The Piano Lessons Book: The Piano Student's Guide For Getting The Most Out Of Practicing, Lessons, Your Teacher And Yourself [Paperback]

Neil Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 8, 2007

THE PIANO LESSONS BOOK by Neil Miller provides the essential information required to excel at playing the piano: what you should be learning in piano lessons so you can play to your full potential. It is the piano student's guide for getting the most out of practicing, lessons, your teacher and yourself. Whether your preferences are towards classical, jazz or popular music, THE PIANO LESSONS BOOK will show you organized practicing methods that take the mystery out of music, revealing how music is put together and easing the challenges of piano playing. THE PIANO LESSONS BOOK combines Neil Miller's creative teaching techniques and experiences with practicing and performing, comprehensively covering topics extremely useful to anyone taking or planning to take lessons. In THE PIANO LESSONS BOOK, Neil Miller recounts relevant personal incidents and informative historical accounts, to enlighten and entertain. Hundreds of illustrations and musical examples enhance the explanations.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Neil Miller lives and works in Ramona, California, about 40 miles outside of San Diego. He has been teaching piano privately since 1983 and maintains a roster of about 25 students, making him one of the most successful teachers in the area. His formal studies were with concert pianists and noted teachers Melody Lord and Alan Swain in Chicago, and Florence Stephenson in San Diego. Among his many students who have gone on to successful performing and composing careers are jazz pianist Virgil Benton, pianist-classical composer Brian Curry, and pianist-new age composer Josh Turov. "I'm a good piano teacher because I have a bad memory." Neil Miller realized at a young age that memorizing did not come easy, and this hampered his desire to perform the way concert pianists perform - playing from memory. As a result, he relentlessly investigated and researched, finding the answers to how someone with an ordinary memory could capably memorize music. "I was astounded at the empty answers I got from some teachers - they were ignorant of how an understanding of scales and chords is the cornerstone of memorization. Once I got that behind me, I learned more about memorization methods and became a successful performer. The understanding of music construction became my teaching specialty, along with finding the music's dramatic and emotional content, and employing effective practicing methods." Neil Miller has been a regular performer in the San Diego area. From 1984 to 1990, his jazz-rock trio Beyond entertained at nightclubs and parties. In the 1980s he gave a series of chamber music concerts with varied instrumentalists; he also lectured and performed in piano recitals on various classical music topics. Since 1997, he has given a weekly performance of classical music and jazz standards at Ramona's San Vicente Inn.

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace (December 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1434818535
• ISBN-13: 978-1434818539
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #860,997 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes It Easy To Memorize Music, December 29, 2007

By 

Linda Wallace (California, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Piano Lessons Book: The Piano Student's Guide For Getting The Most Out Of Practicing, Lessons, Your Teacher And Yourself (Paperback)

The subtitle says it all - what you should be learning in piano
lessons. I quote that because what is contained in THE PIANO LESSONS
BOOK is not taught by most piano teachers - the teachers I had before
I found Neil Miller were woefully deficient in teaching theory,
practicing, and interpretation. When I decided to take lessons as an
adult, I knew that some things were missing in my previous lessons,
but I didn't know what. For example, my other teachers had me play
scales, but they never taught me how to generate them systematically,
see and hear how they relate to each other, and how those
relationships appear in music. I could finally memorize music - play
at the piano - just the piano and me without printed music. Another
example is understanding what practicing is all about - in his
lessons, Neil preferred to call it "working," and it was about getting
every small section of music to sound like the ideal version I could
hear in my head. Additionally, I really enjoy the history and
description of the pieces in the chapter on Analysis.

I highly recommend THE PIANO LESSONS BOOK to everyone who plays the
piano or wants to. Every section contains valuable information. For
about the price of a piano lesson you'll get the value of 100 lessons
from a true master.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thorough but use it as a reference, not as a teacher, March 27, 2009

By 

swtomahto (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Piano Lessons Book: The Piano Student's Guide For Getting The Most Out Of Practicing, Lessons, Your Teacher And Yourself (Paperback)

I am a piano teacher and bought this book because I was curious to see what Miller had to say about piano lessons! Miller does a great job covering basic piano skills as well as skills that are not so basic in simple, easy-to-understand language. He includes a helpful index to help readers look up unfamiliar vocabulary words... I really liked that Miller will NOT use a vocab word that he has not already explained elsewhere. Thus this book is an excellent "mini piano encyclopedia" for students taking lessons, yet I feel that it should be used only for just that. It is great for referring to when one doesn't understand a concept between lessons, but be careful not to rely solely on this book, as your teacher may not agree with everything Miller says.

At times, Miller's easy-to-understand language oversimplifies concepts, such as perfect pitch--for instance, instead of giving an example of how someone experiences perfect pitch through synesthesia, maybe explain that someone with perfect pitch can immediately identify or produce a pitch at will, and THEN explain that some people with perfect pitch associate pitches with colors or feelings, etc. I think that oversimplification of concepts such as this will become confusing for more advanced studies later.

Another example of confusion: Chapter 10 on Chords and Chord symbols. This book seems mostly targeted towards students learning classical piano, and yet Miller explains his chords in a totally jazz way. Classical and jazz chord notations are SO different, in terms of upper or lowercase letters, chord quality and inversion symbols, etc. Yes, I understand that Miller chose to use the jazz/pop chord style because it is the most useful for reading jazz/pop, but if Miller wants his students to also analyze classical music, he might want to explain the classical style first with Roman Numerals and Figured Bass first before moving into the jazz style with just letters. That way, the student will learn about chord progressions as well. Or, instead of calling the chapter just "chords", he can call it "jazz and pop chords" to avoid students' confusion between the the jazz and classical styles.

These are just two examples of potentially confusing chapters. In short, I think that this book is worth investing in as a REFERENCE book (by the way, one can also find much of the information in the book online). Use it as a supplement to what your teacher is teaching, and yes, if there seem to be a HUGE conflict in what your teacher teaches and what the book says (i.e. the facts don't line up), then perhaps you might want talk to your teacher about what you read in Miller's book, and your teacher (if he/she is a good one) will consider it, and agree or reject Miller's philosophy and give you a reason why.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tremendous Compendium - Complete and Informative, December 18, 2007

By 

Carol Wilson (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Piano Lessons Book: The Piano Student's Guide For Getting The Most Out Of Practicing, Lessons, Your Teacher And Yourself (Paperback)

I took piano lessons as a child for about three years. As an adult I tried to continue on my own using method books, and I tried a few teachers. I wasn't progressing. Then I discovered Neil Miller's The Piano Lessons Book. It is so superior to anything else out there. The explanations are perfectly clear on such difficult subjects as note-reading, timing, scales, chords, practicing and memorizing. Plus, there's so much more - to name a few: how a piano works, what kind of piano to buy, getting printed and recorded music, finding a good teacher (presumably one as good as Neil Miller - I can't imagine anyone being better!). It's a tremendous compendium - complete and informative. He also has some great stories and personal insights on every topic. I'm very thankful for what I learned from The Piano Lessons Book, because now I learn new music quickly, make significant progress with old pieces, and play the piano the way I always wanted to. I'll make one more recommendation - if you're a parent considering piano lessons (even music lessons on another instrument) for your child, don't waste a lot of time and money on the wrong teacher - buy this book!