Ask The Teacher
Do
you have a question about the piano, piano lessons, or music
generally? You can get it answered here by a real live piano
teacher! We'll pick some of the best questions and provide the
answers here. We'll even show your name and the city you live
in so you can tell your friends! Just send us your first
name only, age, city, state, and country (if you live outside
the U.S.) and we'll do the rest.
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A Note for Parents
Because
the Internet is in constant flux by nature and standards vary
from individual to individual, the content of the sites linked
in the Cool Places section cannot
be guaranteed to be appropriate for your children. We have examined
all these sites and found them to be generally wholesome and
educational for most kids. We advise all parents to look at
the sites linked if they have any questions. Please
let us know by
e-mail if you find any of these links to be inappropriate
and why you find them so.
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
Our
Time and Relative Dimensions in Space (TARDIS) machine has found its way to the year 1752. We are to meet with Domenico Scarlatti, at the
palace of Queen Maria Barbara, in Madrid, Spain. Domenico
is waiting for Queen Maria Barbara to arrive for her lesson, but she is running late due
to demands of the Royal Court.
Psst! Don't tell your
piano teacher we said this!
Music is great, isn’t it? But learning the piano can
be hard work. You want to do it, of course, but sometimes … (sigh) ... you
need a break. I know how you feel! Have you ever thought of teaching
yourself another instrument? A really easy instrument you can play just for
fun—no having to practise scales, no having to learn hard classical music
that makes your brain tired sometimes. Ask Mum or Dad if they would buy you
a recorder, an ocarina, a tin whistle, a xylophone/glockenspiel or a second
hand guitar next time they’re looking at buying you a gift. Better still,
save your pocket money to buy one of these cheap, easy instruments yourself.
Most of these instruments come with fingering charts, and are easy enough
to play right from the beginning. The guitar is a little harder, but if you
buy a chord book and persevere with developing calluses (ouch!), you can
accompany yourself singing. Sometimes a break from all our serious hard
work is refreshing. And then we can get back to the ‘real’ stuff with new
enthusiasm!
These
are places with neat pictures and sounds or they might be just plain
weird! Check it out!
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:
Lots of Piano Music and Cool Sounds
Like piano music? Want to hear some? Well,
The Audition Room has hundreds
and hundreds of files of famous (and not so famous) composers' piano
music. Jump over there and take a listen. You'll be glad you did!
Take Your Own Trip with Dr. Who
If you like the sounds of the TARDIS and the Doctor in our
Meet the Composer interviews, you can
download your own sounds for free and play them on your own computer.
These come from the
BBC series,
Doctor Who, and span many of the Doctor's regenerations.
Go get 'em for free!
The Taz Speaks! (Sort of)
From
the Warner Bros. cartoon series Taz-mania, Taz grunts it like
it is! If your browser doesn't let you play sound directly, you can
get the files by turning on your browser's Load to Disk or Save to Disk
function and then play them offline later in the Windows Media Player
or similar player program. These make fun Windows sounds, too. Just
download 'em, go to your Windows Control Panel, Click Sounds and then
set these to play. They're way cool!
Greetings from Taz (108K WAV)
Taz takes a piano lesson (37 K WAV)
Taz tells you what he thinks about piano lessons (41K
WAV)
Taz does the classics (65K WAV)
Free collection of over 30 great Taz sounds, including all the ones
above! (993K self-extracting archive)
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