2 comments about Progressive Class Piano, Second Edition.

1. 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.



2. 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!

5 comments about Chopin: An Introduction To His Piano Works (Book & CD) (Alfred CD Edition).

1. I was disappointed as the most famous pieces of chopin are not here. I did not like or feel compelled to play any of the musics of this book. Of course I understand that the best pieces of chopin are hard to play, but I am sure there are some easy/medium ones like preludes that are not here.



2. This is an interesting piece of work. It has a good overview of the composition style Frederick Chopin, i.e. technical analysis. Then selected works (scores) are presented. This is all backed up with a CD of the works being discussed. A nice progression from just listening to the music itself. Also, very good value for the money.



3. Alas, the last waltz suffered two cuts.
   Well, 18 whole pieces out of nineteen is almost perfect.



4. As a piano teacher I am always searching for collections that are user
   friendly for my students. This collection contains shorter works, in their original form, with accurate detail and editorial suggestions
   as to interpretation. I would recommend this book to everyone wanting
   a first time introduction to Chopin's most famous works!



5. I am an adult taking piano lessons for almost 4 years now (in December). I enjoy this book tremendously. I will be playing the Waltz in A minor later this October for my level 6 syllabus along with Bach Invention 1 and Satie Gymnopedie 1. Chopin pieces are challenging to learn but so lovely to listen to and the accomplishment feeling was just so great. This book is just perfect as an introductory to Chopin (I think these pieces are start at level 6 and up). There are so many beautiful pieces that I wish I can play right now, but I'm not good enough yet (hopefully, in a few more years :)). Nocturne in C minor (I love this one), Waltz in B minor, Preludes, Polonaise and Mazurka... just little taste of everything from Chopin... and they are all great pieces.
   If you are serious about learning piano and want to progress, I really strongly encourage to take piano lessons from a teacher because his/her experience can help you learn to play so much faster and importantly, the right way. I have learned so much from my piano teacher and it would be impossible for me to even get anywhere if I was self taught. It is hard work and commitment, but just keep on learning, you will be happy you did. Play on:)

5 comments about David Lanz - Solos for New Age Piano.

1. If you are a pianist, and love David Lanz you will love this book. If you haven't heard Lanz, then listen to a clip from one of his CD's on this site, and be hooked. This book contains songs from four of his CD's, Heartsounds, Cristofori's Dream, Natural States and Nightfall.

   If you, like me, took piano lessons as a child and can play classical music and written music, but lost the love of the piano and the desire to play, this book is for YOU! When I first heard Lanz's CD Cristofori's Dream, I wished that I could play music like this. I hadn't touched my piano in years because I wasn't enjoying the music I could play. I found "Solos for New Age Piano" and found that I COULD play this music. "Cristofori's Dream" and "Spiral Dance" are lyrical, romantic and very relaxing to play. "Behind the Waterfal" and "Courage of the Wind" are robust and magical, just like the bit of nature they describe.

   On first play, some of Lanz's songs seem difficult, but don't give up because the reward of mastering these songs is well worth the effort. I would highly recommend "Solo's for New Age Piano" for any but the beginning piano player.




2. Not much in terms of a review to add. I'm just a beginner, and, well, the notes look right :) But I would like to add a list of songs featured, as Amazon has left that out of the description...

   This book features the songs:

   Behind the Waterfall, Courage of the Wind, Cristofori's Dream, Dream Field, Faces of the Forest, Farewell Amparo, Heartsounds, Leaves on the Seine, Nightfall, Song for Monet, Spiral Dance, Summer's Child, Valencia




3. As said by the previous reviewer who said some notes are missing in the books. Do you suggest any other book which is more precise?



4. This music book came recommended by our daughter's piano teacher so we ordered it. There is exquisite music in this collection.



5. Very close to the actual version that Lanz plays on his CDs. I detect some slight variations to improve playability by less advanced players such as myself. But this doesn't detract from the beauty of the pieces so I encourage you to get this book if you want to dip your feet (or fingers) into Lanz's beautiful music.

2 comments about Supersunnyspeedgraphic, The LP (Piano Transcriptions/Vocal) (Pvg).

1. I was really happy with the book which is in great condition, but it was a waste of money paying for faster shipping - the estimated time wasn't even close! Try adding on another 3 weeks!



2. I was 100% satisfied with the product, i received it faster than i expected and in perfect condition.

1 comments about Teach Yourself to Play Electronic Keyboard (Teach Yourself).

1. I have been trying for a short while and the books steps are great for a real beginner like me.

No comments about Michael Aaron Piano Course / Lesson / Primer (Michael Aaron Piano Course).

5 comments about Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization.

1. Stuart Isacoff is a serious pianist and scholar, and his book, Temperament, answers the mysterious questions that those of us who are also serious pianists wish to know and probe. His book is dense with information, but at the same time accessible and clear, so that the pianist who is curious about her instrument and its place in cultural history is enriched with new understanding for the metamorphoses that have produced our modern piano. I am grateful for his impressive research and the deep insights between its covers. Carol Montparker, pianist and author



2. A good superficial read on the historical development of 12 tone equal temperament. For a more in-depth and analytical look at temperament I would recommend Harry Partch's Genesis of a Music.
   A word of warning, this book is available under 2 titles. Temperament - the idea that solved music's greatest riddle, and Temperament - how music became a battleground for the great minds of western civilization. I purchased both assuming that they were companion works, but they are identical.



3. Temperament, by Stuart Isacoff, is almost a great book. It covers a little-known aspect of music history in great depth and with delightful insights and cute 'asides.' In short, it takes a technical subject that is over the heads of most readers and makes it accessible and interesting-- and in the process of course brings it down to a level that the average person can almost understand.
   
   And there's where it fails.
   
   Without audio examples to illustrate the points being made, most of the niceties of the different kinds of scale tuning throughout history are just so much description. Unless you've *heard* the type of tuning known as 'just tuning,' you really can have no idea how strange and sometimes beautiful and sometimes alarming the sounds can be, particularly the effects that familiar harmonies can have when tweaked away from our usual experience in this way. There is a website referred to in the book where you can go and listen to some of these things, but that's just not good enough. The book cries out for an audio CD to be included, with examples tied to specific points in the text, and vice versa. I'm sure the author would have been glad to do it. The publisher goofed.
   
   The other problem in the book is that the author occasionally comes up with a 'fact' which is simply not the case. This is rare, but the fact that it happens at all is cause to wonder about the truth of some of the allegations that he makes. The book isn't scholarly [thank God] and there are no footnotes to use in checking the author's data, but I have a funny feeling that he has played a bit fast and loose with us on some points. No evidence-- just a feeling.
   
   Still-- the book is well worth reading, particularly if you have enough musical background to be able to appreciate some of the author's stories and examples. The tales about politics, philosophy, and personalities gone awry would be fascinating even if the information about music weren't compelling-- which it is.



4. I was quite impressed the first time I read Temperament. How Music became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization by Stuart Isacoff, which is the same book as Temperament: The Idea That Solved Music's Greatest Riddle. I had a the time some theoretical knowledge about temperaments and effects on music playing but I didn't had any chance to experience it until recently.
   
   A friend of mine showed me few months ago a recording called Six Degrees of Tonality. A Well Tempered Piano issued on Gasparo (GSCD-344). I liked so much what I heard that I ordered a second recording available on the same label and called Beethoven In The Temperaments. Historical Tunings on the Modern Concert Grand (GSCD-332). These recordings made by Ed. Foote (see review Not so fast, please., January 2, 2002)are a unique chance to experience other tunings than the widely spread equal temperament.
   
   Returning recently to Isacoff's Temperament after reading L'Histoire de l'Acoustique Musicale by Serge Donval, I realised that the author just wanted to justify historically how and why ET is "THE" temperament that the world has been seeking for over thousand of years.
   
   I invite readers of Temperament to listen to the four Piano Sonatas played on a Steinway D on Beethoven In The Temperaments (two tuned after Prinz and two after Young temperaments) and to compare with any other recordings performed on ET piano.
   
   They will hear how Key Colors used to sound and how triads and chords sound so differently. Listening to the same works on a ET piano make it an uncomfortable experience even if the performer's name is Arrau, Serkin or Pollini.
   
   My wish would be that Mr. Foote and Gasparo come up with more recordings of Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt on a period tempered piano.



5. 
   
   
   
   I make a practice of sending books I really enjoy to friends who have similar interests. Ordering up Temperament when it was first favorably reviewed in The Economist, and again as a gift, I saw there were some very negative reviews, which surprised me. Pleasantly, my gift book came in its newer paperback version which includes an Afterword where Isacoff addresses the critics complaints. The quite cranky complainants don't seem to "get it" that he, in this role, is an historian not an advocate of "equal temperament."
   
   The history of slicing and dicing octaves into useful bites for the keyboards of organs, harpsichords and pianos has run 2,589 years from Pythagoras to Isacoff and is still running. 99% of pianos have twelve black and white keys and tuned to equal spacing, so twelve tones seems to be in the lead. Even Pythagoras who understood 3rd and 5th could not find a mix that would come out even. It is of course a compromise, but it is not correct to assume that Isacoff has a European bias for the twelve tone systems and is antagonistic to Chinese and Asian treatments of the issue.
   
   This is a delightful read with the cultural and artistic histories of two millennia intertwined with the struggle for beautiful keyboard related music.
   
   Robert Hansman

1 comments about Greatest Hits, Level 2: Recordings, Broadway, Movies (Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course Series).

1. This book is designed to supplement Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course Level 2 but can be enjoyed by anyone one has mastered about level two of any piano teaching series. The pieces are graded and placed in the book from easiest to most difficult and a note is included as to what page number in Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course the student should have completed before being "ready" for the given selection. I found that the "greatest hits" songs tend to be a bit more difficult than what is found in the basic piano course book but this is still a fun book of good arrangements to play and lyrics are even included so you can sing along.
   
   The following are the selection of pieces in the book and their origin:
   "There's No Business Like Show Business"
   (ANNIE GET YOUR GUN)
   "My Heart Will Go On" (TITANTIC)
   "Que Sera, Sera" (THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH)
   "Beauty and the Beast" (Disney's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST)
   "Seventy Six Trombones" (THE MUSIC MAN)
   "Yesterday" (hit song some The Beatles)
   "Think of Me" (Andrew Lloyd Weber's PHANTOM OF THE OPERA)
   "This is the Moment" (musical stage play JEYLL & HYDE)
   "The Way We Were" (motion picture THE WAY WE WERE)
   "Oh Pretty Woman" (Ray Orbison hit)
   "My Guy" (Smokey Robinson hit)
   "People" (FUNNY GIRL)
   "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" (Disney's LION KING)
   "God Help The Outcasts" (Disney's HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME)
   "ONE" (A CHORUS LINE)

2 comments about Burgmuller: 25 Progressive Pieces, opus 100 (Book & CD) (Alfred CD Edition).

1. I just bought this book for my mother-in-law because this was one of my favorite piano collections as a young pianist. I love the pieces (ALL of them!) because they're not too difficult to play, yet they sound beautiful and impressive. A MUST for every intermediate pianist!



2. Wow, this book is a treasure. I am taking lesson for 3 years and as an adult, my fall back is speed as I don't have flexible fingers like young kids. I have been doing Hanon trying to strengthen and to keep my fingers flexible, but I get so bored with the monotone. I still am at a beginner/intermediate level (4) and this book is just perfect to learn and practice. This book is definitely great until advanced level, as it will be so enjoyable to play and you will never get bored. All 25 pieces have beautiful melodies and so enjoyable to learn and most importantly...the speed. I listened to the CD and it helps so much to feel the speed; and with such lovely melodies, I could not get bored. This book is sooo worth it to have in your collection. I'm so glad I have it in my collection.
   Play on :)

5 comments about Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra.

1. This beautiful picture book biography recounts the life and career of jazz musician, Edward Kennedy Ellington -- better known to all as the Duke.

   When the Duke's parents enrolled him in piano lessons for the very first time, he flat out did not want to go. At that time he had visions of playing baseball; but his parents insisted that he learn to play the piano. The music lessons were slow and not a lot of fun. It wasn't long before he quit taking lessons altogether and kissed the piano goodbye. Little did he know then that the melodious rhythms of Ragtime would draw him back to this instrument again and lead to his success as a great musician, composer, and orchestra leader!

   Andrea Davis Pinkney does an outstanding job sharing the Duke's story with young readers. Her husband, Brian Pinkney, matches her wonderful text with vibrate illustrations, which translate the Duke's music into a series of bold colored spirals, waves, curls, and swirls that literally leap off of the pages of the book! Without a doubt, this husband and wife collaboration will guide readers in appreciating the rhythm and beat of the Duke's life and music. This book is truly a musician's delight!




2. Edward Kennedy Ellington, who preferred being called Duke, didn't like playing the piano at first. As the book made out, he considered piano lessons a chore, although it doesn't directly say this in the text. The boring "umpy-dumpy" noises that the piano made when he hit the keys made him soon quit lessons so he could pursue the interests of a regular boy. It would be a couple of years later until Duke would start practicing piano once more.
   
   In what looks like a pool hall, Duke discovers a new way of playing piano. His discovery is ragtime. The ragtime music isn't boring and repetitve as the type of music he had practiced as a boy. This music gives of a rythmical sensation throughout the body. Duke is soon in love with the piano. And he starts practicing with the little knowledge of the piano he has. He is soon good enough to have his own band and becomes a frequent performer at the Cotton Club. Duke records many hit songs in his life and becomes known as "The King of the Keys".
   
   Pinkney's unusually good painting are very enjoyable and I really like the way that the musical chords showed up to let the reader know that music was being played.



3. Being a relatively new reader of children's books, I tend to go about my systematic reading of all good picture books out there in a backwards manner. Case in point, Andrea Davis Pinkney. I first came across this writer, and her talented hubby Brian, through their lovely, "Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuoso". It was through that book that I discovered that the art of scratchboard (remember having to do those in elementary school?) can produce some truly fabulous picture book art. After reading "Ella" I doubled back and found her 1999 Caldecott Honor winning baby, "Duck Ellington". The book that started it all. Also using scratchboard (and without relying on fictional talking felines ala "Ella") the book is a whirlwind biography of one of the world's jazzy greats. There are tons of picture books about jazz musicians out there today. Only one, however, has garnered both the Coretta Scott King Award and the Caldecott Honor.
   
   In this tale we meet Duke from his baseball playing days in Washington, D.C. Children everywhere will sympathize when Duke decides that learning to play the piano is a waste of his time and that he'd much rather be out and about with his friends. Fast forward a couple years and an older pool shooting Duke hears the sweet sounds of ragtime for the very first time. Suddenly the piano doesn't sound so lame, and Duke teaches himself the rudiments of it immediately. Over time, his particular style and talents get him jobs in clubs and cabarets and at last he forms his own band. From here on in the book's a whirlwind series of visits to places like the Cotton Club (which I think illustrator Brian Pinkney probably failed to base after the real club itself) and, at long last, New York's Carnegie Hall in 1943. A matter-of-fact bio at the back as well as a complete bibliography of sources (well done there) round out this lively encapsulation of a life.
   
   Kids are often assigned biographies in school, and "Duke Ellington" has the advantage of being both interesting and filled to the brim with sources and facts. The story is as lively as Ms. Pinkney could make it, often going into deep descriptions of individual players' talents in the Duke's band. The art is lovely as well. Using luma dyes, gouache, and oil paint and then rendering it in a scratchboard style, there's a real throbbing beauty to some of these paintings. In a final picture Duke conducts his band in a purple suit and the notes of the players curl out as almost iridescent swirls and waves. Altogether lovely.
   
   In many ways, the book's going to be a bore to those kinds who've never heard a jazz note in their lives and don't understand the importance. If at all possible, try finding a copy of that incredibly amazing film "Cabin In the Sky" and showing it to the kids and THEN give them this book. The movie's worth checking out and Duke (with his orchestra) is wonderful in it.
   
   Though this is perhaps not my favorite jazz picture book out there (I've still some very fond feelings for "Charlie Parker Played Be Bop") it's still quite a wonder and worth checking out. A necessary addition to any well-rounded children's biography section of their local library.



4. As an elementary school library specialist, this is my all time favorite read aloud. I utilized music/sound files on the web to have the King of the Keys himself accompany his biography. The text itself is a story to be read out loud. A teacher commented that this was his favorite read aloud and I believe a student favorite of all the grades I read this to (grades 3-6). Students were swaying, snapping their fingers, and just tapping away. The older kids didn't do that, but when the music ended, they asked for a repeat and I obliged. Hats off to you Ms. Pinkney!



5. If the brilliant colors and impressive images don't catch your attention, then the amazingly written story of Edward Kennedy Ellington will.
   
   "Duke Ellington" throws the reader into the early 1900's with its slang talk and direct narrative. The reader becomes a part of the story as the narrator tells about how Duke started out being bored by the piano, and then grew to love it when he heard ragtime being played. Andrea Davis Pinkney makes this a fun book for readers by describing the sounds of all the instruments with such detail that one could imagine they are actually hearing Duke's music being played just for them. I became enthralled with the vivid pictures depicting jazz as one might sense it if they had been there. "Duke Ellington" has won both the Caldecott Honor award, and the Coretta Scott King Award. This book is a good, fun, imaginative read for all ages.