trend in the US at the time. Parlor music was a kind of popular music that was performed in a parlor, a small room in a house where performers play a musical piece before an audience. Almost all middle-class homes during this period had parlors and a piano.
With the advent of the phonograph, radio and other modern devices that played recorded sound, the popularity of piano sheet music gradually faded.

Easy piano sheet music, however, is not totally out of the music scene. Song writers nowadays still publish piano sheet music on sheets of paper. With the availability of advanced computer technology, many kinds of piano sheet music are now offered in computer-readable formats. They can be easily purchased and downloaded over the Internet.

Common pieces are sold from $3 to $5, while a piano sheet music collection of most recent hits sells at around $10 to $25. Rare and old piano sheet music, usually of classical songs, are priced at about $50.

Free piano sheet music can also be downloaded from the Internet. They are mostly old musical pieces with an expired copyright, such as the compositions of famous musicians Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven.

If you don't find the easy piano sheet music of your choice online, especially if it is rare, you may look for it in music stores near you. Some websites also offer listings of music stores where you can find both the most popular and hard-to-find sheet music, old and new alike.

Piano Store Tips

The piano is probably one of the biggest and oldest musical instruments. With its immense versatility and beautiful sound, a piano has the capability to blend extremely well with other musical instruments. It can also prove to be an ideal solo instrument too. However, buying a piano can be quite tricky. There are a wide variety of pianos with various brands that could be chosen from and lots of piano store that offers great variety of pianos. The sound, looks, effectiveness and features often vary to a large extent. Moreover, their price range varies too. It becomes very difficult to buy a piano unless one is sure about what he is looking for.

It is often suggested that the bigger a piano is, the better would its sound quality be. Also buying the more expensive one, even for a starter, would result in a rich sound experience. But these suggestions do not always hold true. This is the space saving age and it becomes extremely difficult to make space for a huge piano. Moreover, people with limited budget cannot always afford a high level brand new piano. But that does not mean they cannot ever own the musical instrument of their dreams. A lot of piano stores sell used pianos. There are certain advantages of buying a used piano from these piano stores. Firstly, one can get the instrument of his choice at a much cheaper price than a brand new one. Since the depreciation of a piano is very less and one instrument is generally expected to last for almost forty to fifty years, a piano which is ten years old would still be in a good condition, enough to get along well for another thirty years at least.

Used piano does not generally come with a warranty. This makes it important for a buyer to carefully choose the instrument. Certain things must be kept in mind while buying a used piano. It is always better to buy used piano from a piano store rather than buying it from an online shop. Piano is an instrument that needs to be touched, heard and felt before buying. It becomes all the more necessary for used ones in order to carefully check the condition the piano is in. Plenty of piano store sell used piano these days and it is better to check them out before actually buying one.

It is very important to do a history check of the used piano the buyer intends to buy. This should ideally include details about the previous owner if it's available, how long the piano was with its past owner and how long it has been on the store. If possible it is also wise to find out why the previous owner sold the piano. If the buyer is new to the instrument it is always better to take along someone who has played a piano for some time and has a considerable experience and understanding of the instrument while buying. They can help assess whether the instrument is in good condition by playing it, listening to how it sounds and how it feels while they're playing it. A price comparison between the used one and other used pianos as well as the same model in brand new condition is also suggested. This would ensure that price to be paid for the used piano is worth.

If these factors can be kept in mind and followed carefully while visiting a piano store, a buyer can surely get the best deal when it comes to buying a used piano.