Nine out of ten times, kids and adults alike are inspired to take piano lessons because they heard a song that moved them in an inspiring and creative way and they just have to be able to recreate that for themselves. Unfortunately, that epic flowing masterpiece requires quite a bit of preliminary groundwork – which can be frustrating to aspiring maestros who just want to SHRED ALREADY! If you or your student identify with that sentiment, here’s a song for you!

He’s A Pirate, the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean. If you want to play the piano as hard and as fast as you can, this may be a good fit. It’s written in a lead sheet format, so the only note reading that needs to be done is for the right hand. The left hand will play octaves or fifths (depending on the size of the students hand) for the blue chords written just above the staff. We like teaching this song because it lights a fire in the eyes of our students, is excellent for sight reading, and provides great exercise for fast finger work. We’ve attached the sheet music below. Let the shredding begin!

–> He’s a Pirate <—

Here’s some YouTube inspiration for later on down the road.

Are you missing the sun yet? Here’s a throwback to an outdoor piano recital we had over the summer. Our instructor Alex and 50 students overtook West Bay Park by the water in Downtown Olympia and had a picnic while listening to students perform songs from Frozen, Yiruma, Kyle Landry, How to Train Your Dragon, Beethoven, Star Trek: Into Darkness, and Taylor Swift – to name a few. In an effort to overcome nerves, Alex let her students go up and perform when they felt ready, giving the recital a more “live music in the park” feel.

“I remember too many of my own recitals where I felt like every student before me on the list was just one more countdown until my doom and my terror just increased as each kid finished performing. I wanted my students to be able to conquer their nerves, and then decide that they wanted to play. It worked really well, I noticed a marked difference in my students faces when they described it afterwards. They were able to have fun before and while performing, instead of just being glad it was over or happy they did it after the fact.”