Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course: Lesson Book, Level One (Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course, Bk 1) Paperback – September 1, 1983

Is what I wanted

I played a little piano when young, but that was over 50 years. I just completed a 4 week beginner course using this book. I am so impressed with the layout, explanations, and how it builds. I love that it reinforces what you are learning with familiar songs. Looking ahead, the complexity definitely builds, but little by little I am learning and loving it!

I made great progress following this book carefully, and I loved my time spent at the piano. The music theory was presented clearly and tied in with the music in the book. I have now ordered Book 2 in this adult series and can’t wait to get started!

This is a perfect book to start your friends/girlfriend on learning piano. It's by far not the most well-rounded material for it needs a few supplemental info in my humble opinion, but you will be able to teach anyone a few nice short pleasant pieces within a few hours.Many well heeded in-depth reviews have been given, so I will just give a short pros-cons list of my own.PROS:- It concentrates quickly on useful scale/notes progression (C/G to G7, etc) and explains it in reasonable depth, enabling an absolute beginner to grasps the importance of those natural progression, backed up by a few exercises pieces to drill the concepts in.- Many of the exercise pieces have strategically included sub notes in reminding correct fingerings, while progressively weeding out these notes and nudging the learner toward speedy scales reading.- First beginner book I have run into that includes a detailed section on the importance of Hanon's fingering exercises! This section alone is worth the price of this 160 pages publishing. The 12 page Hanon exercise parchment I have cost more!- Taken from the pages of grey's anatomy, many detailed illustrations are given that reminds the learner in the shortcoming of the human hands, with proven (but often HARD work) solutions of how to overcome them.CONS:- Some sections get skipped too quickly. For instance, G cord was introduced in great detail, but its natural progression in G7 was but one page with but a few sub notes thereafter. All three of my beginner students were stumped when they got to those pages, and I had to device my own mini lessons on supplementing that shortcoming in how to use the left hand picky and how to stretch the right thumb correctly for those cords (all three of my friends/students are left handed).- This is in my books a big one - It fails to include some CRITICALLY IMPORTANT smart-tips for scales reading which should really be the emphasis on all beginners' book. For instance, F-A-C-E, All Cow Eat Grass, or Every Good Boy Deserves Football mnemonics should be included but was not.Overall: I am extremely satisfied with this book! It is a great book for self learning, and an indispensable one to teaching off of.

A good beginner. I wish I could have continued.

Perfect first book to learn the piano for an adult. A bit fast for a child, but all the information is in the book to learn how to play. Now its up to you to memorize the notes (so you can read the music), and practice. If you put in some effort, you'll learn quickly.

Alfreds piano is a great teaching tool & the one recommended by my private piano teacher. Book 1 starts out slow & book 2 adds to the octaves you will be playing on the piano.I am now on Alfred book 3. Alfreds was the only book I ever used. I did take about 5 lessons from a teacher. These books allowed me to graduate to other piano books of my choosing (mostly greatest hits from the 70s, 80s, etc). These books allowed me to play all of the keys on a full sized piano. The Alfreds series is full of beautiful tunes. I like to supplement Alfreds with a few of the players and teachers readily available for all of the songs on Youtube.Wish they had the internet when I grew up in the 60s & 70s as I'm sure I would have been able to pick it up with the help of Alfred and youtube.I play several different instruments, piano, guitar, violin, etc. and know a great learning book when I play it. This is a must buy! I have several other piano learner books that remain untouched. I looked back to see if I missed something in the others, but believe Alfreds is superior.

A very good self-teaching book (ESPECIALLY WHEN PURCHASED WITH THE ACCOMPANYING CD).I used Alfred's books to learn how to play and bought them again to relearn after many years of not playing. The books explain a lot in way of how to learn the keyboard by doing and not just memorizing. The selection of Copyright free music is sometimes boring as you go through the series but it is well worth the trip because as you go, you learn to recognize chords in both the left and right hands. Arpeggios are explained and used in the lessons.There are not a lot of scales unless you buy the separate books which you should if you want to get serious. There is no replacement for a good teacher, but if you want to get to a point where you can go to a proper instructor, you'll have the theory down already and a good heads up to approach a more serious study of music.The series of books in the Adult line are easy to understand and have a page of practice then a page of music to apply the hand positions and techniques to.There are a lot of method lessons out there but Alfred's seems to be the best of the lot for studying by yourself. The first time I had an instructor, this time I'm relearning on my own with the same books and I still find them friendly and approachable.This review is for the entire line of Adult products including the additional lesson and theory books. Well worth the money.