The Slide-a-Note was invented in 1975 by math teacher, Al McDowell. An aspiring lyricist, frustrated with other music self-learning systems at the time, he set out to help himself and found that he could help others as well. The uniqueness of the Slide-a-Note was the awareness to angle the piano keyboard so that it parallels the notes on the staff. The Woodwind and Brasswind company began selling them and soon, New Vision Educational Products was born.
Independently, also in 1975, Howard B. Richman began teaching piano. In 1985, Mr. Richman wrote his well-known book, Super Sight-Reading Secrets on how to read music and has recommended the Slide-a-Note over many years to his own students. In 2012 Richman’s company, Sound Feelings Publishing bought the rights to manufacture the Slide-a-Note. As of March, 2014, we are happy to announce that the Slide-a-Note is now back in production and we will make every effort to honor the quality of the original product, with a few improvements. For example, in the original design, the note names were placed on each key. We decided to delete these which actually helps in learning the names of the notes on the musical staff. Also, we have slightly increased the width and length of the plastic slide element to help increase surface tension.
