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29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Advanced book for popular piano enthusiasts, May 21, 2001
This review is from: The Pop Piano Book (Paperback)
Keyboardists can use this book as well. The first part details basics (chords, scales, etc) real quickly (I guess experienced users wont need the basics in detail) The second part goes through genres specifically. (pop ballad, rock, r&b, gospel, country etc) Parts are split up among accompanying and melody leading. A beginner with no background will have no idea how to use this book. It is not a manual, more of a reference book for popular piano styles. Not for beginners, for the experienced. There isn't too much text explaining things. More of it showing and the reader to understand, digest and improvise. So you need some prehand understanding. Excellent book no doubt. I do have complaints though. First the binding is terrible. My book's pages started falling apart very quickly. I needed to go to a publisher friend of mine who took it apart and rebinded it for me. I may have had to lose the pretty cover but now it is sturdy. Second the paper is made of somewhat heavy stock making the book itself very large and weighty. I'm sure this contributed to the book falling apart.
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32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book has more than meets the eye, September 8, 2002
This review is from: The Pop Piano Book (Paperback)
This could be a very good technique book as well for people who want to learn popular piano if it is read and used carefully. He has an abundance of technical exercises in rhythm patterns, which is something that cannot be gained from Hanon, the king of technical exercise books. Many teachers are not very good at teaching popular piano, instead preferring to reinterpret it as classical music (which is not appropriate given its different rhythm patters and key signatures--often less complicated than those in classical). This was written by a man who teaches popular piano and has a very clear idea of the rhythm patterns that make that unique. For example: He makes extensive use of the tie line and syncopation in his examples of R&B, which is what one finds in real music of this genre. But it is very hard to get that type of practice if learning classical songs. As it has been noted before, the binding for this book sucks. But there are ways to get around that. Also: This seems to encompass almost everything in other basic theory books that I have read/ own. It has actually obviated my other theory/ rhythm books. It will be a good saving of money to invest in this before any others. Finally: The book CAN be used by beginners (in tandem with learning some scales) if it is used as he recommends. He says in the opening pages that it was written/ designed to be used by people at myriad levels.
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent reference for various styles of music., August 19, 2000
This review is from: The Pop Piano Book (Paperback)
This book is really a great ressource for musicians who want to improve their style in pop ballad, gospel, new age music, ... I would advise it to anyone who already has some basic notion of how to 'fake' a song = interpret a song based only on a lead sheet (melody + chords), and who wants to go further. The author gives lots of examples, breaking them down in basic components, and analysing them. He gives hundreds of patterns of accompaniment (arpeggios, chord voicings, rhythmic patterns). A warning: the title 'The Pop Piano Book - A complete method for playing piano and keyboards in contemporary styles', is misleading. This book is definitely NOT intented for beginners. Rather for people who already have a few years of experience on the piano (correct fingering, and independance of hands), and preferably have some notion of note reading (although the purpose of the book is of course to be able to play music without having to read notes).
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