Customer Reviews

Piano Adventures: Theory Book Level 1 (Piano Adventures Library)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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++

The first edition Theory book was technical... all about teaching the student the basics of reading music. The second edition has gone more toward the Suzuki method-type teaching... wanting the student to do improvisation. That's fine, but this series used to be more of a technical development book. Just wanted people to know that the second edition is VERY different from the first.

I've been teaching piano for several decades, using various lesson series over the years. I really like the Faber Piano Adventure series. While I supplement with pieces from other publishers occasionally, Faber is the best overall. They really have some nice compositions for beginners, pieces that students enjoy and those they share the house with like too. The pace of the lessons is very nice also, allowing the student to play plenty of pieces well in a reasonable length of time. Overall, the Faber series has plenty of really fun and intriguing pieces of music for teaching the student to play piano, hold the students interest, and foster the appreciation of good music.

This product info is misleading! This is not the Lesson Book, as it says. This is the Background Accompaniments. It's just a CD. No sheet music. Yea, I know I was surprised too when it arrived.

I have been a school music teacher for thirty-seven years. In this time I have had private piano students and I have used several different piano series of books. I find the Bastien series excellent. I use the accelerated books if I have an older student starting piano. They are able to go farther and faster and these books are not for the six and seven year olds

I bought this book for my children after seeing one of their friends use it for his piano classes. Our kids love using it and are getting quite good, too. The explanations are easy to follow and the short pieces are very helpful in learning good practices. I think adult learners will like this book, too.

Great piano method. My son went through several methods and this one is his favorite one. The songs are very progressive and very pleasant for kids (and for adults to listen)

The Faber books just can't be beat for thoughtful, tuneful teaching pieces and theory books.