Tortoiseshell? A question

[BalloonSlayer]

I was looking at a past thread today and you mentioned that there are "High School Musical" Easy Piano books.

My DD(nearly 7) loves HSM, and so does DS1 (8) although he tries to keep it quiet! They have been learning the piano for 4 or 5 months and are both doing well. They would love to be able to play a snatch of a HSM song - they'd be so chuffed.

I had a look on Amazon and someone on there reviewing them said that the books were suitable for about Grade 2.

If I were to buy them for my DCs, do you think they would be far too hard for them to make head or tail of?

All I would hope is that they would be able to produce a simple version of one of the tunes. I'd hate for them to be all excited and then find it's beyond them and end up really disappointed and discouraged.

I am unable to help them, BUT their cousin could help them so it would be an option to ask her for the presents for christmas from my sister, so that DC would be on hand to start them off.

Thanks in anticipation for your help.

I'm no expert, but have played a number of instruments over the years but I think it would be too hard for them.
When you start learning piano, you keep your hands in the same place on the keyboard for ages. By grade 2 you are playing 2 hands and moving them about.
Without seeing the music, it's difficult to know if they would understand the notation yet, but I have a suspicion that they probably won't (dd loves HSM and I know most of the songs!)

Thank you so much for your advice, trumpetgirl.

What a shame they're too hard for beginners, but I would rather know now than see them get really upset and frustrated. DD, in particular gets absolutely beside herself if she can't do things as well as she'd like.

Thanks again

Hi BalloonSlayer - only just saw this post - I would say go for it - ds1 is about grade 1 standard on piano and loving the Pirates of the Caribbean easy piano books. It depends a bit whether they find reading easy or not - ds1 is a very good reader, and also seems to find the putting hands together v easy.

Grade 1 pieces are hands together and also moving out of hand positions - they are actually quite tricky I think. But with the HSM you could start just playing the tune, then when they're confident with that add in some LH. I wrote out the Jack Sparrow theme for ds1, and he really surprised me with how quickly he learnt it, and it really brought his playing on.

SOrry not to reply for so long!