Beginner Piano Books for Adults

[Danster]

My son has been taking piano for about 1.5 years. I take him to his lessons. He has a superb teacher. I decided a few months ago I might as well take advantage of the fact that I go to the lessons also, and I started working my way through his books he uses for his lessons. Problem is, they are for kids, and I don't care too much for playing "Pop Goes the Weasel" and the like. What I'd like to get is a series of piano books that are made for adult beginners. Of course there are zillions of books for adult beginners, but I would like to get some that are for learning piano as a course of study, and are meant to be gone through in the order of the pages as presented, as opposed to just song books where one picks and chooses songs to play. Ideally these would be strongly geared toward classical music. Any suggestions? Thanks!

[SostenutO]

I've bought a lot of music here. This is all of their adult method books

http://jwpepper.com/Piano_Catalog_Me...s_Adults.list#

Since the books are "courses" you will go through them in order until you finish and are ready for the next book in the course (book 2, 3, etc). And I noticed some of the books include classics such as The Entertainer (though they are simplified for beginners).

(you have to purchase online, I hope thats not a problem)

[The Doc]

http://www.amazon.com/Alfreds-Basic-...e=UTF8&s=books

Try that one. It's pretty good.

[stuhosla]

Thank you, this is good news for other visitors
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[Malcolm]

You may find this site helpful
http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/

[fingerpikingood]

i know exactly what you mean. the problem for me is that even when i was a kid i didn't want to learn such silly songs as pop goes the weasel.

the things is though is that you need really simple learns i find for learning standard notation.

often what's cool is difficult. but not always.

But i totally agree with you that that's a big problem with music programs.

they are either too boring or too quick and easy and just hand you fish instead of training you to become a fisherman.

what i'd do if i were you is to go the reverse route and first find songs that i like and that are simple, and then find the standard notation for those songs.

the advantage of this is you choose the songs so you'll like them.

there are a couple of beatles ones off the top of my head which could be good such as "hey jude" and "imagine".

me, i ended up going a whole different route and skipped reading music altogether.

[Malcolm]

Speaking of other ways to play piano --- You must get your fingers doing the scales, knowing when to tuck the thumb, etc. And you must get your hands working independently of each other. And I do recommend being able to read the notes and find them on the keyboard, Alfred's # 1 will do all that.

But after the fundamentals are down there are other ways of playing the piano. Like fingerpickinggood I went another way. Playing a chord progression with both hands and letting my voice provide the melody notes.

Playing from fake chord sheet music much like a rhythm guitarist does when strumming the harmony and providing the melody with his/her voice. Google will send you to several sites that go into detail on this method.

That gets you playing "Pop Music" quickly. Course you still have to get the fundamentals down first.

Then there is improvising white bread music. Improvising the melody using just the white keys, i.e. playing everything in the key of C. Left hand laying down a basic chord progression and the right hand improvising a melody from pentatonic scales, old song tunes, and just noodling in general.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0iZ1j00wSU

I play for my own enjoyment, probably will never take it public and really love to just sit down and improvise or noodle away and see what comes.

All kind of ways to play your keyboard - after you get the fundamentals under your belt.

Good luck.