Thursday, November 26, 2009

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45 Coolest Piano Videos on YouTube

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 07:58 AM PST

piano-videos

If you are a fan of the piano, like hearing the sound of a great pianist play, or even just like to giggle while a house cat tries a tune, you are going to love this list!

Here are the 45 coolest, most impressive, Piano videos on YouTube that I could find. The list includes everything from piano prodigies to pets playing the piano and a lot more.

Learning to play the piano

  1. The basics of learning to play the piano: learn where to find the C-key, and some hand positioning basics in this video. It is part of a series, so you can learn a lot more than just that!
  2. How to read piano chords: learn reading some sheet music.
  3. Learn to read piano notes.
  4. Learn how to play the Blues in four minutes.
  5. Learning to improvise the Blues. This video shows the keys used for the improvisation.
  6. Tutorial on how to play romantic piano. This is a half hour lesson, which also shows a close-up of the keys used, as well as the pedal. It’s a great visual resource!
  7. Tutorial to learn how to play the Evanescence song “My immortal”.
  8. Nothing Else Matter (Metalica) piano lesson, with some very creative visual aids.
  9. How to play an advanced funk groove on the piano.
  10. Learn to play “Clocks” by Coldplay. This tutorial also has a neat visual aid, showing the names of each key.
  11. Want to learn some Beethoven? This tutorial helps you play Beethoven’s fifth symphony.
  12. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata is hands down one of my favorite sonatas, and here is how you play it.

Piano prodigies

  1. Noah Gray-Cabey – Ripley’s Believe It or Not – Piano Prodigy: Noah doesn’t know how to read music, but he plays piano by ear. Truly impressive.
  2. Ethan Brotnick Piano Prodigy. Ethan is also just seven years old.
  3. Emily Bear is just six years old, and is being called the next Mozart.
  4. Richard Hoffmann learned to play the piano and is only 3 years old. He learned thanks to his mom developing a new teaching method matching notes to colors.
  5. Shuan Lee plays the piano since he was two and a half, and is now four years old.
  6. This six year old plays one of my favorite Mozart Sonatas!
  7. This five year old plays a Bach minuet.
  8. Green Sleeves played by a 4,5 year old girl.
  9. 10 year old Jordan plays Chopin, a challenging and phenomenal performance for a child.
  10. This girl, Umi Garrett, started playing at 4,5 and at 8 years old she was on the Ellen Degeneres show. She plays backwards and contorts herself in funny ways, but when she actually sits at the piano bench she produces absolutely wonderful music. Of all the kids in this list, Umi is one that impressed me the most.

Pets playing the piano

  1. Keyboard Cat: the ultimate pet-playing-the-piano-video!
  2. Play him off keyboard dog: someone likes the keyboard cat so much they made their own version of a keyboard dog.
  3. Another keyboard dog playing a birthday song.
  4. This keyboard cat actually uses his own paws, but the cat just looks a little confused.
  5. NORA: Practice Makes Purr-fect: This cat started playing the piano spontaneously, when she was one year old. She seems to enjoy it..
  6. Nora The Piano Cat: The Sequel: Nora the cat plays a duet. It’s nicely done!
  7. Horse Playing Piano: This horse uses some creative piano playing solutions, considering he isn’t using his hooves.
  8. Poodles playing piano: unbelievable, but cute nonetheless.
  9. Dog playing piano and singing: this dog seems to like to sing more than he likes to play.
  10. Dog playing keyboard piano: this little guy is even dressed for a show.
  11. This bunny isn’t the most musical, but seems to like running on the piano.

Comparing Digital Pianos

In the market for a digital piano? Although each sound recording depends on the quality of the recording devices, you can get a bit of a feel for the different digital pianos on the market by comparing them on YouTube.

  1. A video of the Kawai CE200
  2. The Kawai CA91-R
  3. The ultimate design piano: Yamaha slimline Clavinova
  4. The Yamaha P90
  5. The Yamaha CLP230
  6. The Yamaha CLP240
  7. The Yamaha CLP280
  8. The Yamaha CP33
  9. The Yamaha YPD-S30
  10. The Yamaha CVP307
  11. The Roland HP 207
  12. The Roland KR 103

Youtube is actually a great resource for comparing digital pianos before buying one, and I’m using it for that reason right now. Once I narrow down my search with YouTube videos, I’m going for a test-play in the store, but at least I’m going in informed and knowing what I’m looking for.

Which YouTube piano video is your favorite?

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Wednesday, November 25, 2009

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Google Tutor

at 8:44 PM

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5 Hottest Educational Gifts for Kids

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 11:24 AM PST

This year I’ve been helping my wife a lot with shopping for all the kids in our family. I’ve spent quite a bit of time picking the best educational games and toys I can find for children of all ages (toddlers to teens) and since GT is about learning, I thought you all might be interested as well.

Here’s my short list of the educational toys I like best this year, clicking the pictures will take you right to more reviews:

1. The Amazon Kindle

kindle-best-educational-gift-1

Although not technically a “toy”, the Amazon Kindle is the perfect educational gadget for anyone age 12 and over. Download thousands of books directly to the Kindle, and the fact that it cannot be used for anything but reading ensures your teen is actually expanding his or her literary horizon when they are staring at the screen. You can also upload PDF files, and stay on top of the news with the Kindle.

2. The Wii fit is a great gift for the whole family

wii-fit-perfect-christmas-gift

The Wii Fit can be used by anyone, with any fitness level and of any age, making it one of the best family gifts! Not only can you learn from the Wii, kids will stay fit, focused and active throughout the winter. This is the perfect holiday gift that actually gets kids off the couch.

3. Lego Ultimate Building Set: the Ultimate creative and educational gift

lego-best-educational-gift

Lego sparks the imagination of all age groups. Kids get creative, learn to play together, and learn to use their imagination when playing with Lego. The Lego Ultimate Building Set has all the pieces needed for hours of play time and lots of creative fun. Lego is also one of those timeless gifts that everyone loves, and boys and girls alike have played with Lego for a few generations. It’s a gift that lasts a lifetime, and that is also why it is in this list of favorites.

4. Playskool Talking Truck

playskool-educational-gift-favorite

The Playskool Chuck my Talking Truck speaks over 40 phrases and words. It is the perfect gift to keep little ones entertained for hours, and help them practice their verbal skills. The coolest part of this toy is that it will start driving when it is called. It will talk when you lift his dump bed, press his bumper, or press the top of the truck, making play time discovery (and learning!) time.

5. Snapp Circuits SC-300

best-educational-toy

This toy isn’t just my favorite, it also has the National Parenting Center Seal of Approval, was named the Dr. Toy 100 Best Children’s Products, and is among the Dr. Toy Best Educational Products.

With Snapp Circuits you get over 60 parts that can easily snap together to create alarms, doorbells, burglar alarms, radio, and over 3oo other fun technology projects. Kids with a heart for tech will love this educational toy! It is without a doubt one of the best educational toys, for both boys and girls who like to create fun electronic projects. Although kids get to play with circuits and build projects, they can do this safely without a risk of injury. The toy comes with a manual showing how to create the 305 possible projects. This is definitely not a toy kids get bored with easily.

What do you think?

Is this a good gift list? Have you found a great learning toy for a gift this season? If so, let me know in the comments, I’m not quite done with my shopping yet and I’m sure others would like to know too!

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Thursday, November 19, 2009

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Google Tutor

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Making Website for Free with Google

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 05:00 AM PST

Back in the early days of web design, there were a few companies that provided the possibility of creating a free personal website. The designs were pretty simple though, and as Blogs became popular, there is little reason for an average user to learn a programming language. Although Google is already in charge of Blogger, they are bringing the drag-and-drop-website concept back as well with Google sites.

Get a better idea of what you can do with Google sites with this video:

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Wednesday, November 18, 2009

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Google Tutor

at 8:21 PM

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News in Image Searching: Google Image Swirl

Posted: 18 Nov 2009 05:00 AM PST

Google has changed how we search for images, or rather… how we find images we can use. By introducing features such as similar images, you can find more images that relate to the type of photo you are interested in from the search results. A cool new feature gracing Google Labs, is Google Image Swirl.

Google Image Swirl is very similar in function to the similar images function, in the sense that it groups related images together. However, it does so in an image cloud, or as Google calls it, a swirl.

From this collection of images, you can select the group of related images you are interested in. You can then further refine your search, by selecting a new image from the swirl of images you selected at first, and so on, until you find the perfect picture.

I decided to, well, take this feature for a swirl, and tested it out searching for images that would hit home for me: the CN Tower in Toronto.

To search images and easily select the perfect one, follow these steps:

  1. Surf to Google Image swirl and enter your query.
  2. Hit enter, or searchimage swirl search on google
  3. A results page will show up with neatly sorted images, grouped by images related to each other:image swirl google
  4. Say that, for example, you could care less for the actual CN tower, but you are looking for images of the CN Tower’s famous glass floor. On the top right, a group of images of the view from the floor is stacked up together.
  5. Clicking on the image will bring up a cloud of related images:google image swirl 2
  6. Then, you can proceed to click on other images within the cloud, to refine your search further. For example, I’ve selected the image on the top right to generate the following cloud:image search with image swirl google
  7. After clicking on the picture, you can see a new cloud forming, and the previous ones are still visible but become smaller and are located to the right of the new image search results:image search with image swirl google 2
  8. You can basically keep going until you find what you are looking for.

To develop image swirl, Google used similar concepts used for Picasa face recognition and similar images. Although I used the CN tower as an example, I’ve replicated the search for a term I use reasonably frequently, and was amazed! I managed to find a great image within seconds, where previously I’ve sorted through pages and pages of image results after a query.

Let me know what you think of Google image swirl, I’m really curious to see your comments!

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