The Piano Handbook: A Complete Guide for Mastering Piano
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Product Description
Product Description
With clear and easy-to-understand exercises, The Piano Handbook is perfect for anyone interested in learning the piano. It provides fresh material and techniques, and gives brand-new players everything they need to learn and enjoy the piano. This book's innovative tutorial approach to piano covers classical and contemporary music styles in an integrated way. Instead of limiting students to one type of music and one style of playing, author Carl Humphries draws connections between various genres and techniques, highlighting the principles and history they share. Performance, improvisation, and composition are treated as interrelated skills that can be learned together. Featuring a mix of repertoire and freshly composed study pieces, The Piano Handbook demonstrates that learning different kinds of music at the same time can be a positive and enriching experience.
About the Author
Carl Humphries is a pianist, composer, and music journalist. He studied piano and composition in London, Turin, and Berlin, and has performed at some of the most prestigious classical and jazz venues in the UK. His workshops and lecture/recitals are in demand at music academies and university music departments throughout Europe and in the US.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Open the lid of your piano and you'll find a neat arrangement of black and white keys: the keyboard. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Open the lid of your piano and you'll find a neat arrangement of black and white keys: the keyboard. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Spiral-bound
I prefer this book to any of the other piano instruction books I have bought so far.
PRESENTATION - the presentation is lovely - glossy paper, hardback cover and a spiral binding so it sits easily on the music rest. Very considered and attractive design.
CONTENT - It is refreshing to start with something other than Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star...it starts with grown up music - and some very elegant tunes at that! The content does move at pace, but provided you work on each exercise until you have mastered it, it should be achievable. N.B. This is not a book teaching you how to read music, it's a book teaching you how to play the piano. The division of the book into Units makes it feel like a proper course and I have set myself a target of two weeks per Unit, hopefully tying in with fortnightly piano lessons with a tutor I have just started with, so by the end of 36 weeks (or, that is, the full 18 Units) I should have completed the book. I have to add here that there is a CD with the book that plays 69 pieces of music from the book and having listened to the CD right through while still only just at the beginning the book, if I can eventually play all that impressive stuff towards the end of the disc, I will be extremely happy.
PRESENTATION - the presentation is lovely - glossy paper, hardback cover and a spiral binding so it sits easily on the music rest. Very considered and attractive design.
CONTENT - It is refreshing to start with something other than Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star...it starts with grown up music - and some very elegant tunes at that! The content does move at pace, but provided you work on each exercise until you have mastered it, it should be achievable. N.B. This is not a book teaching you how to read music, it's a book teaching you how to play the piano. The division of the book into Units makes it feel like a proper course and I have set myself a target of two weeks per Unit, hopefully tying in with fortnightly piano lessons with a tutor I have just started with, so by the end of 36 weeks (or, that is, the full 18 Units) I should have completed the book. I have to add here that there is a CD with the book that plays 69 pieces of music from the book and having listened to the CD right through while still only just at the beginning the book, if I can eventually play all that impressive stuff towards the end of the disc, I will be extremely happy.
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:Spiral-bound
I've bought all kinds of products off Amazon over the years but have never felt the need to write reviews about any of them...until this one! This book is (in my opinion) an absolute must for pianists who want to improve their sight-reading/theory/technique/performance, whatever it is you want. I must first point out though (in accordance with the reviewer before me) that this wouldn't be necessary for advanced piano players who are very confident with their playing...
The book itself is spiral-bound so you'll never have the painful creasing down of pages that ruins so many books. It also comes with an introduction on the history of the piano...very informative and full of pictures. In the back is a reference section which includes a glossary of musical terms, repertoire guide, recommended reading & listening and info on buying/maintaining a piano.
The whole book is split into chapters/units which deal with different aspects of playing and progresses through at a nice pace. My advice is to not try and rush the chapters but wait till you've taken in all the info and are comfortable with the pieces. It is also scattered with tons of info boxes which contain biographies of well-known composers/pianists (along side their pieces for you to play), as well as important aspects of the chapter. A small selection of the topics covered include: scales, chords, arpeggios, pedalling, composing, harmony, rubato, left-hand leaps...the list goes on. It's not just classical music either, eventually you start doing jazz/bebop/rock/blues/fusion/urban/ragtime etc along with their respective scales, theory and techniques.
The main difference between this book to others I've bought is the way it keeps you interested. It doesn't tell you everything on a given subject at once but will do it in stages, e.g. scales aren't all put together in a long list, but are separated throughout the book progressively getting harder as your playing/technique improves.
Anyway enough ranting from me, go by this book! Once you complete all 18 units you'll be well on the way to getting where you want to be as a pianist. Thanks for reading & good luck fellow musicians, never give up!!
The book itself is spiral-bound so you'll never have the painful creasing down of pages that ruins so many books. It also comes with an introduction on the history of the piano...very informative and full of pictures. In the back is a reference section which includes a glossary of musical terms, repertoire guide, recommended reading & listening and info on buying/maintaining a piano.
The whole book is split into chapters/units which deal with different aspects of playing and progresses through at a nice pace. My advice is to not try and rush the chapters but wait till you've taken in all the info and are comfortable with the pieces. It is also scattered with tons of info boxes which contain biographies of well-known composers/pianists (along side their pieces for you to play), as well as important aspects of the chapter. A small selection of the topics covered include: scales, chords, arpeggios, pedalling, composing, harmony, rubato, left-hand leaps...the list goes on. It's not just classical music either, eventually you start doing jazz/bebop/rock/blues/fusion/urban/ragtime etc along with their respective scales, theory and techniques.
The main difference between this book to others I've bought is the way it keeps you interested. It doesn't tell you everything on a given subject at once but will do it in stages, e.g. scales aren't all put together in a long list, but are separated throughout the book progressively getting harder as your playing/technique improves.
Anyway enough ranting from me, go by this book! Once you complete all 18 units you'll be well on the way to getting where you want to be as a pianist. Thanks for reading & good luck fellow musicians, never give up!!
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Spiral-bound
The CD is to be found, inside the back cover of the book.
Since this is very easy to overlook, please make you look there, before you request to replace the item.
Since this is very easy to overlook, please make you look there, before you request to replace the item.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Good Book
Good book. Well written, well explained concepts. Lead sheets illustrate the themes. Spiral binding is very useful. Songs included in the CD are well played. Worth buying.
Published 12 days ago by bb
Cleverly written and well chosen pieces to learn with
I have been using this for a couple of months and am a complete beginner. I found that there is a steep learning curve as you are learning to read music and play the piano at the... Read more
Published 6 months ago by PeteIOW
Well worth it
A really good, clear introduction to playing Piano. Should be easy to follow for anyone who has a VERY BASIC understanding of reading music. Read more
Published 7 months ago by KeremBook
Amazing
excellent book for piano learners, has some history of the piano as an instrument..any one who can't play can easily learn from it.. it helped me a lot.. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Hoda Mohamed Fouad
Not for the beginner and life's too short
This is a fine book, but proving too hard for me to stick with at the moment. I am still on the first unit with no realistic chance of completing it any time soon. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Keith W. Warden
Comprehensive instruction manual
We recently bought a digital piano and wanted to re-learn piano after a break of 30 years! We have a basic understanding of music theory which I have to say helps in understanding... Read more
Published 16 months ago by JudgeNic
Disappointed with the kindle version
I downloaded this rather than get the hard copy because I thought that it would be easier to manage, but you end up paying more for this version and getting a whole lot less. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Jp
Fantastic Book!
I was slightly hesitant to buy this book at first, because at [...] it was more expensive than any others I had purchased, but I'm so glad I did buy it! Read more
Published 17 months ago by Carolyn
like
it's a really nice book and it's format is really good. I have been through 6 chapters now and im going back to earlier chapters all the time to make repetitions of earlier tunes. Read more
Published 17 months ago by RasmusGB
Fantastic book. Not for someone trying to teach themselves though
A couple of these reviews suggest the reviewers are teaching themselves with this book. At first glance and not very far through the book it would seem you can but quickly I think... Read more
Published 18 months ago by N. Henderson
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