Customer Reviews

Rock'N'Roll Piano: Hal Leonard Keyboard Style Series

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The author did a great job of keeping this book simple and explaining things very well.

Topics covered:

Left Hand Bass Lines including Jerry Lee, Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Chuck Berry styles.

Right Hand - Eighths, Glissando, Crushed Notes (I think this is also called slip notes), Rolls, Note Clusters, and Comping.

Soloing - Blues Scale, How to Construct A Solo, Harmonizing in Thirds and Sixths, Intros, Outros and Stop Choruses.

Lastly there are six tunes with four different versions of each -first a slow demo, slow demo with full band backing, regular speed demo and regular speed with full band backing. The six tunes are -

Buddy Brilliant - In the style of Buddy Holly, this tune is more for learning how to play with a band.

Raspberry Valley - In the styly of Fats Domino, this tune is very close to Blueberry Hill.

A Summer Hideaway - slow song based on 50's ballads like Earth Angel, Blue Moon and Young Love.

Boogie Woogie Wonderland - good song to practice your boogie woogie bass lines.

Rick's Rock - in the style of Little Richard

Roll Over Jerry - in the style of Jerry Lee Lewis, this song is very close to Great Balls of fire.

The cd is very well done with lots of slow examples and lots of examples with full band backing.


This is a very quality product and I think the author did a great job of breaking this information down and giving us the basics.

I also own the excellent 'David David Bennett Cohen Teaches Rock'n'Roll Piano'. If you're debating on which of these to buy I would say that this one breaks down the basics a little better while Cohen's is a real wealth of knowledge that is going to take sometime to go through (contains lots of great solos). Also Cohen's cd is narrated while this cd contains only has the music examples.

Hope this helps.

The actual instruction and explanation in this book is a little weak, although there's not a lot of instruction material for this topic, so it's not like there's a clearly better alternative. The musical examples, especially the complete songs at the end, are all top notch, though. And while somewhat superfluous, the little bit of rock'n'roll history at the beginning was interesting and helped me connect a few dots I hadn't previously.

One thing to note, however, is that I was rather irritated by the way the author kind of assumes that the reader is a talentless hack with no interest taking music seriously or practicing. His suggestions for how you dress or how on-stage antics can compesate for a lack of ability were just uncalled for. Just because I have an interest in Rock'n'Roll piano doesn't mean I'm not a serious musician! I wouldn't have minded so much if it hadn't felt like they skimped on the actual instruction to make page-space for that garbage.

The bottom line, though, is given what's available on this topic, the musical examples and accompanying CD are well worth the money. If you don't feel you need tips on wearing sequins or kicking the piano stool, you can probably safely skip the text, though.

If you truly are looking to play Rock'N'Roll piano DON'T GET THIS BOOK...first.

First, devour Mark Harrison's Blues Piano, from the same Hal Leonard series. Rock'N'Roll piano obviously has its origins in the Blues, and Harrison's book is COMPREHENSIVE. It has a plethora of examples of left hand patterns, comping styles, and right hand techniques--all pertaining to the various styles within the blues genre, and even Rock'N'Roll.

Next, get Vinter's Rock'N'Roll Piano. It's helpful, but primarily as a companion volume.

This book is showing me some ideas re how to play Rock n roll piano. But I don't think it compares to getting lessons from someone who knows how to play this style of music.

If I'd wanted a jazz or blues book, i'd have bought one!!!!