Customer Reviews

Progressive Class Piano, Second Edition

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With the help of a teacher, this book is wonderful for the "older" student who is looking to play piano. For each chapter, there are rhythm, composition, and techniqal drills. The book comes with supplementary material, scales, cord progressions, circle of fifths, and transposing to other instruments. Each chapter progresses enough to keep you moving, but not so fast that you lose yourself. A definite reccommend to the beginning piano player.

[Update: December 2011 - we just purchased a replacement copy for the family this Christmas. We look forward to many more years with this great tome!]

[Update: December 2010 - the comb binding finally gave way, reducing the book to a mound of sheets after five years of use by my wife and numerous of our children. We're ordering another one soon. This time, we'll probably pull the pages, place them in sheet protectors, and put them all in a large D-ring binder. Still, perhaps the best piano book I've found for learners of almost any age!]

I was first introduced to this piano book while a music major. My background was with voice, guitar, and trumpet, but I was required to take piano each semester. Don't let the title imply that this is solely for group (class) piano lessons. It worked well in one-on-one sessions, and I bought it for my wife this past Christmas (I don't do well giving lessons to my own family members, and I'm still no piano virtuoso). She is studying on her own, and has a piano playing friend drop by for an informal lesson every couple of weeks.

The book starts out by having you explore the keyboard, playing with different groupings of keys, so you can hear their relationships. Students are encouraged, for example, to use only the black keys to pluck out familiar melodies, and then to make up a short melody of their own. After that basic orientation, it moves on to primary five-finger patterns in the simplest keys (C maj., G maj.) and builds from there. Chord charts help the students make the proper finger transitions along the way.

The exercises start simple, but move on to more rewarding little pieces in a surprisingly short time. As students become proficient in each new key, some exercises ask them to transpose them (play them in a different key) on the fly (without having the written music in front of them). This is a very important skill for any accompianist, who may need to play a given piece in a differnt key to accomodate a soloist's specific vocal range.

Unlike some basic piano texts that cover only parts of your learning journey (different books for beginners, intermediates, etc), this one will move you from the most basic exercises to very complex pieces by the end--it is a substantial volume. It does a good job of introducing chord progressions, and it handles the introduction of the minor scales very well.

The very end of the book contains complete written scales for every major and minor key, invaluable for drilling the basic skills as you progress.

Overall, a fantastic book! You will enjoy playing!

This book was recommended by a friend who is on the music faculty at a local university. My new student has been accepted as a vocal music major at the university of his choice but has never had piano lessons. In order to begin preparing to pass the piano proficiency that most music programs require, he came to me for lessons. This book is an excellent choice. I highly recommend it for individual or class lessons.

This comprehensive book was recommended by my top-notch instructor. We use other books as well, but this is by far the most thorough for learning basic and advanced techniques. The instructions are clear and define why this technique is important. The exercises make the technique your own, and after several have been covered, they are followed by short, easy-to-learn pieces featuring those techniques.

Even if you're not a total beginner, this book offers a fantastic review of the important pianist techniques. I highly recommend it.