Customer Reviews

Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course: Greatest Hits, Level 1 (Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course Series)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am using the Adult All-In-One piano course book (which is great, by the way) to learn piano. I bought this book when I reached the point in the course book telling me I was "ready" to play more songs. Wow, this book is much harder than expected. Although the course book tells you which pages you're ready to play, you haven't really reached this ability. It's taken me a while but I finally learned the first song! I wish a CD was available as many of these songs I don't know (yes, the song can be searched online to figure out the basic beat, but a CD would be more convenient and practical). Overall, I was disappointed with this book because I eagerly anticipated being able to play more songs than the ones I had learned in the course book and really wanted to practice before moving farther along. As an adult, it's hard to find books with easy songs that aren't kids songs. I've found a few online, but in the meantime I will keep working with this book as I do like a challenge.

I am using the Greatest Hits book to round out the lessons in Alfred's Adult All-in-One Course. The latter suffers a little from not having enough full-length scores to really practice the material. One or two verse ditties only go so far and everyone else in the house gets tired of Jingle Bells or The Saints Go Marching In much much sooner than the piano student him/herself.

Even though the book claims that students are ready at page 44 of All-In-One to attempt the scores in Greatest Hits, I have my doubts. The opening song is very challenging and I still am nowhere close to mastering it. It is only when I got to around page 72 of the teaching material that I felt comfortable returning to Greatest Hits and trying some of the other arrangements. In particular, My Heart Will Go On is a very satisfying piece; it never really leaves middle C and the basic beat is familiar to most people.

I highly recommend this as an accompaniment to the All-In-One course. I subtracted one star as I think it could have included at least one more easy arrangement at the start of the text. After all, students buy these supplementals to practice, and encouragement - especially for those teacing themselves - is crucial.

Note that the book does not include a CD; even though most of the pieces are well known, it still would have been a nice touch.

I had just started learning piano at a late age, with no piano nor musical background whatsoever and the Alfred books make it learning almost effortless. This book is harder than the level 1 adult course book I'm at but I enjoy learning piece #1, Love Me Tender.

This book contains many beautiful songs, but the arrangement is not that well done. "What a wonderful world" sounded awful here. Some of the better ones are also just OK. I understand this is a beginner book hence the songs are made easy; but I didn't enjoy much learning to play the tunes. My other textbooks are much better.

When this book is used in unison with Alfred's other Basic Adult Piano Course Books it is a wonderful program. Has really helped me to brush up on my long forgotten music reading and practices.

I'm using this along with Alfred's All-In-One Adult Piano Book Volume 1. My issue with this book is the first 6 or 7 songs are in the Middle D position which feels very cramped. Not sure why they bother to arrange songs in the middle positions to begin with. Seems like a mode of instruction that is badly out dated and used sparsely in the All-In-One book. Next issue is that the arrangements are poorly chosen. They seem as though they would still have relevance to those in their mid 60's or something but 'On Broadway' should no longer be played by anyone at this point. Why not use a simple arrangement of Dvorak's Largo theme or something more applicable. In addition, the songs chosen, regardless of their other attributes, do not have strong melodic lines which is something useful to beginning piano students. For instance, listen to the theme to the Titanic on you tube and then go whistle it in the shower. Good luck. Also, the Rainbow Connection, although a beautiful song, doesn't have a memorable melodic line. I think these arrangements must have been put together by much older folks who have forgotten that some young people also want to play the piano. How about a bit of a compromise and put some more Beatles songs in there.

As a complete newbie in learning to play the piano, I found the pieces challenging, but doable once you practice, practice and practice! It is also very satisfying to play the score, shorter and modified as the scores are, but as a beginner, it showed me how much I have progressed and also where my weak points were to. Sometimes, the choices are never what we would like, but as a beginner, to read the music, to practice and then finally get to that place where you are playing: I can't complain. Also, playing these pieces in addition to learning, I have gained confidence to look at pieces from Van Morrison, for example and have been able to tinker with pieces of a song! Small steps, and then you eventually find yourself playing the songs you really want to play. Highly recommended for level 1 beginners.

Very Good Book, at least for me, progressive from the begining to the medium level, if you practice 1 hour each day you can finish all 3 books in 6 moths.

This piano book is helping me try some slightly hard (for me) tunes that I can master. I just love it. The whole series is great (I only have two so far, but have ordered a third.) Adds fun to the hard work of practice.
from Senior Beginner

I'd ordered the set of three of these books and am very pleased with them. Highly recommended!