Helpful Documents and Websites
for Parents and Students
Studio Documents
Hands-On Projects and Composition Games
- http://www.dariamusic.com
- http://www.sfskids.org
- http://www.creatingmusic.com
- http://pbskids.org/chuck/index.html#/jazz (try other genres too!)
Music Theory and Ear Training Games/ Exercises
- http://www.musiclearningcommunity.com
- http://pianoeducation.org/pnokids.html
- http://www.teoria.com
- http://www.musictheory.net
- http://www.good-ear.com
- http://www.happynote.com/en/music-notes.html
- http://trainer.thetamusic.com/en/content/music-training-games
Practicing and Motivational Techniques
Recommended Method Books
Recommended Music Apps
Piano Maestro: FREE for all my students. iPad app only. A fun and engaging piano practice tool that listens and corrects the student instantly. Students earn stars, gain skills, increase their level, and have a blast. Works with many method books, too!
Piano Dust Buster: Free for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch. Use your piano to play your favorite pop and classical songs. Just like Piano Maestro, this app listens to you play and gives immediate feedback. It's a little less "educational", as the notes are blobs on the staff rather than traditional notation, but it's lots of fun and great for aural (ear) training!
NoteWorks: $4.99 for iPad. (There is another version for iPhone) A musical game designed to teach note recognition and improve sight reading skills. Hungry Munchy is eager to swallow elusive blue notes. Your goal is to help Munchy catch each note as quickly as possible. Move through harder levels, save your progress, and save multiple users with the paid version.
The Most Addicting Sheep Game: $0.99 for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch. This doesn't seem like a music game, but the only way to get the sheep from the beginning to the end of each level is to perfectly time his moves with a steady beat while listening to the background music. Great way to feel the pulse of music and have fun at the same time!
Tune Train: Free for iPad. A music creation app, where students can quickly create and edit melodies through a fun line-drawing mechanic. As you create the track for the train, you pick up passengers along the way, and each passenger is a different pitch. Add background music and you've instantly created a pleasing, interesting song!