I am struggling to pretend that I have a clue what music my male teenage pupils are into anymore - I'm officially too old to have a clue what teenagers are all about! We've exhausted all the tunes that I can teach them by ear, any thoughts on popular music piano books that may be suitable for approximately grades 2 or 3?

Just to give you an idea of what they like:

Coldplay, Muse, Kanye West, Beyonce, The Fray (although the piano arrangements of this are too difficult).

Any advice appreciated. A compilation book would be ideal.

Honestly, there is not a great deal out there in this genre for this level - most of the books you can buy in this genre are far too hard and I don't know about you but if kids are going to play popular songs as opposed to working on classical pieces I want them to be easy enough that they can play them without having to think or work too hard, comfortable sight reading.

The famous and fun books are quite good, but again honestly, more suitable for girls of that age as there are disney songs etc.

There is an easy to play coldplay http://www.musicroom.com/se/ID_No/057009/details.html which doesn't look too bad, but most of these are marked intermediate and I also find that this kind of book is incredibly expensive.

Good luck.

Thanks for the link. I've managed to find a lot of Coldplay PDFs for free online, so we've done a fair amount of those, the same with Muse. Teenage girls are a bit easier to predict their tastes - usually Einaudi, Nyman, Craig Armstrong, hits the spot.

If you could send me links to any other artists you think they'd be into, then I'll do some googling and see what I can find!

I agree that many piano versions are too hard for intermediate students to pick up quickly. How comfortable would you be helping them to listen for the chords and melodies (I use the term quite loosely here) and encourage them to develop their own versions by ear?

All sorts of practical skills and harmony can be taught in this way and they hardly notice it being done to them!

Hi - am currently doing most tunes by ear and am fine with doing that, but the problem is that they go home and forget most of it, or if I jot it down on paper, they ALWAYS lose the paper, hence why a book would be a good idea, although it's doubtful that they'll even remember to bring the book to the lesson, but you never know!

What do you jot down? I build up a loose leaf folder of lead sheets - so melody line on manuscript with chords above. You could just have the chords I suppose though. Whatever it is they probably need to do the jotting themselves otherwise (a) they are being rather lazy and (b) they won't necessarily own and understand what is being put to paper.

I suppose a book for your own reference may speed the process up but not sure about any compilations - they go out of date so fast.

Snowpatrol stuff is quite playable I 've found?

I just give them the chords and let them figure out the melody themselves. I suppose an A4 lined book would solve the problem - must remember to ask their parents to get them one!

I think teenagers have to realise that, though they may like listening to 'beat' techno music, it doesn't sound much good on a single piano and that Beyonce is brilliant largely because of Beyonce's voice, it's not the same without.

However, 3 different suggestions (which have all been used successfully with various teenage boys):

1. River Flows in You - Yiruma - beautiful piece (a bit like Einaudi but MUCH better, inspitation for Twlight movie, 2 very cool dude lads loved it).

2. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot - any arrangement - England rugby team anthem - but do it fast - the 6 nations is half way through.

3. Computer game music - I don't know quite how it works because my lad arrives with the music but I think there's a forum for the game players and they swap music (and post stuff on Youtube) - but he's played several pieces and really enjoyed them - currently playing 'The Death Scene from Haiku/H-somthing/whatever' , quite lyrical in a classical modern way with some atonal bits.

Supposedly it's very moving if you know who Haiku/H/whoever is or was . . . .

'21st Century Hits' and 'More 21st Century Hits for really easy Piano. Edition 'Wise Publications'.
They have the lyrics written inbetween the 2 piano staves rather than on a seperate one above so easier for them to read. About gd 1-3 and in easy to manage keys.
The 1st one has Mika, Chasing cars, Coldplay etc. the 2nd one has 1000 miles, Duffy, Jay-z.
21 songs in all.
Really nicely laid out.

Try some Jon Schmidt - there are probably a few pieces there for grade 2/3 and others are harder. About 5 are free to download.

My son bought the piano book for the album Twelve Stops and Home by The Feeling. A lot of the album sounds quite piano-based, and the music from the book sounds very much how it sounds on the album, without appearing to be hugely difficult. He likes Coldplay more, but plays this more often than Coldplay on the piano.