Best Foot/Floor Piano Mats: Great party toy game for children

A foot Piano Mat (flexible piano keyboard) is a great party toy game for children; watch children (and even adults) have fun by dancing and playing out popular tunes on this piano keyboard mat.

Introduction

If you have ever been to a venue where there was a piano mat, you may have seen how kids jump on it and start making music with it.

Toddlers just love to step back and forth on the keys, and even babies crawl towards it as they’re attracted by the tones and the light that it produces.

Piano mats entice even adults to get on to it and start playing notes.

The piano mat is a variant of the electronic keyboard, the only difference being its foldable and has to be played with the feet.

These flexible piano keyboards are more of toys and designed primarily for fun, ready to be stomped, tapped and toe-danced to some really happy music.

Some of the benefits of using these piano mats include:

• Piano mats encourages kids to be creative in creating their own music
• It helps children develop gross motor skills – stepping, hopping, dancing to make music while having fun
• These piano mats can be used solo or in groups (depending on the size of the mat).

Piano mats are great fun tool to have at home, especially for those special days when you have guests coming over, as it can act as the perfect entertainer.

Piano mats are great addition to any play area!

These mats lets kids, teens and adults have some fun together and also be creative. Being able to create music is a great feeling for everyone.

Related: Musical instruments for kids

Features of Musical Mats

These musical mats can be used by kids as well as adults (they are quite big in size and sturdy), have several built-in voices and have features such as Record, Playback, Demo, Play, Adjustable Volume.

The top models can be connected to a smartphone, tablet, iPod, or another MP3 player to allow musicians to play along to their favorite songs.

You get touch-sensitive play mats as well (it plays soft or loud depending on how hard you press). You can play various musical instruments, you can even plug in an external music device and play along to your favorite songs.

It works best on a flat, hard surface as against soft surfaces like carpet.

The best part about this play mat is that its portable, and it can be used by two or more people at a time.

These are fun to use, do not occupy lot of space; just fold it and put it away when you’re finished playing with it.

These also serve as great gifts for birthday and Holidays (for boys and girls).

Can You Use it for Learning the Piano?

These mats are designed primarily for fun time and for entertainment; you just dance to popular built-in songs.

Since these mats are played with your feet, its definitely not going to improve your piano playing skills.

But Musical mats can teach you the basics such as identifying basic piano notes, maintaining beat (a bit difficult with your legs, unless you’re playing at a very slow tempo). You can play songs on it, so in that sense, it does develop your musical sense.

If you’re really serious about learning to play the piano, get yourself a proper keyboard instrument.

There are some musicians who prefer to use these flexible pianos as they are more portable and some models come with midi, allowing them to make music on the go; however I would still recommend a compact midi controller if you’re serious about making music as they are more durable than these.

Best Piano Playmats

These musical/dance piano mats are available in various sizes…from ‘tiny’ to giant sized mats.

• The smaller ones can be used by babies.
• The slightly larger are for Kids
• The giant sized piano mats are for grown-up kids (and even adults who wish to join the fun).
• These are known as floor piano mats or toe-tap pianos, but more commonly as Piano mats

Foot piano mats can also be great gifts for special occasions – birthdays, Christmas, and so on.

Keyboard Playmat 71″ – 24 Keys Piano Play Mat (By Play22)

One of the more popular floor piano mats, this one is a gigantic floor piano mat and it comes with touch sensitive keys (responds to how hard you play the keys), besides offering several features, including recording & playback.

These are bigger in size (dimensions: 71 inches by 29 inches). The piano mat features 8 instruments so the kids can experiment with various instrument sounds. The volume of the piano can be adjusted, in-case you think there’s too much noise at home.

• Buy on Amazon

Piano Mats for Babies(Infants)

These piano gym mats are more of lie down and kick-at musical pianos. These are designed to generate curiosity and encourage the little ones to press the buttons often using their legs. They can also lie down on the tummy and push the buttons with the hands, or can sit and play the instrument. These musical piano mats are perfect for babies up to the age of 2-3 years who spend most of the time lying down or crawling.

These pianos produce various sounds and lights, they can play notes, play nursery rhymes/songs, and make animal sounds.

Fisher-Price Deluxe Kick ‘n Play Piano Gym

The Fisher-Price Kick ‘n Play Piano Gym is suited for babies, who can play it lying down. The various sounds and lights increase their curiosity. The keyboard with 5 light-up keys, can be taken out and played separately. It comes with loops to attach toys, five toys included. you can hang different toys.

The only downside is that at times you may feel that the mat is not very wide, especially when the baby is in a mood to roll over or lies down on the sides. Otherwise, its an almost perfect toy for any baby.

• Buy on Amazon

Giant Floor Piano for ‘Big’ fun

If there’s a big floor piano in your vicinity, you should try to emulate Tom Hanks’s dance of “Heart and Soul” on the piano. It’s definitely going to be fun to learn how to dance on a big piano like Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia did in the movie ‘Big’

One of the several attractions at popular stores is the “Big Piano,” which as made famous by the movie Big (featuring Tom Hanks). Lot of visitors try to reenact the piano scene from “Big” when they come across a floor piano.

The movie ‘Big’ always will be remembered for one scene: Tom Hanks, Robert Loggia, and a giant floor piano. (The piano is so integral to the film that it was also the centerpiece of the short-lived Broadway musical.)

In the movie, Tom Hanks and actor Robert Loggia have a memorable dance to the catchy piano songs “Heart and Soul” and “Chopsticks” while in a toy store. Robert Loggia portrayed MacMillan, who was modeled after then-FAOSchwarz CEO Peter L. Harris.

The original “Walking Piano” on display at FAO Schwarz was six-and-a-half-foot long (one-octave) but it could not comfortably accommodate the two actors with their dance moves.

Italian artist inventor Remo Saraceni built a 16-foot long, full three-octave piano so that Josh and MacMillan could play “Heart and Soul”. After the movie’s success, Remo Saraceni began selling the 16-foot giant floor piano for $15,000.

The combination of “Heart and Soul” along with “Chopsticks” can be a challenging cardio workout for anyone on the floor piano. But even Tom Hanks and Loggia practiced for months for the dance number.

As per grapevine, on the day the piano scene was about to be shot, director Penny Marshall had instructed stunt dancers dressed like Tom Hanks and Loggia to be on stand-by just in case the two stars couldn’t pull off the number. However, Loggia told the stunt dancers to “take a hike” and the scene was done in “just about one take.

Big (1988) – Playing the Piano Scene