Piano Scales, Chords & Arpeggios Lessons

I got a lot out of this book. It's meant to be used with the online videos available on YouTube. Reading the info and then watching the videos is a great way to absorb the information, the videos give a nice rhythm to reading the book and makes it relatively painless to study for long stretches. I was able to get completely through this book in 3 days. The book progressively introduces topics in small bite sized chunks so you never get overwhelmed and it's easy to absorb each idea.. There is one lesson per page, and each lesson/page is extremely simplified and targeted at a specific idea. If there is an associated video, the lesson will let you know. Not every lesson has a video, so sometimes the book will go through several pages/lessons before pulling it all together in a video. I am using the Kindle Edition, and I was happy with this book. Some books with graphics just suck because Kindle handles graphics so poorly. But the Kindle Edition of this book works really well, I was happy about that. Each page/lesson is formatted to nicely fill just one page, so I never had problems with Kindle doing weird things while trying to format graphics/text. For some reason there are several versions of this book on Amazon, some simpler than others. I suggest you take a good look and make sure you get the one that contains the most information. I also recommend the following books: A Piano Chord Book You Can Actually Use! (has the same type of online video format) The Complete Book of Scales, Chords, Arpeggios and Cadences (repeats information in this book, but comes at it from a different angle, the first few pages of introductory theory is pretty good) Practiceopedia (a great way to make sure you are practicing efficiently) Scales Bootcamp (one of the best way to really learn your scales)

As a musician, and an aspiring piano player, this book is really encouraging. It is simply laid out, and easy to understand, which helps get me in the mood to practice my piano playing!! Its has everything you could want in the 140 lessons it teaches, accompanied by 30 video lessons. When I first opened up the book to chapter 1 I was able to get right to work. This piano book has scales, teaches you hand placement and chords. So the beginner really has an excellent time learning how to start out, Each page gets more complex, adding in more layers! The skilled pianist can reminisce over those first chapters and work their way to their own level, maybe learning something new along the way. Wether you start on chapter 1, 32, or 85!! This book is for everyone!!!! One of the things I love about this book though, is that it is accompanied by 30 videos. Each a good length and providing enough info so that we understand what is going on in the book. It's fun to have a visual learning component in addition to the book!! I recommend this book to anyone trying to learn piano!! Or anyone who just wants to have a skills book on the shelf!! It works with Kindles as well, or the Kindle apps on any smart phone!!

Very useful

I was asked to review this book as a person who is not a teacher, but as someone with lifelong experience reading music and playing piano for my own enjoyment. I think this would be a good reference book for someone like me, or for a person who is taking piano lessons, and wants to understand the theory behind what they are learning. I'm not sure how well a child might take to it, but I think it would be quite useful for an adult attempting to learn on their own. As a young child I was shown the basics of harmony and chords and that helped me to learn to play by ear in a way that my regular lesson books did not. The book starts with the basics, assuming no previous knowledge, and the accompanying videos demonstrate what is learned in the lessons. While there is lots of theory, this is really not a book for learning *how* to play piano. It's hard to remember what it was like being a complete beginner, but I would guess that a person with no previous musical experience might feel a little lost and would wish to have a bit more explanation regarding the use of this information before they could really begin playing. However, there are plenty of sources available for that. As a reference book, this would be great! I found that I was unable to increase the font size (probably because images had to be used instead of standard text to represent the music). However, since I have a large size tablet, I was able to switch my view to 'one column' and place my tablet in portrait mode and read it easily at the piano. This would not work as well on a kindle or a very small tablet.

This Piano Scales Book is Friendly, starting from the Basics all the way up to Advance. They go from Finger positions, motions, postures, to Music Theory and different types of Clef to make anyone who is willing to learn Piano Highly easy to do so. If you want to jump right into the fray of Piano playing and techniques, this will help you start where you need to be at. With each Lesson having its own video and friendly instructions, it makes even me who has trouble with the finger positions along with each key strokes, has lead to me being able to play my favorite songs without must trouble. Which I am still going through the book myself, I can at least play a few scores from Harry Potter without much trouble. The Videos they've presented with each lesson is pleasant and capturing to the eyes, with a smoothing voice behind each lesson, that leads to no drowning and boredom that most people feel during a classroom. With Damon showing us how each lesson is meant to be, its very easy to stay on track and keep on track. Each Lesson shows where the finger positions should be located, what the lesson will be concentrated on and a video below so everyone can not only see, plus hear what each lessons means but they get a way of how playing the piano should be. Once you start going through each lesson, they have you start from Level 1, to Level 5 which means your basically able to start your own style of piano after level 5 Advance Piano techniques. I'm currently on level 2 which I start with multiple major cords and scales, it keeps on advancing as you go throughout the book. Take your time with each lesson till you basically can do it with your eyes close then continue to the next level. With a book both entertaining and informational it will only take a short time to fully learn the Piano.

I think this is an excellent book for self-study. It has diagrams of all of the keys, exercises, and it shows the keys. I personally learn better if I can see things as well as by reading, so it's really cool that there are video lessons included to kind of clarify anything I might find confusing. The book also has sections that explain how to read music, which I'd learned before but haven't practiced in years. I have a little bit of background in piano, but it's been so long since I've touched a keyboard or piano that I couldn't even remember the name of the Treble Clef symbol. I think the illustrations are really easy to follow. Just glancing over the pages, I've had a ton of, “Oh yeah!” moments about things I had forgotten from my lessons years ago. In the beginning, it's absolutely basic so a total beginner can get the foundation needed to continue. The lessons get progressively harder. I've cheated by looking at the later lessons, and I know they're much more involved than I'd gotten in my lessons. All in all, great book, easy to follow, and it covers all the concepts I've forgotten as well as concepts I'd never touched. Most of all, I like that it's supplemented by video lessons. There's something for visual learners, for people who learn by reading, for people who need to see pictures, and being a mixture of all the learning styles, I'm really satisfied by it so far!

After deciding that re-learning to play the piano would be my newest hobby, I was in search for the perfect book. I had learned to read music and play the piano as a child, but after many years without any practice, I had forgotten. This book caught my eye because it is laid out in lesson format. The start of the book was the perfect review to refresh my memory of the Middle C. It is very simple and easy to understand. This explanation even comes with a video tutorial, which I thought was very creative and helpful, especially for a complete beginner! I’m currently quite a few lessons in and the book is teaching music theory as well as the scales. Learning as a child, I wasn’t taught theory, so this has been a new and exciting experience. The author explains the music theory in detail so it is easy to follow and understand. As an educator, I feel the explanations use elementary language which would be beneficial for younger students. I’m not sure if I will complete the book all the way as I hope to improve each skill as I learn them, but the extensivity of the book is very impressive. I highly recommend this book to anyone hoping to learn basic piano skills and upward!

I received this book free in exchange for a fair and honest review. We have not had a chance to use the book at all, since the review was needed asap. The book was being promoted as something that homeschoolers could use to teach elementary kids to play piano. This book is well organized with clear black and white pictures and diagrams that would be easy for an adult or middle to high school student to understand. Lessons are short and have a referenced video lesson (which can be found on youtube). I found this part clunky since I use a kindle fire and ipad kindle app for reading and the videos aren't hyper-linked for easy access. The book is quite short, but provides a good overview of needed skills. You will need to buy actual sheet music elsewhere. I can't see my elementary aged kids doing this and enjoying it. This would be parent-led teaching versus child-led teaching. We currently use piano maestro and piano duster apps on ipad for piano lessons. My children (9 and 5) really enjoy those and are able to use them to learn independently. It's colorful, visually and auditorily pleasing with popular and familiar songs that they want to learn to play with theory being sneaked in between levels. They will go and use those apps without my prompting. The only negative with those is the yearly subscription fee. I have the complete John Thompson Easiest Piano Course (with all the books and cds) and my kids never touched that. I had to force them to do it with me and they were very reluctant. My kit came with Mozart and Beethoven stuffed animals, colorful books, and a whiteboard. My kids like to learn music through hands on experience and by using their ears. Their dad is that way too. I am the one who wants them to learn theory part and they don't see a need for it. So, between the 3 things I use to teach music to my elementary kids, I would rate Piano Maestro 1st, Piano Duster 2nd, John Thompson's Easiest Piano Course 3rd, and this last. Thank you for the book and the opportunity to review it.