Looking for some popular music to use in teaching? Wikifonia.org has tons of FREE lead sheets. Musicians can upload sheets and download sheets of standards and popular songs. Enjoy!
May1
Category Archives: Songs Kids Love!
Apr6
This may be a little too late for today, but you can still share it with your piano players since most piano students learn to play Hot Cross Buns. This is a link to a site that posts videos that teach kids how to cook. Just click the link above or go to spatulatta.com to watch the video recipe.
Mar30
Boys and Piano
Finding songs that interest my boys in piano is very difficult. Thankfully, by the time they reach 12 or so they sometimes have words to describe the type of music they want to play. Such was the case with one of my students recently. He has been learning to play Fur Elise (at his request a full 2 years after I first suggested it to him). As he had been getting very good at playing it I figure I should start preparing for what the next song would be. So I simply asked him what he would like to play. He told me that the only songs he liked right now are Fur Elise and The Snake Charmer. Then he thought about it and said, “I like them because they are mysterious. I like anything that is spooky and/or mysterious.”
It was like a secret code had been revealed to me. Certainly I could find spooky and mysterious.
So, this week I presented him with Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. He happily played this short arrangement from www.gmajormusictheory.org
Another hit with the boys in my studio this week was the Perry The Platypus theme from Phineas and Ferb. We adults know this tune as the theme from Peter Gunn or The Blues Brothers.
Other winners are usually
The Pink Panther
We Will Rock You
Star Wars Theme
Mar19
Songs Kids Want To Play
Yesterday one of my students’ parents called me and told me to listen to the music being played in the background. It was her son playing one of her daughter’s piano assignments on his trumpet! The song was Fireflies by Owl City. Her son had “stolen” his sister’s sheet music so he could learn how to play the song. He also kept saying over and over “It’s not fair! She gives you cool songs to learn! Why doesn’t my teacher give me songs like this to learn?”
So, with a nod to “the piano-assignment-stealing-brother” I write today’s post. Here is a list of the top requested songs in my studio from the past month:
1. Someone Like You by Adele
2. Fireflies by Owl City
3. Dynamite by Taio Cruz
4. Mean by Taylor Swift
5. Fur Elise by Beethoven
Of course most piano teachers know all about Fur Elise, but if you’d like to teach your students any of the other songs you can stop by any number of websites including musicnotes.com, 8notes.com, and sheetmusicplus.com for a teacher cheat sheet otherwise known as sheet music!
Feb29
Music From Glasses
Sometimes it can be inspiring for a student to “see” their piece being played in an over the top way!
