What is the best book I can get to start learning piano as an adult? I took lessons until I was 8 or 9 but need to start at the beginning again. I looked through my old books and they are just too directed at little kids and I just can't bring myself to pound out the Choo-choo train and the turtle song at my age.

I found a book on Amazon.com called Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course: Lesson Book, Level One

This book has a really good product review on About.com.

quote:

The Bottom Line
All in all this book is an excellent piano book for adult beginners. The book is jam-packed with information that is essential for a beginning piano student to learn. This is a solid book that carefully avoids any gaps.

Pros
Beginner-friendly
Informative
Lessons are paced nicely and organized in a logical sequence
Good music selection
Clearly illustrated
Cons
Better to buy the book and cd combo rather than the book alone.

"This book is specifically designed with the adult beginner in mind. It teaches all the basics from how to read notes to how to form chords. The lessons are paced nicely, not too much or too little information, and it proceeds from one lesson to the next in an organized and logical manner."

Another book called The Adult Piano Method - Play by Choice (Adult Piano Method) which I also found on Amazon.com.

Thanks Sher. I'm hoping some of the members that play and teach piano respond... nudge in Ritzmar's direction.

Ami, I looked through the sample of that book and I think Sher found a good one. I learned how to play the piano 30 years ago and that book seems to touch lightly on theory as well as technique. Plus the simple songs give you the fingering. If you know absolutely nothing about playing the piano this is a good beginner's guide.

I use the Alfred Adult Course Book 1 which is excellent. I am less enamoured of books 2 & 3 in that series, but by the end of the first book I think you can take advice about in which direction you would like to go, ie there are several different styles & types of material which are accessible having done this first book carefully.

Notice I said "less enamoured", rather than "not enamoured". All three of the books in that series have their merits, but the first is the best. Only criticism is that it introduces chords before scales, a serious omission, in my opinion.

How's this? Buy the book, and when you come to 'chords', put a post up here and in simple (I hope!) language I shall explain in a few sentences exactly what chords are and how they work (Alfred fails to do this).

Bottom line, it is my recommendation.

Thanks all. I will get the book and keep you posted on my progress.

I've purchased the book and have started practicing and have made some good progress so far (to about page 55 or so). I am working on the coordination between left and right hand with some difficulty but no more or less than I expected.

I would like to hear what Ritz has to say about chords at this point. I struggle a great deal at this point with changing between chords and especially when a chord is played off beat or in other words, it's hard to make my left hand play if my right hand isn't... a bit like trying to rub my belly and pat my head in alternate directions.

I have found that "A gift to be simple" is a song that seems quite easy to me and that is probably because I am very familiar with it but also because the chords are nicely aligned with the right handed play.

I live in a condo building and it's a bit hard for me to play songs like "Skip to my lou" or "Yankee Doodle" when I know others in the building can hear, but at some point I'll get over myself and feel less embarrassed by the pieces or perhaps when I improve I can buy a book that less silly songs and more simple melodies.

I think I need to have my piano tuned... okay I know I need to have my piano tuned. Any thoughts about how much I should expect to pay?

A normal piano tuning will cost $100 - $150 (adjust for Chicago prices?) and take a couple of hours. If it is in bad condition, more time may be needed to first put it in "rough tune" before the fine tuning.

Hi Ami:

One word of advice from an old piano player.Put your piano in the right location in the first place, then get it tuned.

A piano tends to go our of tune every time you move it ,so the less often you move it,the longer it will stay in tune.

Regarding chords,try this.Try playing the chords alone ,without playing the melody ,so that you can get used to where each chord is,and how to grip[finger] it.

After awhile the various chord positions will become almost automatic when you grab them.

But you will have to learn the difference between the various major,minor,dominant 7th,augumented and diminshed chords and there various inversions .

This takes time.

Also learn the importance of the 3rd and 7th notes in each chord as they determine whether a chord is major ,minor or dominant .

Learn also what the function of each chord type is.It helps you to make sense of each tune you play and it will also help you compose tunes of your own.

Good luck and be patient with your progress.

hippolips

Just made an appt to have it tuned for $85. That will be nice because some of the chords sound really bad with it not being tuned for years and years.

I am getting comfortable with some of the chord transitions. I started playing scales yesterday and understand a bit of Ritz's comment about scales being critical. When I dabbled at the piano over the years it never mattered where each of my fingers were when I hit the keys as long as I got the right one. I can definitely appreciate the value of doing things right so that later progress isn't screwed up with bad habits...

I learned that the hard way from my flute experience where I always played D without the first finger lifted. It was fine at the lower level but quite an impediment when my skill increased because it was harder to break a bad habit than to learn something completely new.

ami, let's hope that any teacher you come to employ in due course is like Puccini when he heard the young Caruso . The great man heard a few bars, stopped and said " Who sent you to me? God?" rather than the teacher of the Welsh tenor Harry Secombe. The latter claimed that his tutor, hearing a few bars, exclaimed " God ! Who sent you to me?" Secombe maintained that, read the right way, both really meant the same !

[QUOTE]Originally posted by aminator2002:


I started playing scales yesterday and understand a bit of Ritz's comment about scales being critical.

..............................................................................................
Hi Ami:

It is most important to know how to play a scale.

It is much more important to know how to construct[build] a scale in any key.

Here's the formula:

Every scale consists of a series of whole steps and half steps.

Important: A whole step consists of 2 half steps.

In the key of C the steps are C D E F G A B C

Half steps occur between 3 and 4 and between 7 and 8.

All others are whole steps[2 half steps].

Try to play the scale first in the key of C

Now pick out any other note on the piano

If you count the steps correctly,you will play a perfect scale in that new key

Easy...but only if you count the steps as shown above.

If you can do this,I'd be happy to tell you the formulas for building a major,minor,dominant,augmented and diminished chord,and also how to determine the various inversions for each chord.

Good luck

hippolips

Ha, you got there before me, 'Lips! Exactly right, of course.

All I would add, just to be on the safe side is this: The distance from any key, black or white to the very next key, with no key in between is one half step. A whole step is the distance from any key, black or white to the next but one key, with just one key in between the two notes. The key in between may be black or white, but there must be only one key between the other two notes.

I labour this point because, in my daily teaching I see so often how students simply fail visually to perceive the keyboard clearly. C-D is a whole step C# is between the two keys. E-F is a half step as there is nothing between the two keys. F#-G# is a whole step, with the note G between them, and Bb-C is a whole step with B between them.

So, for instance the scale of Ab major, starting with 1) Keynote (Ab) and moving upwards, to the right to 2) whole step (Bb) then 3) whole step (C) 4) half step (Db) 5) whole step (Eb) 6)whole step (F) 7)whole step (G) 8)half step (Ab) gives us the correct eight notes for the scale of Ab major. Notes 1)Ab, 3) C and 5) Eb will give us the chord of Ab. Once we have these three notes we can arrange them in any configuration, with any of the three notes at the bottom, as the lowest note of the chord. At this stage I do not wish to discuss inversions for obvious reasons (too much information!) but the statement holds true.

For Seventh chords (G7, D7 or for that matter, Ab7) we first find the seventh note of the major scale constructed as above, and lower (flatten) it by one half step. Then we simply add it to the three notes already identified above. Where Alfred is slightly confusing is that they remove the fifth note of the scale from the original three for the standard chord, without stating that in fact this note becomes optional with the adding of the flattened seventh. So put more simply, add the modified seventh, and please yourself whether or not you retain the fifth. There are two reasons for the fifth being optional 1) the ear easily identifies the chord correctly and promptly whether or not the fifth is delivered and 2) by removing this note in the lower registers, a thinning-out of the texture is often desirable, and omitting the 5th helps here.

As I say, 'Lips puts it more simply, but so many times I have had students constructing scales and simply failing to correctly count the half steps, resulting in scales undreamed of by Thelonious Monk or indeed Adriaan Daniel Fokker, whose surname might reasonably describe what I think of his methods (OK, Jusork, you got me, edit/moderate away to your hearts content, mea culpa)

quote:

Originally posted by coldfuse:
A normal piano tuning will cost $100 - $150

That is a heck of a lot more expensive than it is here! I pay in the region of US$60 for mine, and get a very good job done. Bring your pianos over here to Manchester for servicing, it is much cheaper...