Children Piano Book Games

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Start piano at home with your child

Start with numbers, then read music

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GAMES

There are lots of fun games for the whole family that you can play using our colorful piano by number books. If you're trying to find your children a piano book that has fun and games, look no further!

Here are just a few games you can play using our fun piano books:

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 in PIANO IS EASY 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. Try it without the Play Along Audio CD because keeping in time to the CD is disconcerting to many people the first time they try it. 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!

PIANO TEACHING GAMES

FOURS

(This game is available in GAMES FOR THE PIANO and you can click here to play FOURS on our online piano)

Click here for a PDF file online.

"Fours” is the most basic rhythm game that I play with children. I always use it on the first piano lesson, and on all subsequent piano 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 children to play without a piano book sometimes, without the encumbrance of graphic notation (notes or numbers) of any kind. For example, you’ll notice that children in general can go to the piano and play three songs:

Chopsticks, Heart and Soul, Knuckles ("knuckles" is 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 the piano teacher plays the chords. Remember that there are always four notes (numbers) for every chord (letter.)

The child begins on “Middle C,” also known as the piano key with the sticker number one: “1”

The teacher plays the letters, or chords.

1 1 1 1

2 2 2 2

3 3 3 3

4 4 4 4

5 5 5 5

6 6 6 6

7 7 7 7

8 8 8 8

I play a kind of funny Chico Marx oom-pah accompaniment (click here for video sample of Chico Marx) 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 piano book. Children need to improvise, however humbly, and essentially all of these games are designed to make music fun for children outside of a piano book.

The game “Fours” teaches a child that

1. sheet music is not always necessary to have fun with music

2. they have to count while they play

3. music is divided into numbered units

4. piano is a fun thing they can do right away