Dozens and dozens of teachers and parents have sent in notes:

"…thanks for a GREAT product."

"Thanks for your quick response to my order… My students are already enjoying the cards."

"I’ve always wanted a game like this that I could pull out when there is time left over, a shortened period, or my lesson plan bombs out."

"I received the cards on Friday and couldn’t help but play with them over the week end. These cards are great. Thanks."

"…’Congrats’ on a great idea!"

"Have enjoyed your cards immensely."

"I hope my young piano students will respond favorably to these – they don’t like traditional flash cards."

"I received the Crazy 8ths cards and have been enjoying them. What a clever game! My 8 year old daughter likes it a lot and I think it can really help her."

"My students are just ‘Crazy’ for Crazy 8ths!!"

"The kids can’t wait to get them!"

"I love your idea!"

"Fantastic cards! Thank you!"

"My two children love to play cards and these are so colorful and attractive!"

"I have been a piano teacher for many years and have always found the hardest thing to motivate my students to do was to memorize those lines and spaces! …this will be an exciting new way for them to want to learn."

Jan, a Colorado piano teacher, called after a summer piano camp. The students were basically late-elementary and middle school ages. She decided to try to get through every game in the booklet. The students had a blast. They liked the pictures, the word play, and the games, especially "The Merry Widow" (possibly because she kept losing) and "Lyre, Lyre" (because it was socially acceptable to lie). She noted a great improvement on their reading skills by the end of only one week.

Michael was 6, a son of a piano teacher, and the youngest of 3 children (all musical).  At first there was resistance to play the games, and he would only do so if his older sister would help him with the notes.  After a few months I called back for a update.  Not only were they all still playing and enjoying Crazy 8ths, but Michael was naming the notes as quickly as his siblings, and frequently winning the games.

His mother noticed a significant event when she gave him a new song that was in a different finger position than the ones he already knew.  Historically she had problems with other students.  But Michael didn't even bat an eye, he went on with the song as if nothing was different.  She says it was definitely the cards that helped.

Mary and I struck up a conversation in the school hallway one day.  Somehow it moved to the subject of music.  She has two children currently taking Suzuki piano lessons and knows they need to learn to read music, but it wasn't going very well. She had begun piano at 7 herself and quit within a few years.  Only a little while back did she do some soul searching, being upset that she never continued her lessons, and figured out why.  As a child she couldn't read the bass clef.  Of course my heart broke and I sent a game to her the very next day.  She has already reported that she's enjoying playing these games with her kids and THEY won't have that same story to tell their children!!

1993 - THE MOZART EFFECT - "Two researchers reported that college students who listened to 10 minutes of a Mozart Sonata scored 8-9 points higher on a spatial-temporal test than after 10 minutes of silence or relaxation tapes."

2/97 - UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA and UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN - "Giving piano lessons to pre-schoolers significantly increases their ability to perform the types of reasoning required for excellence in science and math. At the end of six months, children who received piano lessons scored an average of 34 percent higher on the tests of spatial-temporal ability."

3/98 - "Research shows that kids who are involved in music do better in math, have better attendance, and do their homework. Period." - School music teacher (Lafayette, CO).

1999 - The National Association for Music Education website lists several studies relating elevated achievement in students who also study music.

6/98 - PIANO SALES HIT A HIGH NOTE (Cincinnati, Ohio) - Says one piano buyer, "I played as a child. But I had also read an article saying that playing piano helped young children in math and science. That clinched it for me."

1998 - WILL PIANO LESSONS MAKE MY CHILD SMARTER? - New Studies Suggest that Playing Music may Improve Learning, Memory, Logic and General Creativity - Georgia Governor Zell Miller wants to make $105,000 of his budget available so that each newborn child in the state would be sent home from the hospital with a CD or tape of classical music. "No one doubts that listening to music, especially at a very early age, affects the reasoning that underlies math and engineering and chess."

6/98 - "All children in Daviess County's elementary schools were given piano lessons this year. The idea was to build up brains..." A Western Kentucky University research team plans to study these children for the next 12 years (Owensboro, KY).

11/98 - "College students who listened to a Mozart Sonata scored higher on intelligence tests. And separate experiments showed that children who took piano lessons also scored higher on intelligence tests." - Boulder Daily Camera (Boulder, CO).

11/98 - "A new study by Chinese psychologists shows that children who have spent a few years learning to play a musical instrument also end up with better verbal skills . . ." - Boulder Daily Camera (Boulder, CO).