Customer Reviews

Billy Joel Complete - Volume 2

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

 

 

This book is a must have for all popular pianists and musicians. Actually, it's even great for those musicians (like me) who prefer to play classical. A lot of the tunes have beautiful melodies that make excellent recital pieces (due to Billy Joel's classical background?). For example: Summer Highland Falls. Includes every song from Glass Houses to Storm Front. (1980-1989)

Billy Joel is a pretty wild musician; so, the music is definitely written for the advanced pianist. Anyone who can read music, however, can read the melody line and the chords. This is also an excellent source for "piano bar" music--it works very well as a fake book for people so inclined. For those musicians who love popular music, but cannot improvise or read guitar chords, this is the way to play popular music easily.

The only downside to this book is that, for a few of the songs, there are complicated repeats and double codas. (I assume to conserve space?) Even so, most songs are well organized and easy to follow. And the ones with repeats are just confusing at first and easy to follow one you have played them through.

This book is primarily a solo or solo with accompaniment. It is not the greatest book for playing in a band. The instrumental lines have been transcribed into the piano score. A better purchase for musicians playing in a band is The Billy Joel Keyboard Book: Authentic Transcriptions.

This book is one of the wisest music purchases I have ever made. It is a great source for all the lyrics, and the melody line can be played on any instrument. It is well worth the investment for any musician!

This is more or less the same as my review on Volume 1, so if you've already read that, you can skim for the differences!

The transcriptions contained within this book overall are of a fair standard. Not too accurate, not too inaccurate. However, it's clear in parts hat there's been little care taken in making a quality product. Playing through a good few Billy Joel songs is a good exercise for a piano player. There is a wide variety in genre and technique in Joel's music and it's an exercise that will improve and colour the rest of your playing for sure. However I'd recommend that you do that with one (or both) of the Note for Note Transcriptions books (The Billy Joel Keyboard Book: Note-for-Note Keyboard Transcriptions and Billy Joel Favorites Keyboard Book - Note For Note Keyboard Transcriptions).

In almost every song, the accuracy is heavily compromised because of the inclusion of the melody-line in the piano part. I don't like playing the melody I'm singing, I feel like I'm trying to steal my own thunder in an odd sort of a way. It's also pretty silly to listen to someone sing with these arrangements, on the whole they sound pretty naff and amateur. However, the melody in the part is fairly easy to identify and remove. Playing around it isn't ideal, it sounds better, but it still isn't great.

Another thing is that most of the song's introductions and endings and shortened beyond belief. The sections that sound most interesting to play have all been removed. This is a particular disappointment with The Ballad of Billy the Kid. All of that wonderful soloing is not present in the arrangement. There are even errors in the lyrics in many places!

Take note that there's been no update to this book to include any of the songs from The River of Dreams or Fantasies & Delusions, so this set is far from "complete".

In conclusion: this book and its predecessor are both rubbish. They are slapdash arrangements done by people who clearly don't care. The only reason they've escaped a 1-star rating is that they are still better than nothing. Completists still need it, even though it clearly isn't a labour of love and there is SOME good stuff in there...

This and volume 1 are great books to get if you wanna play just like Billy Joel!

I play guitar and keyboards. This book is pretty much right on the way Billy Joel does it.The only book I found a little better was Billy Joel Note by Note

This collection of Billy Joel songs is categorized by album/date and is incredibly easy to follow. It is complete!! The music is for an average to advanced pianist. I could not be happier with the collection. Volume 1 is equally wonderful. The price is more than reasonable. The same amount of money would only buy three songs in sheet music form. This is a GREAT buy!! It will keep a pianist occupied for a long time!

My Dad has been wanting this book for months, and I found it for a good price. And the item delivered quickly.

pieces of songs aren't included in the book. also some things not played are added into the songs for whatever reason.