Where to find lead sheets

Simple Gifts. Skip To My Lou. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Take Me Out to the Ball Game. The Alphabet Song. The Farmer in the Dell. The First Noel. The Hokey- Pokey. The Old Rugged Cross. The Star- Spangled Banner. The Wheels on the Bus. The Yellow Rose of Texas. There's a Hole in the Bucket. This Little Light of Mine.

This Old Man. Three Blind Mice. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Wade in the Water. Were You There? Wexford Carol. What a Friend We Have in Jesus. What Child is This? When the Saints Go Marching In. Credit: markjmartin. I have a full 8-part piano teaching course on lead sheets called Taking the Lead in the Inner Circle.

In this course, the amazing Forrest Kinney teaches us all about chords and lead sheets. He shares information on how to make the most popular chords, how to style them in a variety of ways, how to add colour tones to them and how to use them to re-harmonise melodies in fresh ways. There is also a 3-page DUET on this page for guitars or fiddles - very fun! What Wondrous Love. This is the well-known evocative and older hymn speaking about the love of God, so great that He sent his only Son to rescue us.

When He Cometh. This is a sweet and musically satisfying hymn, describing in an oblique way how God treasures children. When the Saints Go Marching In. This arrangement is handy for piano, because the melody uses just the five fingers with no shifting necessary! White, Orange and Green free Irish sheet music. A song about the courage of a young girl and her love for her country. She carries a banner with the forbidden colors of Ireland, and a young English soldier wants to take it away from her!

Best of all, this song is lovely and singable. I found that out while looking over music from The Greatest Showman. Will students' parents really buy the sheet music for them? This process has worked very well for us; many of the students do indeed talk their parents into purchasing their own copies, and others simply memorize the main theme and figure out the rest. I have a lot of church-going families among my students, and these songs are ones that are special to them already; they are thrilled to be able to play them at home!

Follow the diagrams below to see the "evolution" of lead sheet playing Here, perhaps the most basic way to play a lead sheet:. Once piano students understand how to add the left-hand chords this way, teach them how to do inversions of the I - IV-V chords. Here is the way the chords would look with the closest regular G and F inversions closest to the root position C chord :.

Do you recognize the F and G7 chord inversions? Your students don't need to wait until they encounter them in their method books to begin using them and developing an understanding of the relationship of the 3 main chords. With very young beginners, I like to start with the "pinch" chord which is actually a G7, and not just a G chord and the "baby" or "little F" chord. Now it is time to change songs, because Mary Had a Little Lamb only uses two chords.

Let's change to "Twinkle" to demonstrate the use of the IV chord which will be "F" if we play it in the key of C, as I usually do with beginners. Here is the beginning of "Twinkle" using the C chord in root position, and F and G inversions:. Here is the beginning of "Twinkle" with C, pinch G, and little F chords:. Here is Twinkle with pretty broken chords , MUCH more difficult for young students but where you are heading :.

Along the way to playing it like that, is an in-between version:. These are only a few ideas , the beginnings of where you can go with these free lead sheets. See other pages, such as Mary Had a Little Lamb , for more ideas. Have fun! In the Mood piano arrangement of the Glenn Miller big band piece, with a full sound and energetic swing!

Beginner sheet music for piano "Deep Inside the Mountains" describes a journey to a cavern filled with gems and gold NOW these easy songs are easier than ever, with your choice of plain notes, or lettered notes. Your students will love this EASY approach. Baby Bumblebee Song is actually "Arkansas Traveler" - a terrific melody that is fun to sing! Here are a couple EASY arrangements for beginner piano students! Piano keyboard sheets, scales, chords, note-reading exercises, and over pages of music!

Queen Esther in the Bible. A good choice for a singing story-teller, an operatic group , a short theater production , or a class of children! This book is also available from Amazon as a paperback.

Just the Black Keys. This book is available as a digital download from this site. Visit this page to see some free examples from the book. It is also available from Amazon as a paperback! And when they start reading white-key notes on the staff, this is a fun easy resource to say each week, "Choose a new black-key song at home this week and figure it out to show me next lesson! The Adventures of Tonsta.

A perfect read aloud storybook for little boys or girls. The Adventures of Tonsta highlight the travels of a very young boy with a good heart, who goes about helping folk in trouble. With a red cap on his head and a sack of tools slung over his shoulder, Tonsta seems to meet people in distress wherever he goes. Available at Amazon.

Please note that all comments are moderated, and will not appear until I have approved them. That's pretty much any music written in the last 75 years Close Help. Entering your story is easy to do. Just type! Your story will appear on a Web page exactly the way you enter it here. You can wrap a word in square brackets to make it appear bold.

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I understand that you will display my submission on your website. You can preview and edit on the next page. The lead sheets are a great help, as I just really want to have a simple melody that my students can follow. I was wondering if you … Click here to write your own. Dana Thynes. Hi, I'm Dana! Say that like "Anna". I'm the owner of Music-for-Music-Teachers. Like some of you, I've been playing the piano since early childhood, and have added a few other instruments along the way, plus an interest in arranging and composing music.

Your student can just play it as if it were a lead sheet. If all you can find is a full piano arrangement, never fear. You just need a highlighter and a little time for chord analysis to make your lead sheet.

You can use your judgment to assist your student when a chord is going to be tricky to puzzle out. Thank you for the resource of piano song downloads. Nicola, as always, you nailed it on the head. However, if the goal is to learn a song, I want to find the best choice.

It was a score that the song leader downloaded from Sheet Music Plus. There were walking bass lines and harmonizations that I would not have been able to top on my own.