Exciting news: you can now follow the Color In My Piano blog via Facebook! Click the new button on the left, Find Us On Facebook, to view our page on Facebook. Become a fan and receive blog updates right in your Facebook news feed!
In addition, now when you leave comments on posts at colorinmypiano.com, you can leave them using your facebook account. Colorinmypiano.com will even display your current facebook avatar (photo) beside your comment. What fun!
I recently came across an interesting site containing free mp3s of new age solo piano music. What a great resource to pass on to my piano students! It’s important for students to listen to a wide variety of music, but often they are only exposed to pop music. New age piano music is bound to tickle the fancy of most students — especially since it’s free.
To download onto your computer so you can listen or upload to your mp3 player, right-click on the blue arrow beside the track you wish to download and select “Download linked file.” Then open the file in iTunes (or whatever media player you use). Enjoy!
Check out these pictures at dvice.com, featuring modern keyboard designs by Yamaha! I particularly like the one shown in the screenshot at right.
Would I ever buy a keyboard such as this? No, probably not. If I had the money to spend, I’d buy an acoustic piano, not a keyboard. Acoustic pianos are still far superior to keyboards, even considering the great improvements that have been made to keyboards over the years. They just don’t compare, in my book.
However, the popularity of keyboards seems to be increasing. I’ve experienced an increasing number of experiences with parents who wish to buy keyboards for their beginner students instead of pianos. And I can understand why: they are often cheaper than buying both new and used pianos, are far easier to move, and do not have it tuned every six months. The advantages of buying a keyboard are obvious, but there are some major not-so-obvious disadvantages. Continue reading “Keyboards vs. Acoustic Pianos”
The end of the semester at college is near! I’m been working hard on my piano pieces for juries (the end-of-the-semester for music majors). Take a listen:
Visit my YouTube channel by clicking here.
How many of us piano teachers (and students) would love to have one of THESE in our pianos studios?! The video below shows a couple of young professional foot piano players playing/dancing on a giant foot piano:
Want to buy one? They do indeed sell them — for just $250,000 apiece. Start saving!!
Have you seen makingmusicfun.net yet? This site is full of free resources for both teachers and students. All the materials available at Making Music Fun have super-cute graphics in an “under the sea” theme.
For teachers:
For kids:
There’s plenty to explore at the Making Music Fun website. Let me know what you find!
Move over, Finale and Sibelius! There’s somebody new in town. MuseScore is a music notation software available FREE online for anyone to download. After doing a brief test drive last spring (mentioned here), I decided to take a closer look now that it’s available for Mac users.
I’ve been a faithful Finale user since 2005, mainly because Finale is the software of choice at the colleges I’ve attended. I use Finale to make worksheets for my students and to notate my original compositions and arrangements. Buying Finale 2009 last September cost me an arm and a leg, so I was quite curious to see how MuseScore would compare. Is it worth spending all that money on Finale when you can get MuseScore for free? Continue reading “A Closer Look at MuseScore: FREE music notation software”
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