Songs Old and Songs New
Piano Theory, Technique, & Repertoire

Songs Old and Songs New is a simple & easy way to start your beginner piano students - from piano keyboard sheets, scales & chords, to over 265 pages of music!

Not a method book

This book is a collection of

• Music Education resources, 
• Beginning note-reading songs, and 
• Piano repertoire for beginners from all over my website.

Download digital copy of "Songs Old & Songs New," a beginning theory, technique, & repertoire book, 279 pages, $12.95:

 

A COLLECTION?

Yes - you could find all of these pages on my website, but here they are gathered in a way that is easy to access and presented in a chronological manner, at least initially.  

THIS IS NOT a method book, and so starting on page 62, the repertoire is presented alphabetically, not sequentially.  

The Table of Contents, page 1:

The first thing I give students

The first thing I give new students is a paper keyboard to place in their notebooks.

 For many weeks we work off this "keyboard", while labeling, practicing finding, and solidly learning the key names. 

Other keyboards:

This one is a bit larger.

And this one has key names on each key, white or black.

Beginner songs for one hand

The "Black Key" songs are an easy way for beginners to start to use their fingers, and to learn their finger numbers.  The following black key songs are part of the larger collection in Just the Black Keys.  Songs are accompanied by teacher secondos.

Hot Cross Buns, for one hand only.

Pizza, Please! is really just "Hot Cross Buns" in disguise.  The words are fun to sing.

Putting two hands together

Mary Had a Little Lamb is a necessity for beginners!

A surprisingly pretty piece

This is Grieg's famous "Morning Song."  Students, both boys and girls, love playing this, because it is simple but beautiful.

The teacher's accompaniment:

Teacher accompaniments such as this one show the actual notes students are playing in their black key songs.  There are over 25 pieces on the black keys only, with teacher accompaniments, in the book  Just the Black Keys.

Staff paper just right for beginners

A great big staff for young children

A grand staff

Treble and bass clefs

Scales and Chords

These scales help little hands learn to keep the thumbs up on the keys, and achieve that curved shape we want.

Left hand also has a sheet for scales.

Regular pentascales, with a sheet for right hand (shown), and a sheet for left hand.

It is VERY HANDY to have all these songs and worksheets located in ONE PLACE.  While I was putting the book together, I kept going to my printed folder of "Songs Old & Songs New" and stealing sheets from the packet for students' lessons!

The Table of Contents, page 2:

Download digital copy of "Songs Old & Songs New," a beginning theory, technique, & repertoire book, 279 pages, $12.95:

 

Reading up & down, step or skip

When your student attempts to play Wormies, you will know if they really understand the motion of notes up and down the staff!

Snakes are just like Wormies, but longer and SMALLER.

With Crickets, your student has to find the hidden "skips" - one additional skip per line!

Flashcards page 1

Flashcards, page 2

Flashcards, page 3, ledger line notes

Beginning note-reading songs

The Table of Contents, page 3:

Indian Dance only LOOKS hard.  For beginners, let them use this version with AlphaNotes - notes with letter names inside the note heads. 

This version is just the same, but doesn't fill EVERY note with a letter.  It is what I call a "helper" version.

And this arrangement is for the teacher, not the student - this shows you how Indian Dance would look if the left hand were added in.  I do recommend adding the left hand at week 2 or 3 of becoming acquainted with this song - it is very powerful and exciting!

The great thing about Jingle Bells is its FAMILIARITY.

Every student needs to play Mary Had a Little Lamb - it has so many uses!

The Music Alphabet has two pages:

Those were all the easiest beginner pieces of music.  Now we have a list of lots of music choices!

And here is the long list of songs - 
repertoire for progressing beginners!

The Table of Contents, page 4:

Remember - these are presented alphabetically instead of in order of difficulty!

The duet secondo part, for the teacher:

Many of the songs are folk tunes or nursery rhymes; some are hymns or Christmas carols.

Download digital copy of "Songs Old & Songs New," a beginning theory, technique, & repertoire book, 279 pages, $12.95:

 

The Table of Contents, page 5:

A few pieces are simplified melodies from classical piano or symphonic literature, such as Edvard Grieg's "Peer Gynt" Suite, Chopin's Funeral March, and Beethoven's Theme to the 5th Symphony.

The Table of Contents, page 6:

There are songs from America, Ireland, Germany, France, Scotland, Britain, and more...

Download digital copy of "Songs Old & Songs New," a beginning theory, technique, & repertoire book, 279 pages, $12.95:

 

The Table of Contents, page 7

Most of the songs have lyrics to sing - a definite plus for young kids!

And... many, many more pieces, listed in the Table of Contents!

Download digital copy of "Songs Old & Songs New," a beginning theory, technique, & repertoire book, 279 pages, $12.95:

 

The Table of Contents, page 8

Many of the songs have duet secondos for the teacher or another player, and most others have chord symbols above the melody like a lead sheet, to aid in making up a harmonic background, if desired.

The Table of Contents, page 9

Most of the songs will be familiar to many of you, but there are some original songs in the mix that have proven to be popular with my students, such as The Lake Pirates,  Indian Dance, and Monsters Everywhere.

The Table of Contents, page 10

At the very end of the book is a copy of the cover as a plain black-and-white page, just for coloring!  Many of your students will have fun with that.

Download digital copy of "Songs Old & Songs New," a beginning theory, technique, & repertoire book, 279 pages, $12.95:

 

I told you that this is not a regular method book.  So what kind of book IS this?

Yes, many of the songs in this book will bring your student JOY!  And that is the aim of our teaching.

Download digital copy of "Songs Old & Songs New," a beginning theory, technique, & repertoire book, 279 pages, $12.95: