Customer Reviews

The Phantom of the Opera - piano vocal Selections

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The book is great! however, I do think it is a book for more advanced piano students than what I was hoping for. I had gotten the book for one of my piano students who loves the musical, but she would only be able to play a very few of the songs even though she is in Level 5 of Alfred's. I decided to give the book to my married daughter to enjoy instead and found a couple of the selections in an Alfred's level 5 piano solo's book to give to my student. I do wish these music publishers would let us have a look at the music before we buy. That would certainly help to let the buyer know if it will be challenging, just right, or too easy. I agree that the bass clef was a little boring, but you can always improvise. For those of you who aren't sure, let me tell you that most of the songs (not all) have 4-5 sharps or up to 5 flats. "Think of Me" starts off with 2 Sharps, then moves into 3 flats. "Angle of Music" starts with 2 flats, moves into 5 flats, then back to 2 flats, moves to 5 sharps, and ends with 2 sharps. This gives you a good idea how the songs move throughout the book. If you like a challenging book, then you will enjoy this one--unless of course you are a concert pianist--then look for one with more difficulty.

I bought this for my wife and here is her review of the book:

I consider myself an intermediate piano player. I absolutely love this book and can't help coming back here to write a review for it. This book is actually much easier than I thought. I can start to play mostly by sight reading. The hard part maybe the frequent key change and some parts have lot of flats, but it is not really difficult as it appears. The book also includes some scenes from the movie. It is nicely arranged and the paper is of good quality too.

I enjoyed very much while playing the music.

I'm a huge Webber fan and was playing music book collections of his music back when I was 13. Well, when the movie came out, I took a chance that the sheet music will have improved from his earlier collection and it indeed had! The songs are richer plus all of the major songs are available. "Angel of Music", "MotN", and "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" are probably the most beautiful.

As for my meager complaints.. I still await a really complex release of these songs. I only found myself struggling with one song in the first day that I got the book. The biggest complaint I have in reference to this is the simplistic left hand. In the old and newer arrangements of these songs, the left hand often has to resort to lazily hitting one note. I know something more complicated could have been done with the left hand.

But then... if you are advanced enough to complain about the difficulty of this book, you should be advanced enough to ad-lib in your own improvements to the music. And, really, even John Williams' arrangements are at this level of difficulty, so I may be hoping for arrangements that are rarely released by any movie/musical composer.

So aside from those small complaints, the music is just beautiful in this book... the way you play them has a flow that reminds the player of how it is sung, entrancing. I highly suggest it to piano-playing fans of PotO.

After reading the other reviews, I was a bit hesitant about ordering this book. Although I took piano lessons for a year, I am, by and large, self-taught.

Some of what the other reviewers said is true. The left-hand is quite simplified. However, it does remain fairly true to the original cast recording, so there is something to be said for that.

Although some of the songs do change keys quite frequently, (and to keys with multiple sharps and flats!), they were easier to play than what I expected -- I just play all of the black keys and forget most of the white ones, lol! So don't let all the talk about sharps and flats deter you. I can actually play most of the music in this book -- and reasonably well :-). There are only one or two small sections where I do struggle a bit, but what's life without a few challenges? The simplified left-hand might just be a blessing in disguise here for those of us who are less-than-accomplished pianists but who still want to enjoy playing the music from "Phantom".

This collection is superb. It contains three songs not included in the Original Broadway sheet music (Learn to Be Lonely, Journey to the Cemetery, and The Fairground) as well as all of the main pieces from the movie. Great pictures and information about the movie as well. The music itself is advanced, but well worth learning. I definitely recommend it to Broadway fans!

~Hillary Rose

This is not the "simple" version, though with practice, it's not too difficult. I would not recommend this book for a beginner; but for an occasional player, the music is easy enough to call up on occasion. The songs don't have that 'empty' sound like many songs transposed from orchestra to piano and, in my opinion, you could play them for an audience and receive applause.

I have dreamed of this music at least for ten years. In the night of New Year I saw the movie in TV and after that I started to look for the sheet music. This one seemed to have the most complete selection of songs with the piano accompaniment and nice photos from movie. I am very much pleased with this book.

At first I had difficulty playing some of the songs but once I got the hang of it I couldn't stop for me it was like watching the movie or listening to the soundtrack and it was alot of fun to learn to play the songs that capture the love of millions!

I would reccommend this book to more advanced pianists, if you are a biginner try the easy piano vocal selections. But I promise you won't be disappointed.

I played piano for nine years, then quit for a year and a half because of lost of interest. After seeing the movie a few times, I decided I wanted to play the music. I ordered this book and now I am learning to play them. It is a little hard since this is advanced, but I am getting it. This book brought me back to music. I applaud Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Amanda

Wow...if you love this type of music...and love the piano...than this is definitely the book for you... Not only is the music strikingly beautiful...but the arrangements are modern enough to be really fun to play... A must buy for anyone who just enjoys playing the piano just to play...