Customer Reviews

Free to be Creative at the Piano: A Revolutionary Approach to Music Making

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

After having taken lessons from Mr. Weiss from his [...] website, I must say the thing I like best about his approach is that at its core its not really about playing piano- for me, learning to improvise has been more about developing creativity and conscious present-moment awareness. It has turned piano practice into a type of meditation. As I play and improvise, my mind becomes focused where it needs to be- on the here and now. Thoughts of "I'm not good enough", or anxiety over mistakes fly through my mind and then promptly fade. Other problems and worries also fade into the background, and I feel a tremendous sense of peace and excitement as I connect with the pure sounds flowing through me. I watch myself playing all these melodies and can scarcely believe that it's me who's doing that. It's quite a magical feeling, and the best part is that it is so accessible! After all, who on this earth doesn't want or need some increased self-confidence and peace of mind? I therefore encourage anyone interested in the piano and developing their innate talents to buy this book and give Edward's online course a try. You will not be sorry you did!

I've been a customer of Edward's for some months now. I do have a music background, although I never had the time to learn piano tunes, note by note, exactly as on the score.

This approach has really liberated me, and made piano playing fun again! Now I'm not just playing, I'm improvising and composing!

I can't speak for absolute beginners to piano, although I'm sure this book will be useful to people at all levels. If you already have a knowledge of harmony, and know the fingering for the most common chords, you'll get results immediately.

Edward's tuition is fun and carefree. Everything my school piano tutor was not, and what put me off playing for 35 years. However, although he teaches so called 'new age' piano, it is not really that. It is just free thinking, and I love it. Anyway, my goal was not to make up my own stuff, it was to learn to play the stuff I really love like Debussy, Sate, Joby Talbot (look it up if you are from the USA and haven't heard of him yet) and of course Einaudi.

The weird thing is, in between reading the notes, I find myself wondering off into my own dreamworld and playing whatever comes into my head. Here's my tuppence worth if you don't buy this book. Play everything on the white notes, simple 2 finger chords in the left hand, single note melodies in the right hand making each note not more than 2 notes apart. Just do it. You will love the effect. But read this book and you will know a) why it sounds so good, and b) how you can fly.

Finally, he has a membership website which I joined for six months and got me going. He will hate me for saying this, but you only need to join for a few months. If you are not confident by then, I will be amazed.

Thanks for the tuition Edward, here's to ya.

Although I'm all for trying to be free and creative, and Weiss's method may very well help with that, this book is nothing but a compilation of his 1-page weekly e-mail newsletters. The entire book could have been edited down to 5 pages, and the 5 pages might have been very helpful. But to call this a "book" is a joke.

This was just a front for his online money making website. I tell you what this book says in terms of teaching. He takes three points and states them over and over again.

Just be free to do what sounds good at the piano. Find your voice through your fingers and make music.

I wasn't sure if Amazon would take something back from the bottom of my trashcan so that's just where I keep it now.

This was a new experience. I read a lot and never have I had the experience, until now, to read a book with more redundancy than this one. Ed could have written this book in 30 pages instead of the 341 pages it took. I purchased this book to give to a friend who is beginning piano and I don't have the nerve to let her read this book. I am not exaggerating when I say that Ed makes three points, over and over, and over, and over, and over, and over and over again...it truly is amusing. His points are: Open chord position, use 8 bar outline to write down ideas and George Winston is the best!

But beware....this book is truly a ploy to sell his piano lessons. There is nothing to learn from this book. This is not a lesson book, and I'm not quite sure what kind of book it is....like I said, I never read anything like it. It was a very frustrating experience.

I had taken piano lessons when I was younger and have to say I was "married" to my music. Perhaps I didn't take lessons long enough or had enough talent but if music, and by music it was pretty much classical works, wasn't on my music stand or if I hadn't memorized it, it didn't happen.

Now after many years, I found myself wanting to get back to playing the piano. I dug out my old piano methods and sheet music and tried to re-start. However this time around, I wanted to do more than memorize music or get my fingers agile enough so that they could follow my sight reading.

I came across Edward Weiss and while I had been having thoughts of improvisation and new age melodies, it was his methods and teaching that brought it all together for me. Again I found his techniques somewhat easier because I had a background in music, but they represented an approach that anyone with almost no background can follow.

So I'm moving along with his "Free to be Creative at the Piano" techniques, getting better feedback from those who listen to me, and am enjoying my "re-bound" with the piano to be at a much high level than I expected.

I whole heartedly recommend you explore your creativity with Edward's publicaton!

As an adult learner, Edward Weiss' collection of accessible and unique lessons are perfect for me. While, I've taken lessons and used online programs (both of which I greatly benefited from) Mr. Weiss' has helped unlock the doors to the music that inspired me to finally learn to play piano...New Age Music.

Given the many misunderstandings regarding what New Age Music actually is, it is important to understand that what Mr. Weiss is offering his reader is not pointless and vapid "postmodern" (in the worst sense of the word) noodlings. In fact, Mr. Weiss' approach is highly structured....but not overly structured. There's plenty of theory and "exercises" here. Of course, the freedom Mr. Weiss is expounding is not about not having boundaries. It's actually about having appropriate boundaries. It's about having a framework that will promote creation and not self-imprisonment.

Mr. Weiss' instruction is also just plain good old fun. And as any adult learner will tell you, the constant demands of the "adult" world can often too easily pull you away from the self-flagellation and self-immolation of repetitive and seemingly pointless exercises and charts (maybe you've had this experience with your lessons). I'm all for hard work and discipline, but good God let me have a little fun too. With Mr. Weiss' book you will have fun!

Finally, I can't tell you how many times over the years I've listen to George Winston or David Lanz and thought "I would love to be able to play something that even remotely resembles that music". Well, without qualification I can say that if you are willing to put in the effort, Mr. Weiss will help you do that very thing. You may not be playing as "good" as George Winston, but if you stick to the instruction presented in this book, you will be able to put your emotions, and perhaps even your very soul, into musical form.

At almost 60 years old I decided, darn it, "Stop saying 'I wish I could play the piano'-- DO IT!" But I made little progress because I could find no book, method, or teacher who could teach me what I wanted. I did not want to read notes and mechanically reproduce them. (A human player-piano? Musical "paint by numbers"?) I just wanted to improvise in a free form that pleased me... and maybe some listeners eventually.

Edward Weiss is the only person out there that teaches you how to do this. He gets you playing-- and more importantly-- CREATING YOUR OWN MUSIC right away. The simple concepts he teaches will very shortly have you creating music that sounds quite sophisticated. People are impressed when I play one of Edward's easy pieces with my own improvised variation. (As opposed to rolling their eyes when an adult sits down and picks out "The Mexican Hat Dance" or "The Erie Canal"-- perennial favorites of most beginning adult (?) method books.)

I e-mailed Mr. Weiss frequently "Please write a book! When are you going to write a book???" Finally he has. It was well worth the wait.

PS: If you go this route, you can also learn to read music, attempt classical pieces, study music theory. I do. (They say suffering is good for the soul!)But I also want to be "Free to be Creative at the Piano." I can be, thanks to this book.

After reading some of the negative reviews here, I felt I had to `chime in.' I purchased this book after reading both good and bad reviews. This is, as the author states, not a technical manual but a philosophy on piano playing.

On that alone, the book is worth the $12.95 so I feel I got my money's worth. There are references in the book to some of Mr. Weiss's online lessons but that's just a very small part of what this book is. Mostly, it's a compilation of essays on many topics like how to get past creative blocks, improvising, etc.

If you've been playing classical piano (like me) or have problems allowing your own music to flow, this is really a great book to own. It's not perfect by any means. But it is a unique method for creating on the piano.