Piano Safari Review | Beginner Piano Method Book Series for Teachers and Parents 

Thank you, Marty! I think you will love it. I find that the rote pieces keep students of any age engaged. They get to play pieces that sound complicated instead of your usual reading pieces. I find that students who learn to read via Piano Safari are more confident than other methods. There is a teacher guide on the website (for free I believe).

I am glad you found it helpful!

yes, the books my students have gotten on Amazon have been the british version actually (everything the same except the vocabulary for the quarter notes, half notes etc. For ex: the quarter will be called a minim and the half note a semibreve)

Hi there! Piano Safari now has a new book for kindergarten (those under 5 or 6). It all depends on the maturity of the student. I have some 5 year olds who are very capable of doing the book in the video (with adjustments). But I also have 5 year olds who need something easier and repetitive. This book is different than all other method books because it combines rote pieces (by imitation) and reading by intervals (similar to the Music Tree methods. Completely the opposite of Faber/Bastien etc because they encourage finger positions). I use the sightreading cards a lot for students who follow this book and students who are in other books (they are good supplementary material for anything/any age or any level). Piano Safari has free teacher guides on their website that breaks everything down :) You should look into it - it makes my teaching less boring and I find that students really like it from the very first lesson.

Thank you for your comment! I should make a video on different ways to read music! I recommend you memorize a couple of notes (landmarks), and then figure out how to read by intervals (learn what a step/skip is) and practice only that. Do this away from the piano - just do drills for 5 minutes a day in the morning. I am sure you will be so much better in 1 month! :)

I think that students do prefer rote pieces, especially during the first book! They have never said it to me, but the rote pieces are just more fun! Maybe you could try just giving them one rote pieces and one reading piece. You can tell them that they cannot move to the second rote pieces until their current pieces are played well! I have never had big issue with this, but it is an interesting point that I did not consider. Maybe I should ask my students!

I think it depends on how much the student practices and how many assignments they have. For example: if there is a 5 year old who is learning "i love coffee, I love tea" (recording can be found on youtube), then the parent might have to search the video and make it easier for the student to see it. They might pause it in the right moment and learn it along with them. If the students are young or have focus problems, I would recommend doing this type of practice for the rote songs for 5 minutes at a time in small increments. For more mature students who are tech savvy, parents do not need to be as involved. The whole point is that you need to watch the rote videos because it would be hard to remember them or learn new material during practice at home :) hope this helps!

Why are you worried that they won't read other material for some time? :) I have not had this problem yet, because Piano Safari actually has made my students stronger readers. They can read anything based on the intervallic relationship. So for example, if the Disney song has a treble A as the beginning note, than they are able to see if there are skips/steps going up or down. If you are worried about that, I think you should give Piano Safari a try. One trouble I have had though, has been identifying notes without context. That has been a challenge for some students (not all - usually those who are very young or do not practice consistently); in that case, I just have them read and identify random notes. On the other hand, even if your students have trouble sightreading Disney songs from Faber, that is still good practice for them to get used to a different way of reading notes. I think you could combine Piano Safari and Faber and see what happens. It might be a good change of scenery for you to change the books if you have been using them for a long time. If it does not work, you can always go back to them. I think you should try them for a couple of months at least to see. It took me a little bit to get used to it, but the pieces sound so mature and the students love them!

@@thesiliconvalleypianoteach9468 oh, thanks for that awesome response! Yeah, I've been talking to people in the Piano Safari Facebook group about this and I've been getting help with this there as well. This is a really encouraging explanation. I've been experimenting with PS for a few lessons now and I'm not sure I'm fully comfortable with it. I think it will take some time. However, I love the technique ideas and rote. I was already teaching rote with Paula Dreyers Little Gems.

@@victoriangirl83 I started out using with one or two students and then I started using it more. I think you should feel free to "cut" things out if they do not work for you, or supplement with other books that you might think are best for you and your students. Best of luck!

@@victoriangirl83 I agree, this looks rather unstructured and doesn't seem to work methodically in teaching the the notes on the piano. While this looks like a bit of fun, Piano Safari does not look like a piano method to me.

I have started it with people as young as 4. Sometimes I assign only the rote pieces before working with a book. I know that they are coming up with a book for preschoolers, which comes out at the end of July. I want to buy it, even though I do not have preschoolers anymore. It would be useful a few years ago when I was building my studio!

I order online on Piano Safari. You can maybe find it on Amazon! Thank you!