On Monday links I mentioned the piano resource we use.  I wanted to highlight that one again.

We actually use 2 different internet resources for piano.

Hoffman Academy

Mr. Hoffman does a fantastic job of offering short, but effective lessons that even my five year old enjoys.  His videos are completely free, and he offers a paid version which gives access to access to material you can print.  From his site, this is what is included with the Complete Materials for the first 120 lessons:

Includes 200 PDF pages + 12 MP3 Albums:
Sheet Music with Practice Instructions
Music Theory Worksheets & Activity Pages
Piano Listening MP3s
Practice & Play-along MP3s
Parent’s Guide

The lessons are usually less than 10 minutes long and each one concludes with a humour, finger-puppet clip.  My kids eagerly do their lessons to get to the clip at the end.

We enjoy the free version of his offering, but would likely purchase the full array of resources if it wasn’t for Barr None music, which comes next.

Barr None Music

For $19.95 a month we have access to every music lesson on every instrument they offer.  Currently I have children doing piano, violin and guitar.  We purchase the lesson books that correlate to their level, connect to the videos on the iPad, and away they go.  I appreciate how many of the music books coordinate between instruments so someone can play piano, and another violin and another guitar, all playing the same song from the book written for their instrument.

My children have improved greatly with each of their instruments with no input from me and no private lessons.  I’m sure they would progress even faster with private lessons, but that doesn’t fit our schedule or out budget. These lessons are done from home, whenever it works for us.  And it’s the same monthly cost regardless of how many children participate or how many instruments we do.