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

Thanks Grandkey, I'm going to leave this quote for Pianoteacherkim to address...

I can find about 8 of the songs on the other page. Where are the rest?

I guess I misspoke, I thought there were more. If there is a particular one you need, I'm sure someone here will be kind enough to upload it for you. One of my goals for these Alfred threads is to get them all uploaded here.
Also don't forget You Tube as a song resourse.

Mark

Do you all re-start with book 1 ?

Say, you left off, decades ago perhaps, at ABRSM grade 3 going to 4, wouldn't you want to re-start with a subsequent book?

Interesting lesson today, going from "really good" to "need practice".

I began my previous lesson reviewing the G major scale songs (pages 70-73) and seemed to play them with no real problems (And Mark, you're right about "Why Am I Blue" being a good sounding song. It's my new current favorite in the book so far).

But then the introduction of the F major scale. For the bottom of page 74, the book says to "play only with Hands Separate", but I decided to try it with Hands Together and quickly found out why it said to play only with "HS". Playing that HT is quite complicated (but slowly doable I think).

And I ended the lesson with a pitiful first attempt at "Little Brown Jug". Every mistake that exists, I made. It's a good song though, it and the following song (Chiapanecas) bring back memories of watching old Warner Brothers cartoons.


doremi: Even though I haven't much piano experience, I'm not too sure if the Alfred's series book numbering is equal to that of the ABRSM grading. But a refresher course would always be good in any case.

Sorry, I meant to post the following on this thread instead I started a new thread:-

Is it just me? I refer to "Blow the Man Down" Page 89 Alfred's Bk1, From bar 8 through to bar 16, the G7 chord sounds dischordant...sort of...I wonder if it should or is it me?

Little brown Jug will come to you in a couple of days. Its a nice song, but needs repetitions to get down.. But (Chiapanecas) was tough for me and not a favorite...

Sounds like your doing great and moving pretty fast...

Mark

I know what your saying, but I believe its right. Maybe Kim can help,,,

Mark

Are you speaking of GE, FD, EC, DB on the top of page 57? If so the trick for me was to nail down the first 2 notes with the 5-1 and just work off of those notes down and then later up. Does that make any sense?

Mark

Yeah, as soon as I nail the first note, the rest follows. The question was aimed at getting to that first note though. However, I'm pretty sure it's coming to me. I just need to practice it some more.

redcoat, Blow the Man Down! does sound a little wierd. I'm still trying to get used to it.

Hi all!

I always have my students working on something beyond whatever lesson material we're using, and this is one of the primary reasons.

I'm a big fan of the Piano Adventures PreTime to BigTime graded music books. They're separate from the lesson books, and don't let the names, and the fact that they're in the kid book section put you off! At every level, there's a huge range of books: pop, jazz & blues, ragtime, marches, classical, Christmas, hymns, etc. Just flip through until you find the level that most closely matches where you're at.

Any 'extra' music will achieve the same goal, whether you like the play show tunes or Top 40. Find some beginner books in a style you like and have at it! This will get you outside the box of sequential hand positions.

Best,

Kim

Hello again!

OK, tonight I'm bringing my book home so I have it by my desk, then I'll be able to give a more in-depth answer.

But for now I'll say: there are several songs in book 1, with 7th chords, that many of my adult students responded to exactly the way you did. I think that this particular voicing of the 7th chord (which is, in fact, an 'abbreviation') just isn't quite satisying to our ears, it's too simple.

Also the fact that it's low on the keyboard, which can get murky when you have chord tones that are too close together.

Finally, if your piano is even slightly out of tune, that voicing of the 7th with grate on you a bit!

I'll play it myself today and check back in.

Best,

Kim

Hi, I'm new to the forums.

I took lessons for about 4 years when I was a kid, but I stopped playing for over 10 years. I'm 19 now, and my interest in piano was recently rekindled.

I started playing again about 3 months ago. Right now I'm on Alfreds Basic Piano Book Level 3. It didn't take me too long to get to the 3rd one.

What definately helps you to learn is playing music you like outside of Alfred's. For instance, one of the reasons I took up piano again is so I can play songs from Final Fantasy and other video games. Along with Alfred's, I have been playing songs from Final Fantasy 7-10 OST's. There are some really nice beginner/intermediate songs in those books, and they are lot more interesting.

I've also picked up the Michael Aaron Piano Lesson books, which IMO have better songs than Alfred's.

Thanks Kim.

That's so right, here in the UK we have "Pianist" magazine which is published bi-monthly, it contains a lot of free sheet music and an important accompanying CD. The level starts from beginner upwards, even the beginner pieces (songs?) sound far more difficult than they are to actually play, which impresses the occasional audience I have here. The music does tend to be classically biased though, which suits me.

Hi Choppin
www.musicroom.com are offering the CD for £9.95
Judith

I can't beleive it !

I worked 30 minutes a day for 3 days on Blow The Man Down and I didn't felt that I was progressing. Trying unsuccessfully to play hands seperately. But tonight, I passed Blow The Man Down in 20 minutes at the speed its supposed !

My brain just clicked today and it feels GOOD !

Can't wait tomorrow to start the 7ths on page 56 of book 1.

Thats great, I love it when a piece or part of a piece finally clicks.

Mark

I am returning to piano after a 6 year absence. I did have 14 months of lessons. I am on page 92-93- The Entertainer. I think the timing is going to be hard on this!

Its a great piece. Play it the way your feel it, and I bet the timing takes care of itself...

Mark

Hi everybody there,

I've just bought a digital piano and I will order soon the Alfred's basic all-in-one piano course. I can not wait to start practicing after reading this thread.

I would love to have the midi files of the book to practice, but I would have to order it additionally. Unfortunately, I am living in Germany, and to order additionally the 2 GM (midi) disks (In USA), I would have to wait 2/3 weeks.

Does anybody of you have these disks?, If yes, would anybody be so kind to upload/send it for me? I would appreciate it so much!!!!

I was checking the files of Loly (thank you very much), but these are mp3 or wavs, not midis. Moreover, uploading the complete 2 disk would be only 2.8 MB).

If nobody have them, I will surely order them, and upload for the forum here, I think this is a very good help for the beginner.

Thanks in advance!

PS: I have the Hannon midis, if somebody is interested please contact me!