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How To Play Popular Piano In 10 Easy Lessons Review

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Cost

• $12.00 - RRP.
  

Features:.

• 10 short lessons, titled:
  • The Piano Keyboard
  • Playing Melodies
  • First Chords and Songs
  • Reading Black Keys from Music
  • The Scales and Chords We Build On
  • The Meaning of Tonality
  • Altering Major Triads
  • Four-Note Chords
  • Jazz Piano Styles
  • Playing By Ear and Improvising
    
    
• An Appendix, detailing:
  • Music Notation
  • A Checklist of Chord Symbols
    
    
• Visual aids and different methods help you to learn and engage, including:
  • Example chords.
  • Keyboard diagrams.
  • Pieces to practice on.
    

Editor's Verdict:

The premise of this book is a good one: that there are other ways of learning piano than simple music reading and relying on notation.  The book teaches you how to play piano in a way that is appropriate to the genres it focuses on: pop, rock, jazz and blues.  These styles all make use of playing by ear, improvisation and arrangement - skills that you will pick up with How To Play Popular Piano in 10 Easy Lessons.  However, the book is, as it suggests, limited.  It concentrates on popular piano, and does not provide a thorough grounding in the classical tradition.  Nor can it take the beginner very far by itself; ten lessons may last you a few weeks if you fully explore the possibilities that each opens up.  On the other hand, some of the alternative courses provide months or years of learning time.

How To Play Popular Piano in 10 Easy Lessons is also one of only a handful of courses reviewed here that exists only as a book.  There are clear disadvantages to this, most notably that learning from this format is often less effective than learning from a variety of different ones.  Some books make up for this by including many color photographs and illustrations or including a free CD - this book does not.  More could have been done in terms of making the book more appealing to learners, and improving the learning experience, and this is its biggest downfall.

One possible use that this book has is as an introduction to popular piano for those whose training has been purely classical and of the note-reading variety.  In this respect, it is far more successful.  With some prior knowledge, the lack of conventional teaching methods in the book would not be a problem.  Classical pianists would also be able to apply skills learned here to their existing repertoire and combine lessons from both disciplines, giving a more complete training.  However, as some of the book does deal with notation, those who can already read music might consider it a wasted purchase.

For those who want to be able to play popular pieces and to develop skills that can be transferred to improvising and writing their own pieces, this is a useful aid.  However, depending on your previous experience, it is likely that this book will either not provide you with enough to keep you occupied or dwell on basics that you already understand.

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Review of How To Play Popular Piano In 10 Easy Lessons