Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Alfred's Basic and ALL in One Adult Piano Course Book #1

Ah...'the zone'. Tis an awesome place to be but I very rarely get to visit it these days

When you say your goal Doug what exactly is that ? Is there a specific point you'd like to get to ?

For me I think my goal is just to be able to go into a music store, buy sheet music and be able to play it before too long without my head bleeding.

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"Dyin' aint much of a livin' son" - Clint Eastwood (possibly the best quote in all of human history)

I do hope those interested in Jazz/Rock book might also inspect Alfred’s Jazz, Rags and Blues. I have been working through that but have not found anyone else interested in that as supplemental. I might also take on the Jazz/Rock myself; but, not at this time. I have quite enough supplemental to occupy me as it is.

It was a terrible week for me. I was virally ill and completely unable to sit at the piano for 5 days straight. Then I was just too physically exhausted to do justice once I did get the upper hand on the illness. Just last night was first come back appearance in week. I have never felt so much joy just to get through a simple Hanon warm up. I’M BACK!

I missed my weekly lesson and so continue with Greensleeves and Go Down Moses. Hopefully my time off has not degraded my progress. I am so looking forward to this weekend. I begged out of Ironman with fiends, will ignore chores at home, sit… breathe… and play.

SmokestackLightnin - My goal is to be able to play favorites for family and friends. I listen to music all day long and I hear songs all the time that make me say to myself "Gee, I'd like to be able to play that some day". I'm probably leaning toward being able to play either from a fake book or from regular sheet music and a long term goal is to be able to play by ear. I asked my teacher before we started how long the typical adult student sticks with lessons and to what level do they get and he said most do it for 2-3 years and get to an intermediate level. I'm thinking that my goal is realistically about 3-4 years away.

Captain Zero - I'm glad to hear you're feeling better. I had a bout with an illness earlier this year and it kicked my butt. I hate it when I don't feel like practicing.

I managed to leave work early last Tuesday, so I could pop in to the music store and pick up a copy of Alfred's #1
I'm going through the book from the start, which was a bit easy for me, but it was still fun and it got me familiar with the "Alfred method".

I also noticed there's a lot of different books to supplement the basic book. Personally I'm really interested in the sight reading book, does anyone have any experience with this book? And if so, do you recommend it?

Pianosaurus Rex, Did you buy "Alfred's All In One" Course or "Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course"? I think most (all?) or us are going through the All In One book as it includes lessons and theory in one book. They did this so you wouldn't have to buy a supplemental theory book. (I think a supplemental theory book is needed though.) I'm working through Alfred's supplemental theory book LINK HERE. The answers are in the back and it has CD's to do some ear training. My teacher hasn't been doing enough theory with me so I'm doing this on my own.

Anyway, I have Alfred's Sight Reading Book. Honestly, I don't think there is much to it. I got mine through Amazon. They have been having a promotion for the last 6 months...buy 3 get one free, so this is one of my "free" books.

I'm only a beginner, but for sight reading practice I'll just play anything out of my Great Hits book, All-Time Favorites or my Jumbo book of easy songs. I'll play them hands separately. The next day I'll open one of the books and play something different. I don't keep practicing the song to learn it. I just use those three books as sight reading practice.

I work mostly on the Alfred All In one book, but couldn't resist ordering up some supplementals.

Alfreds Greatest Hits Bk 1
This was actually mentioned within the All in one course and page numbers correspond with page numbers in both books. Once you get to page x, then try piece x from the greatest hits. This works well, but some of the greatest hits songs are a little harder than the All in one pieces.

Burgmuller Op 100
I just got this a few days back, and find it pretty hard. I'm not sure how it related to the Alfred All in One book difficulty, but the pieces are beautiful!

Gracie;

I think I have the regular one, not all in one. I'm not sure, because I have a Dutch translation of the book. It's not that my English is that bad, but learning music theory in two languages at once gets extremely confusing in the long run!

The book I have does offer plenty of explanation though, it's not just a collection of pieces that get harder as you progress through the book, so it may be the all in one book after all.

As for the sight reading book, I do the same thing you do! It works, but I'm always willing to try different methods that might work even better, that's why I asked.

Anyway, my book is 96 pages long, could this be the all in one book, or the regular one?

PS, I just took a look at the list of supplemental books and found two more books that might be interesting, the finger aerobics and the sacred music book. If anyone has tried any of these, I'd love to hear what you think of them.
I'm going to see if I can find a list of the pieces listed in the sacred book now. I found a list of the pieces listed in the sacred book!

I think you have the Regular book, not the all in one. It has most of what's in the All-In-One book though. (Most, if not all, the songs are the same in both books.)

I had the finger aerobics book. I never used it and sold it at a yard sale. The only thing I can say to describe the book is "boring". I use my Hanon book for finger strengthening. I don't even like to do that, but I can tell it helps. I usually do two exercises a day which amounts to only a few minutes. I stopped doing them for a few weeks, but I'm back at them again.

I have the Sacred Book too and I work out of there daily. I really like it. There are some really simple pieces in the front that you'll be able to start off with immediately.

Ah, thanks Gracie. I already have Hanon, so I guess I don't really need the finger aerobics book. It's just that I'm quite a pack rat when it comes to music! I always tend to buy much more then I actually need.
And there's also the amazing finger exercises that my teacher tells me to do, which aren't merely useful, but are always focused on whatever I happen to be struggling with. (Three cheers for my amazing teacher!)

I will look around for the sacred book, see if I can find it somewhere!

Thanks for your quick reply, I'm gonna rush off to my piano to work my way through some pages of Alfred's now! Hardly gotten around to play any piano today yet because I had to help my brother put the floor in his new home, and went to my grandfather's birthday after that, only got to play some scales and chords for 15 minutes or so in the morning!

I'm having the best weekend! My husband and two boys went on a trip with the Boy Scouts so I've had 2 days of nothing but piano, posting here and reading! Sometimes I just need some "me" time. They won't be home until tomorrow evening so I still have time to savor.

Anyway, who has played "Good People" (page 117). I've worked and worked on this piece. I'm having trouble with the 3rd note of the first measure (and the other measures with the same pattern). Half the time I hit it right and the other half the time I'm hitting two keys. Any advice?

I'm determined to get though as much as this book as I can before summer.

And for the record, I hate playing songs that have a lot of staccato notes in them. (Little Brown Jug, Chiapanecas, and one of the songs I'm currently working on in my Masterworks book) I like pieces that are musical and flow.

Pianosaurus Rex, I have more music than I need too. I'm looking forward to stopping my lessons this summer. Then I'll have time to work through some of the stuff I have. I also bought a video course to use during the break.

GracieCat, I struggled with Good People, and never did get it to sound good. All I can do is suggest listening to PianonoobAlexMan on youtube. It helps to get a feel for it.

I'm finding the current discussion about supplemental books interesting. And I've looked long and hard at all of them at Sheetmusicplus.com. I never looked at the theory book until you mentioned it, but I think I will get that one. It looks really good.

I didn't get the Sight Reading one, but I did have one of Bastien's Line-a-Day sight reading books, and I was so bored that I quit about a quarter of the way through. I practice sight reading by using free online music a little below my level, and like you, the Greatest Hits and the Pop Songbook. I did get the Notespeller early on, when I was having trouble reading notes fast enough. It's more like a written workbook and it did help a little, but if you've come this far you probably don't need it anymore.

For finger exercise, I just use scales and the first two Hannon exercises in the AIO book. Looking back, I see that there are a couple more Hanons that I just skipped over, so I will be trying them too.

I have Religious Favorites by Bastien for a hymn book, because it had more hymns that I recognized than the Alfred one did, but I've only played maybe the first six or seven hymns. Then it gets into chords that I don't recognize, so I end up having to figure them out note by note and write the notes in the book.

Good luck with Good People, and with your supplemental collection (they grow on you - pun intended).

Gracie;
Staccato is always tricky! Try playing your regular exercises such as scales staccato every now and then, might make it a bit easier whenever you encounter it in a piece.

As for your problem with Good People, I don't know.
It appears that piece isn't in my book, is it from Alfred's #2? Maybe they simply changed the title of that song in the translation, but I don't think so, most titles are still in English. (With a Dutch subtitle here and there :P)

But you actually look forward to stopping your lessons?
I don't even want to think about quitting my lessons, not ever!
To me piano lessons are the best part of the week, it even beats the weekend if you ask me!

Mom3gram;
Well the sightreading books don't have to be fun, if you ask me. If they are fun that's a lovely extra, of course. But if you buy a book specially for sight reading, the main goal of that book is to improve your sight reading.
Since sight reading is my biggest flaw, I'd love to spend a few hours working through a book that works. Even if it is a real drag, if it pays off, I'd do it.

And about the hymn books, I didn't really recognise much in the Alfred Sacred book either. I probably wouldn't recognise much in any book!
That's probably because I'm agnostic and only went to Church twice in my life as far as I can remember.
But oh, how I love hymns!

I have Good People pretty much in hand now after struggling with it for what seems like ages. You just have to stick with it, slow it waaay down and keep working on it. The left hand will finally get used to doing the same thing over and over and the right hand is tricky because of the notes and fingering used. But trust me, after a while you will start getting used to it and it will become easier. I found that a lot of hands separate practice helped. I think this one took me the longest to get sounding good. Watch the rhythm too, I learned that getting the rhythm correct helps the playability of it. Some of the things I was having trouble with was because I was playing it wrong.

PianosaurusRex (I like your name), you are right about a sight reading book not having to be fun, but I just couldn't get into this one. They just gave you a string of notes - It didn't seem to make any specific melody - and you were supposed to record how many times you played them that day. Since it didn't really sound like anything, and I don't have a teacher, I couldn't really tell if I was always getting the notes right. I felt like I was just wasting my time. From what I can see with the couple of pages you can look at online, the Alfred Adult one seems that it would be much better.

Haha, random notes, really? Okay, I see your point, that is boring and useless!

Might as well get an empty sheet an draw a bunch of dots on it at random yourself!

Which by the way reminds me of a time when me brother did just that in a really really messy way (He had just seen Beethoven facsimiles for the first time) and after I decoded them we came up with a pretty catchy tune! XD

Hi All,

Here's a link to "Ain't Misbehavin'" from the Jazz/Rock book. I've only gone through Bk1 of the Basic Course and "Ain't" is almost the last song in the Jazz/Rock bk so I would guess all the stuff in Jazz/Rock is within the level 1 ability.

Also, "Good People" is not in the Basic bk but it is in the Jazz/Rock bk.

It took a lot of practice and takes to get Ain't in a form that I would post it. It has a lot of jumps.

The dynamics could be much better but I can't get very good dynamic control from my 61 key PSR. Unfortunately my hammer action kb is not in my computer room.

Regards,

Whoops, the link got left off. Here it is: http://www.box.net/shared/xbttbk0lzz

Edtek, your Ain't Misbehavin' sounded really good. Also, sounded like an arrangement I might be able to play before too long - I think I'll buy that book.

Pianosaurus, I've been using Hannah Smith's Progressive Sight Reading Techniques. It has little short melodies, some only one line long, some maybe 2 or 3. They get more difficult as you go, and you're only supposed to play each one once - if you go through it again, it's no longer sight reading. But I signed it out of the library - not much point buying something you're only supposed to go through once. Although, since I had 5 weeks off with a broken arm & just started playing again the other day, I decided to start it again from the beginning.

Hey, that's really nice. I like this style of music. "Hello Dolly" is another nice one. I always think of Louis Armstrong when I hear either of those

Congrats!

Hey Edtek, thanks for sharing. Sounds like you have that one down pat.