Any good piano books for beginners?

Tagged: Inspired Practice - Get Inside Your Music

This topic has 4 voices, contains 4 replies, and was last updated by Lisa Brown 319 days ago.

Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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June 21, 2011 at 4:57 am #6822
updog14	<p>hey everyone, I,ll be taking music theory classes at college next year. I was wondering if there are any good piano books or DVDs out there for beginners? The classes will be taught primarily on piano so I just want to get a head start,so that I don’t struggle with theory like I did in high school.<br /> Thanks, any help would be great! </p>
June 21, 2011 at 3:41 pm #7693
Andree-Ann	Depends what level you’re at and what kind of music you want to get into. For piano books, Mark Levine’s book is pretty much the bible – it’s all about jazz and it gets pretty complicated, but so worth it. If you’re looking for something more basic, I know a lot of people who used Barbara Wharram’s theory book. Good luck!
June 22, 2011 at 11:43 am #7697
Joe Stone	Yeah, I found the question too broad to answer. We need to know where updog is in his playing and where he’s looking to go.
July 2, 2011 at 4:40 am #7721
updog14	Sorry for the late response guys. I’m a drummer so I’m about as beginner as gets with piano. I mean, I don’t know where to properly place my fingers beginner…I don’t know how play any scales beside C Major. So I’m really new to piano. I want to be able to write music so that’s my main reason for wanting to learn. I’d also like to be able talk with other musicians about music and not just sit there puzzled. But, I’m not necessarily looking to gig on piano. Thanks for the responses guys and I appreciate any advice.
July 3, 2011 at 9:05 am #7722
Lisa Brown	Hi updog Just read your post and I really agree that good drummers know about music too so it’s great that you’re going to learn piano. Don’t think that just because you haven’t played piano, you aren’t any good at it already. What you have mentioned already shows that you are well on your way because piano is basically a percussion instrument. You will already have co-ordination and rhythm down pretty well and that’s a huge part of playing. My first advice would be don’t be scared to touch the instrument, don’t feel locked in by what you learn with theory. You can’t be scared to hit “wrong” notes. I would strongly recommend you read “Effortless Mastery” by Kenny Werner. He also has a blog site which is http://kennywernerlive.com. But the other thing I was going to say was be careful about learning theory without learning the piano. It’s really important to put the two together (practice and theory) and learning theory by itself can really put you off because it can become too dry and intellectual. There are also lots of websites ([url=http://blog.music-made-easy.com]mine[/url]) being one which can give you some good tips on theory and practice of piano. Also, there are some great tutorials on YouTube but make sure you get a good one. If you’re not sure what to look for in a YouTube tutorial, I have posted an article about that too on my blog. My last piece of advice is to make sure you enjoy learning what you are doing. Don’t let any bad teaching put you off the wonder of music. Fingers crossed you get excellent teachers. Good luck Lisa