Piano Adventures Lesson Book, Level 1 [Audio CD]

Nancy & Randall Faber (Author), Edwin McLean (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1998

For play-along with Piano Adventures Lesson Book Level 1. Includes practice and performance tempos for each song.

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: FJH (1998)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000F3P8FY
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,021,012 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Method books Currently Available, October 30, 2010

By 

Tagster - See all my reviews

This review is from: Piano Adventures Lesson Book, Level 1 (Paperback)

I absolutely LOVE the Faber Piano Adventures curriculum. My pedagogy teacher in college said, "Never believe anything until you hear how it sounds." Now that I have taken a few students through this curriculum from beginning to end, I would say it sounds nothing less than beautiful. My students are extremely well equipped for intermediate classical literature upon graduating and they extremely independent learners. It's almost like they teach themselves at times.
I typically alter the teaching order of the primer level to get them reading on the staff a bit faster. But all in all this is a fantastic curriculum! You will not find a better reading approach than the Intervallic reading Faber introduces... while still having songs that sound familiar to the ears.
A few tips:
Synchronize the books... make sure you at least use the technique, lesson, and theory... they are not complete without each other... and do not go ahead to a new unit until you are ready to move in all books. The only exception is just using the lesson book if you have a very gifted student that can move through more quickly, but even then, practice never hurt anyone.

Supplement with basic technique scale skills that you teach by rote:
Primer: white key five finger patterns
Level 1: black key and minor five finger patterns and hand over hand arpeggios
Level 2a: white key one octave scales and Cadences (this is extremely important as this concept is a huge challenge in level 2b if they haven't already played it)
Level 2b: black key and minor one octave scales and cadences
Level 3a: 2 octave arpeggios and 1st and 2nd chord inversions
Level 3b-5: they are ready for any popular scale skills book such as Hannon

Also sometimes it is like a magic trick to have a student play through one or two of the supplemental series of the level they just graduated before they move on to new books. It cements the old concepts and gives them a sense of mastery because they will learn fast.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars PIano Adventures is great for confusing young students., October 9, 2010

By 

B. R. Baldwin - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Piano Adventures Lesson Book, Level 1 (Paperback)

I'm resigned to the fact that I'm going to be a minority of one here. But you should know that Piano Adventures has serious deficiencies as a method. I will grant that the tunes are good, and I realize that is very important. But the concepts presented and the method of their presentation are not suitable for young kids (unless they have an uncommonly good teacher to put it in context). New concepts are neither prepared nor reviewed effectively. For my money, the "Celebrate Piano!" method is the only one out there that does that. That way, kids get to play fun songs AND develop deep musical understanding. In my opinion Piano Adventures is best used as supplementary repertoire with another method.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love the Faber books!, January 24, 2009

By 

D. Lambert "Lil' Momma" (Roosevelt, UT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Piano Adventures: Lesson Book, Level 1 (Paperback)

As a piano teacher, all my students use the Faber series. I have used the other authors, but Faber is my favorite. The books do a great job of teaching the concepts in a fun way with fun songs and ideas. A++