Customer Reviews

Adult All-in-one Course: Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course, Level 2

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My efforts to reteach myself to play the piano had kind of stalled but ALFRED'S BASIC ADULT PIANO COURSE has put me back in gear. I kind of dithered between starting with level 2 or level 3 and though the first few pieces in level 2 were very easy for me I soon found I really did need the review offered in level 2 and a quick scan of level 3 shows me I would have soon become frustrated with it without going through this book first. A tuneful selection of folk, jazz ragtime and classical music make up most of the coursework and there is a lot of emphasis on chords and fingering - skills I missed in my piano lesson days of long ago. The book is bound with a sturdy plastic "comb" good for me as I am notoriously hard on piano music. There are pen and paper exercises to review notes and chords as well as lots of beautiful music pieces. If you are faithful in practicing this series will teach you a great deal about the piano and keep you motivated to continue.

I just started this book after finishing book 1. I have no complaints with the teaching techniques in either book. I found they help me as an adult to re-learn quickly and easily. However the selection of music is so silly that I'm losing interest. I wish the authors had chosen classical music. If they had, I would gladly continue using Alfred's books. As I can only take so much of "Theme from Gilligan's Island" and "Mexican Hat Dance" however..I'll be looking to move to another book.

I am nearing the end of Alfred's All-in-one Book 1, so have only browsed this book. But, I can comment on what I like about the methodology and the books:

1. The progression of theory, exercises, and performance materials is very well thought out. When Palmer says this exercise should be practiced daily, do it. It really helps improve your technical skills.

2. The quality of the construction is high - big easy to read notes and spiral bound so the book lays flat on the piano music stand.

3. The songs are interesting and varied, introducing different genres of music.

The only slight drawback is there is ample opportunity to improvise on a number of the songs and try your hand at composing, but Palmer does not point this out. It is definitely worth doing, really reinforcing a thorough understanding of chords, keys, chord inversions, and other concepts introduced in the text.

I'm most of the way through this piano course and found it very well done! I'm learning on my own and the progression is perfect - just enough to learn and just enough practice pieces to start nailing down what they've taught. Only thing I haven't enjoyed yet is the blues/jazz pieces pp 107-108 - wish I had the cassettes to hear how these pieces should sound. Not exactly wonderful the way I'm interpreting them...

Also great to get the theory, understand how a key and chords fit together - then you can pick out any I IV V chord progression, no matter the key. Very cool

The Alfred's Basic Adult All-in-one- piano course is the best available today. I highly recommend them to all piano teachers. I've been teaching piano quite a long time now and "these are the best"!

I've been using these books for years, and I try other lines and always come back to the Alfred All-in-Ones for adults. The songs are pretty good, nothing too odd or boring, decent foundation to build upon, though I always add in chords/scales separately because I don't feel they do enough. It moves a pretty fast pace, though, so I wouldn't start someone who had never touched a piano in this book. I'd chose an even simpler beginner book and then go on to this one. I've tried Bastien's adult line and Piano Adventure's adult line, and the songs nor the order they teach things in is as good.

I really am a fan of the Alfred Piano books. I finished book 1 with my teacher and so ordered this book 2. I was very pleased with the Amazon service and how quickly I received the book; however, here is a big beware, I mistakenly ordered the book WITHOUT the CD. There were soooooo many choices to weed through and it was not obviously stated that this one was without the CD (no wonder it was cheaper). Many other providers warned "WITHOUT CD" so I guess I just assumed this one had it. I kept it anyway and think I'll learn fine without the CD but it would have just been nice to have and preferred. So, I'm passing along my tip to make sure of what you are buying. Otherwise, great series of books!

My husband really wanted to learn to play the piano but we can't afford formal lessons right now, so we got this book series to help him along. He's been playing for a month and a half now and he's made great progress! Thanks for a great product at a great price!

The book is in great condition. The only thing missing is the last page / diploma.

As a complete and utter beginner at the piano before recently completing this course, I assumed it was the book for me. But the strengths of the Adult All-In-One Course book, self-described as having been "designed for the beginner looking for a truly complete piano course," only equal its flaws. It begins very simply, with the assumption that the pianist knows absolutely nothing about reading music. But the relatively smooth curve of increased difficulty hits a near-exponential level at the end, when barely beyond beginners are expected to master Amazing Grace, complete with arpeggio-laden triplets! Familiarity with the (I, IV, and V7) chord-based format (which I can only guess is easier on the older brain), helps little when trying to the master relatively prevalent non-chord based piano music. Lastly, many music selections are old, traditional (often religious) pieces instead of contemporary, secular works.

Having started out completely clueless and ended up able to play most of the pieces (Amazing Grace excluded) good enough to get "passing" stars from my music teacher (though one might argue equally that it's merely a way of getting me to stop playing them...badly), I can attest to the fact that it does fulfill one promise found in the foreward, "At the completion of this course, the student will have learned to play some of the most popular music ever written and will have gained a thorough understanding of the basic concepts of music." But as to contention number 4 of the same page, "The choice of song material is outstanding..." I would beg to differ.

Alfred's Adult All-In-One Course for beginning piano players no more than satisfactorily fulfills its primary promise. But with few choices in the way of Adult beginner piano courses, it will probably remain the obvious choice. Better pieces (though not instructional): In Recital by Various and Helen Marlais.