Get Kids Excited to Learn Drums or Piano with Hal Leonard

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We were provided with copies of Piano for Kids and Drums for Kids to facilitate this post, Get Kids Excited to Learn Drums or Piano with Hal Leonard. All opinions are my own. Affiliate links are present for your shopping convenience.

Have you noticed that a lot of people love music, but not everyone learns to play an instrument?

While there may be those few who do really struggle with the mechanics, for others the struggle is more mental. Simply put, they think it will just be too hard and never try.

What if there was a way to introduce your child to an instrument with the focus being on “how easy” it is to learn either the drums or piano?

Get Kids Excited to Learn Drums or Piano with Hal Leonard

Hal Leonard has been around with music instruction books for years. Now they are back with two new books, Piano for Kids and Drums for Kids.

These books take the idea of the most successful music teachers being the ones who show students “how easy” rather than “how difficult.” Also, they teach the musical elements through well-known, popular songs most kids already know.

Piano for Kids works for any keyboard or acoustic piano.

Examples of electric keyboards (I highly recommend getting 88 keys even though you don’t need them for this starter book.)

Drums for Kids is written with carefully sequenced lessons for drummers of such a young age.

We purchased a Yamaha Electric Drum set for my son. It was used from the instructor, so we paid well under 50% of retail. The sampling below is on the lower cost end compared to what we bought.

Curious about the songs you’ll find inside?

“Let It Go” from Frozen, “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music, “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz, pop favorites like “Lean on Me,” and rock classics like “Purple Haze,” “Old Time Rock & Roll,” “Wild Thing,” or “Surfin’ U.S.A.” … these are some of the songs in Piano for Kids and Drums for Kids.

With both books, kids can play along with easily accessed audio demonstration tracks that may be downloaded or streamed using the unique code inside each book. This feature includes Hal Leonard’s exclusive PLAYBACK+ multi-functional audio player to slow down or speed up the tempo, change keys, or set loop points, all for the price of the instruction book.

Learn Drums or Piano with Hal Leonard: Our Thoughts

Overall, I found the books to work well for my boys. My 8th grader decided to sit down with the Piano for Kids to learn a few of the included songs. He does have the advantage of having learned to read music for clarinet and saxophone. However, piano uses 2 staffs and 2 hands.

My youngest took drum lessons for a while last year. Even though his instructor customizes lessons to the student, we found that my son’s attention span typically lasted 15 minutes. When the lesson is 30 minutes long, that means a lot of time spent trying to get him focused.

However, he’s rediscovering the drums using this book. And, my college age son is often found working through the book alongside him, too.

If you have a child interested in either instrument, but don’t want formal lessons quite yet, these books can make for a great starting place. Just keep in mind that independent learning without someone to help you out will only get you so far. Which is why I have my boys take lessons for their instruments and the reason I have a piano student this year. We all need a guiding hand to make sure we are on the right path.

 

Do you or your child play an instrument or want to learn one?
Would these books be of interest in your home?