Sightreading Idea: Free Sample Pages with YouTube Play-Along

News flash! Kids like popular music. We piano teachers can fill our students' assignment books with a to-do list of scales, technique, and historical music, but we're going to miss a great learning opportunity if we stop there. The study of popular music can provide many benefits, such as:

• Sightreading practice
• Voicing practice
• Rhythmic challenges
• The capability of playing along with a music video
• Fingering issues to solve
• Excitement about practicing!

I have started using the free sample pages provided by musicnotes.com for one-week sightreading exercises with my high school students. I ask them what they would like to play, and we can usually find exactly that, often in the original published key. That's great if you want to have your student play along with a music video. It's really a lot of fun. And it's free.

Sometimes, after learning the first page of a popular song, a student will want to go ahead and buy the whole thing. Other times, they find that what they heard on the radio didn't quite translate to piano as they'd hoped. It's a learning activity regardless of the conclusion.

Here's where the teacher gets to have a little fun: when a student has a hard time coming up with a title on his/her own, I get to pick the piece. That has only happened a few times, but when it has, I have opted for my old faves from days of yore. Stuff like "When October Goes" and "Ready to Take a Chance Again" by Barry Manilow. Kids who are in high school today have no idea that this is not considered cool by some of their fathers. I guess I have a mischievous side. :)