Scale Explorer for Piano – energise your scale practice through short pieces, improvisation, composition and exercises. This is a real bonus in my view, because a student will get used to the style and presentation of these books, and should you choose to work through any four or five of the twenty or so books produced, it allows for a seamless learning progression. I suppose most teachers would probably begin to work on another piano method, or perhaps start on piano grades, but for me when I’ve used this book series I’ve always felt that it ends a bit abruptly, and something geared more for intermediate students, or even books of pieces would be much appreciated by teachers. I’ve referred to the prep course here, however, there are four separate series for beginners produced by Alfred. The book isn’t too patronising; you could use this book for quite a wide age range without putting off some of the older students.

My First Piano Book: Tutor Book (Get Set! Piano) : Marshall

My First Piano Book (or Le Petit Pianiste in French) is a Caillou book that was released on September 25, 2017. The tried and tested progression guides beginners from their very first lesson through to Grade 1 level. In the exam you perform three pieces, play scales and arpeggios and take sight-reading and aural tests. However, this book has worked for students for decades, and as long as your student is engaged through other means, this may not be a problem. I find a practice chart inside their practice book, with the days of the week for a parent to tick off works well, with perhaps an agreed treat as a reward on completion.For the first time, the recordings are available as audio downloads, accessible via unique download codes included in each book. My favourite piano tutor books are Chesters, they have a cute set of fun characters and offer a good clear introduction to the basics and kids always love them.

Pianobook – Cultivating a community centered around sound.

What’s valued highly by one piano teacher isn’t necessarily valued by another, and as a piano teacher it would be unfair to include my biases in this assessment. However, one remark I would have to make is that this series is a little drier than the others I’ve mentioned.

The whole keyboard stretching out in front of them can be a bit overwhelming, so firstly it is important to break it down and help to them recognise that there are indeed only 7 notes, just repeated over and over. We were paying ALOT on 1x week 30 minute lessons for our kids and I was so sad when our budget couldn’t support it anymore! It’s geared towards the very early stages, and takes a child from the absolute beginning (teaching them that the piano has white and black keys, where middle-C is, etc) with colourful and engaging designs and learning methods.

Childs First Piano Book : Lela Hoover Jibbidy F and A C E Childs First Piano Book : Lela Hoover

However, that said, this book does what it does exceptionally well, with word games designed to teach children how to learn notes, and engaging designs and concepts (think of a frog hopping up the keyboard to teach children the concept of octaves, or the “musical rainbow” correlating the colours of the rainbow with different notes of the keyboard). This is a slightly slower-paced version of Alfred’s other adult piano course books, with a greater emphasis on sight-reading exercises. Hi, I’m not sure how I see this can hep teach a child, I tried teaching my 6 and 9 year olds but they would always say that after G is H but its A.Depending on the age and attention span of your child or the child you are teaching, to make it easier this lesson can be broken up into two sections which introduces C-D-E-F first, and then G-A-B the next time. What also sets this series apart is that it seems to have been designed for busy people who might not have 30 minutes to an hour each day to sit down and practice. This could be a working professional, or a teenager with exams to study for; this course makes learning the piano accessible for those with significant demands on their time. This is aided by a good selection of repertoire; there is a good mix of blues, classical, pop and jazz. It is always a pleasure to review her publications because they have clearly been tried and tested in practice.