New Easy Irish Piano Music + The Problem with Gender Specific Covers

I have big news today about some easy Irish piano music!

We recently purchased the copyright back from Hal Leonard on an early level piece and we are releasing that piece today! Now you probably don’t even know about this piece because of an interesting story about publishing.

What’s the interesting publishing story?

About nine years ago, I wrote an easy Irish piano piece that I loved and thought kids would love too. It was ALL steps and a few repeated notes, so it was the perfect piece for students beginning to read music. But something you may not know about the big publishers is that they usually do not allow the composer to choose their own cover! And usually no one even asks you what you have in mind for the cover. [Side note – when I started working with Willis Piano Music, they did agree to let me have some input on the covers.]

Well, when I first saw the cover of Irish Celebration, I was devastated. It was adorable, yes, but I knew that they had inadvertently cut the audience that would purchase the piece in half! Why? Because they put a cute little girl on the cover! Take a look:

What’s the big deal about gender specific covers?

Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with cute little girls on covers, but how many of your boy students would actually want to play a piece with this on the cover?

Twenty years ago, I used to be able to tell my students “Oh, just ignore the cover and listen to the music. I know you’ll love it!” And sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn’t.

But these days, with Facebook, Instagram, smart phones, and all kinds of advertising, covers are everything! They are the gateway for any piece of music. And if the cover doesn’t look interesting or it doesn’t connect, then some students’ minds can be immediately shut to the fact that there could be beautiful and interesting music inside.

The NEW Irish Celebration has a new cover and more!

So when we were finally able to purchase back the copyright, I was thrilled that I could finally change the cover. But I also changed the ending just a bit to move the student around the piano in an easy way and revised the teacher duet to be more fun to play and fall more naturally in the hands. I can now say that I’m much more satisfied and super happy to release this easy Irish piano music!

Watch and Listen:

What’s included in your purchase:

• Piano solo(s) – digital PDF
• Cover (we always include that)

Plus, because this piece is a studio license, you can use it for ALL the students that you  directly teach every year you are teaching. That’s like getting an unlimited supply of a piece of Music Kids Love® for less than $10!

Read More:

• How to Preserve, Store and Bind Digital Music for Students
• Be Thou My Vision (from the Celtic Hymn Transformation series)
• An Irish Jig Arrangement of Brethren We Have Met to Worship (Holy Manna tune)