Level 1B
Level 1B is intended for students who have completed the Primer and Level 1A piano lessons. Only one piece will be assigned each week. If you need a bigger challenge, add next week’s piece too. If you didn’t quite master your piece in one week, work on it for another week.
We Love You America - FREEWe Love You America starts Level 1B pretty easy, but there are a few new notes to learn. Print your new book by clicking the link below, along with the Color That Note! Bass Clef Worksheet (Middle C Position). Knowing the names of every note in this piece will make practicing it way easier!
Want to Be a Superstar?
We Love You America has a challenge that most students miss. Middle C is played by right hand finger one (your right hand thumb) for most of the piece, but it's played by left hand finger one (your left hand thumb) in the last measure. Get it right and you'll be a superstar!
Print your new piano book and the worksheet for this lesson.
Meet the Teacher - Andy Fling, Teacher of Award-Winning Students and Founder of MakingMusicFun.net
A tarantella is a very fast dance. The name comes from the Italian town, Taranto. People used to believe that if someone was bitten by a tarantula spider, they should perform this dance to drive out the poison.
Practice each phrase of Tarantella very slowly at first. When you've mastered it, play the piece super fast while your friends dance like crazy to drive out the dreaded poison of the tarantula spider!
Let's learn about Austrian composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, this week. Print the Mozart Video Lesson Study Guide to get the most out of the lesson and then watch the Meet Mozart | Popsicle Stick Theater Production.
Meet the Teacher - J'ana DeLaTorre, Children's Theatre Pianist and Piano Teacher
Bingo introduces you to the incomplete measure. It's a measure that has fewer beats than the time signature says a measure should have. The first measure of Bingo has only one beat, even though the time signature (4/4) says each measure should have four beats. That's okay though. It's just another way composers make music fun to listen to.
Print "Carnegie Hall Park™ | Music Theory Board Game" and play the game a few times this week to drill note names, rhythms, and dynamics terms.Game Play
Carnegie Hall Park™ can be played with younger and older students, though it will require modification for younger players. Younger players should move from one parking space to the next, ignoring the colored cards and colored parking curbs. The player wins if they successfully move their car completely around the board to arrive at Carnegie Hall, before being awarded three parking tickets for wrong answers. Limit playing cards to note names, whole note, half note, quarter note, and dynamics terms f (loud) and Piano - p (soft). If this collection of playing cards proves to be too difficult during pre-game review, eliminate a few cards.
Shark Attack! introduces you to the crescendo, which is an Italian word that means gradually grow louder. The opposite of crescendo is decrescendo, which means gradually grow softer. A crescendo is sort of like the "less than" symbol in math, which tell you that the first number is "less than" the second number.
Math: 7 < 10Music: softer 
louder
In music, the crescendo tells you that the music at the beginning is softer than the music at the end.
It's time to record yourself again. Practice this piece for 3-4 days and then ask your parent to record a video of your performance.
When you're watching the video, consider these things:
Are you sitting up straight?
Are you keeping a steady beat?
Are your fingers rounded?
Are your eyes on the music as you play, or on your fingers?
Ask your parent to record your performance again in a few days, after you've practiced a little more.
Mexican Hat Dance gives you another chance to play music with a 
time signature.
The top number tells you that there are three beats per measure. The bottom number tells you that the quarter note gets the beat - or the tap of your foot.
Let's learn about English musical theater composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber, this week. Print the Andrew Lloyd Webber Lesson Study Guide to get the most out of the lesson and then watch the Meet Andrew Lloyd Webber | Popsicle Stick Theater Production.
Sweetly Sings the Donkey gives you another chance to practice G A B C D in the treble and bass clef. If you can't name these notes with lightning speed, drill them this week.
Print "Ready, Set, Go! Note Name Speed Test III" to drill your treble clef note names, and "Ready, Set, Go! Note Name Speed Test IV" to drill your bass clef note names.
Your goal should be to correctly name 10 notes in 10 seconds, or all 40 notes in 40 seconds. The record is 40 notes in 19 seconds!
Little Green Frog reviews the eighth note. An eighth note gets one half beat.
Eighth notes get a flag if they are by themselves and a beam if they are grouped with other eighth notes.
How many eighth notes does it take to equal a quarter note?
How many eighth notes does it take to equal a whole note?
Scroll to the bottom of this page for the answer key.
Yankee Doodle introduces you to the 
time signature.
The top number tells you there are two beats per measure.
The bottom number tells you that the quarter note gets the beat - or the tap of your foot.
Complete the Musical Spelling Bee worksheets this week. You'll find the worksheets on p.10-11 of your lesson book and the answer keys at the end of the book.
Are you remembering to play with a steady beat? It's the most important thing. It's even more important than playing all the right notes.
Cinderella (Dressed in Yella) gives you a chance to review the repeat sign.
A repeat sign is a musical symbol that tells the player to repeat a previous section. Because the repeat sign is at the end of Cinderella (Dressed in Yella), and no other repeat sign is present, the player heads back to the beginning to play the entire piece a second time.
Happy Birthday introduces you to the fermata.
The fermata is a musical symbol that tells the player to hold a note twice as long as the note value indicates. In Happy Birthday, a fermata is placed above a half note, making the note approximately four beats long. There's no need to count. Just guess how long four beats would be, and then continue playing to the end of the piece.
The Birch Tree (Beriozka) is a Russian folk song that Tchaikovsky used in his Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36.
This arrangement of The Birch Tree introduces the Bb. Bb is a black key that sounds one half step lower than B natural.
Read the Hey Kids, Meet Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky composer biography and complete the Meet the Composer Job Application this week.
Meet the Teacher - Gloria Baughman, Piano Teacher
In a previous lesson you learned the musical term legato, which is the Italian word for smoothly or connected. In that lesson a curved line was placed above the notes to indicate that the notes should be played legato. We Three Kings includes a slur above the notes as well, asking you to play the notes legato.
After you learn the notes, and can play We Three Kings with a steady beat, do your best to copy the legato style of your teacher's performance.
Congratulations! This week you'll complete the MMF All-in-One Piano Lesson Book, Level 1B and be ready to start Level 2 next week.
Print a music award certificate when you can successfully perform, Snake Dance, for your parent with a steady beat and no mistakes.
Answer Key: Lesson 9
How many eighth notes does it take to equal a quarter note? Answer: 2
How many eighth notes does it take to equal a whole note? Answer: 8