Just for Kids

i guys! This awesome page is only for you! You can talk to other kids about piano, listen to the Taz-man, jump to other cool places, time travel to meet a famous composer or pianist, get a great tip to help with your lessons, get help with writing piano or music reports or even ask a piano teacher your own question! Go for it! The Note Brothers, Arnold, Steven, Jean, and the Twins (Mel and Danny) will show you around! Parents: be sure to read the note!

Meet the Composer | Piano Talk | Tip | Ask the Teacher | Cool Places | Finding Stuff | The Taz | Italiano! | Outta Here!

Meet the Composer

Like to go bowling? Well, Mozart did too! Find out more when you take a time travel trip back to 1786 Vienna to meet the great master (and bowler).

Click on the TARDIS to go back in time to visit Mozart

Other cool Meet the Composer interviews

Meet the Composer | Piano Talk | Tip | Ask the Teacher | Cool Places | Finding Stuff | The Taz | Italiano! | Outta Here!

Piano Talk

No, we don't mean speaking softly! We're talking about the "Young Students" forum of the The Piano Education Page Forums. This is a place for young piano students or students-to-be to talk about lessons, piano, teachers or any other piano-related subject with other students from all over the world. The Forums is not a live chat room, but it is a place you can leave messages and respond to messages from other piano students. You can do LOT more than that as well. Customize your own screen on the Board, send e-mails to other Board members, do polls, keep your own personalized notepad and much more. Read the Forums any time, but you'll have register if you want to post your own messages. Registration only takes a minute and the info is not used for any purpose other than the operation of the Board. Use of the Board is totally free. Tell your parents you're are signing up (there's a special forum for them, too), then go for it! Start talking with other piano students and teachers all over the world! You can also leave questions to be answered by all the piano teachers who visit the Board, so go for it!

Go to The Piano Education Page Forums!

Meet the Composer | Piano Talk | Tip | Ask the Teacher | Cool Places | Finding Stuff | The Taz | Italiano! | Outta Here!

Tip of the Month - Jazz it up!

Have you ever heard jazz musicians playing together?  Do you know that, for most of what they play, they make it up right on the spot!  This means that, every time they play something, it’s always different.  They sound pretty good together, but how do they know WHAT to play?  

They follow a lead sheet.  What’s that?  It’s like a map.  Gives them directions on where to go, but it’s up to them how they get there.  This is called improvising, and it’s heaps of fun to learn.
The first step in learning how to improvise the way jazz musicians do, is to learn chords.  Pick three chords: the tonic, the subdominant and the dominant.  You can choose any key you like, but if you’re just a beginner, stick to C major for a while.  
These are the chords you’ll need to learn: C7 = CEGBflat.  F7= FACE, G7= GBDF.  
Spend some time practising these chords.
Harmonically:  all together: a solid sound.  Both hands doing exactly the same thing.
Melodically: as an arpeggio, one note at a time, like a harp.  This is a prettier sound.
Practise playing these chords with your metronome.  Treat the piano like a set of drums, beating out rhythms using the notes in the chords.  
Try and change from chord to chord, jumping and landing on the strongest beat.  For example, using simple quadruple time (4/4) count 1 2 3 4, make sure you land on beat 1.
When you have the hang of this, write up your own lead sheet.  
Draw bar lines on a piece of paper, and write the chords in the bars.  Use any combination you like.  Then, put your lead sheet on the piano stand, and try to change chords when your sheet tells you to!  Mix the way you play the chords—and voila! You’re improvising!  Let yourself go with the rhythm.  After a while with practise, the less you think the better you improvise!

Meet the Composer | Piano Talk | Tip | Ask the Teacher | Cool Places | Finding Stuff | The Taz | Italiano! | Outta Here!

Cool Places for Kids

These are places with neat pictures and sounds or they might be just plain weird! Check it out!

Meet the Composer | Piano Talk | Tip | Ask the Teacher | Cool Places | Finding Stuff | The Taz | Italiano! | Outta Here!

The Musical Reference Shelf

Got a report to write on the piano? Want to learn a little more about it? Need to find out who Charles Tomlinson Griffes (or almost any other composer) was? We have a whole shelf full of free articles that should help:

• The Musical Reference Shelf - Ever wonder what those funny foreign words on your piano music are and what they mean? Well, they're usually from Italian and they tell you what the piece is supposed to sound like and how you're supposed to play it. You can find out their meanings and a whole lot more by looking at this page.
• Listening List and Composer Resource - links to biographies of many composers, along with hundreds of music files to listen to
• The "Why" of the Piano - find out about the history of the piano, how it is constructed and how it works
• Purchasing and Caring For a Piano - how a piano is fixed and taken care of
• Downloadable Musical Graphics - dress up your report with some cool musical graphics!
• Piano Tuning - How It Is Done and Who Should Do It - Find out why tuning a piano is a job for a professional. Don't do this at home!
• Piano Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - all about pianos
• Music and The Home Computer series - a series of articles which talk about all kinds of ways you can use a computer to play or create music, how the computer actually makes the sound and how to get music software to work right.