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In the spirit of the "Alfred Graduates" thread, I was wondering if anyone out there has graduated either Level 1 or level 2 of the Faber Accelerated Piano Adventures for the Older Beginner.

I studied under the Alfred's series over 20 years ago and passed Level one before I stopped. Starting up again about 10 months ago with my new teacher's preferred lesson books (Faber), I'm now through level 1 and am working on level 2.

And if no one out there has studied these books, well, this will be a short-lived thread

I'm currently practicing review piece (Canon) from PA for adults lvl2. Not yet a graduate, but almost there.

Do you have the spiral-bound all-in-one lesson book, or the individual lesson book? My level 2 lesson book does not have Canon.

It's the individual book. Last unit introduces 16th notes followed by the three pages of Canon (in C major). I think review piece in level 1 was Greensleeves, but I'm not sure, will check later.

Here is what I'm using - http://pianoadventures.com/publications/mainLibraries/pa/adult.html

EDIT: I just realized it's the all in one book... silly me.

I just graduated from Faber Accelerated Book One last week, working on book 2 now. I've been at it since January, I thought I'd never get to book 2.

Congrats! There is some really neat stuff in Level 2. Just curious; For each accelerated level there 4 basic books (Lesson, Performance, Theory and Technique & Artistry). Are you using just the lesson book, or some combination of the four?

My brother is using the Adult book as well. The pieces are arranged slightly differently than the "Older Beginner" series that I am studying.

Both are great lesson books, however!

I'm using the Lesson book, Technique & Artistry and Performance, I am not using the Theory book. Perhaps I should buy that on my own to work with. I'll ask my teacher next week about it.

I would also highly recommend the Performance book. This book has roughly 20 pieces in it, some easy, and some I find quite hard for my playing ability.

However, not only does my teacher think that passing these pieces helps me overall in my goal to finish Level 2, but there are some real "keepers" that once mastered, might become part of your long-term repertoire collection.

Best of luck!

I finished Level 1 All-in-one (it took me about 8 months). And now I am working on Level 2. It is going much slower. I am maybe 1/3rd of the way through after 5 months. I think this is in part because many of the early pieces in Level 2 do not inspire me, and I am working on many pieces outside of the book because I'm getting enough confidence to want to play what I want to play.

One thing I have found frustrating with the Faber books is when I do find a piece that I like in the book, they often have it so truncated that it is not the full song. For example they only have the chorus of Sloop John B, but not the verse. So I feel like I'm only just getting into the song, and it ends I also find the theory discussion in book 2 is not as clear as book 1... probably because the theory in book 1 is so easy

Still, all-in-all, money well spent on these books. Looking forward to graduating from Level 2 some day.

Don

Hi Donzo;

I do agree with your comments concerning truncated pieces. In my case, although they have a nice adapted version of "The Entertainer", they are missing the famous introduction measures that really set up the piece.

Maybe at the earlier levels Faber is afraid to present "page turner" pieces in fear of freaking folks out? I know that at Level 3A Piano Adventures and beyond there are plenty of multi-page pieces.

It seems they will come.

Forgot about this thread. So I poorly played Canon and finally graduated from the Faber AIO 2 few days ago. Hooray.

It took me relatively short period of time (around 10 months) to go through the two books, but I didn't practice any of the pieces until perfection. I would say the way I played during lessons often was barely acceptable (in my opinion). I guess the intention of the method books is to get the basics and probably that's why my teacher never had me stay on the same unit for more than a week or two despite my poor performances.

Although it's not necessarily related to the Faber approach, at some point I started wondering if I'm really making progress or just spending more time on more difficult pieces. Since there are no well defined requirements, it's hard to measure progress in terms other than units and pages. Hopefully this will get better with my new route.

Here is one thing I have done to try to measure progress;

I go back occasionally to older Level 1 pieces, and see how long it takes me to re-acquire them, or well I get by tricky sequences that gave me real problems several months earlier. I find it seems to be a bit easier as time goes by.

Or how about this: I now can play up and down the C, G, and F major scales without thinking much about it. Definitely not the case earlier on.

Finally, my teacher with 40 years of experience tells me I'm improving!

Sight reading Level 1 feels easier, still far from fluent, but not as difficult as it was at the time. Maybe I'll try to relearn something from the second book later on.



Well, I learned to play some of the major scales before I started taking lessons, so they were not a huge achievement for me. But you're right, there are things I couldn't do before.

Yes, I enjoyed that version of the Entertainer as it was very exciting to play such a well known piece, but I soon wanted more since what is in Faber 1 is just a fragment. I ended up finding the Lvl 5 Entertainer version on makingmusicfun.net which is quite similar to the Faber version but with the introduction and also includes the second "movement". I played that version for my 1 year recital. Its a crowd pleaser so hoped that would help my audience look past my mistakes

Don

Two things I've already learned after two public performances (musicales as my teacher refers to them by):

First, unless you are playing a very well known piece, most of the mistakes you may make they don't even hear. Second, even if they do hear a mistake, as soon as the next correct note is played they tend to forget any past wrong notes.

It turns out that it is WE the performers that are the most hard on the performance. I'm really trying to get past that before the next public performance in December.

By the way: Thanks for the tip! This website has several interesting "easier" versions of classical pieces that I will work on this summer.

Thought I would touch base again. Yesterday I made it to the final section of Level 2 (Key of F). Hopefully sometime next month I'll finish up this level.

I was wondering if anyone out there has experience in Level 3A or beyond? The Faber series goes up to Level 5.

I feel that I am kind of at a crossroads here. My teacher is thinking it may time to go off in a different direction (not sure what that is quite yet). I'm thinking that at least part of the time should be used to continue on with Faber. We'll see how that goes.

It's kind of a shame that there does seem to be a lot of Faber students in this forum. I know that Alfred's is very popular and there is a lot of action in those topics.

Still, it that is the way it goes I'll discontinue posting in a week or so.

Congrats!



I'm in the middle of Adult book 2 all-in-one and moving very slowly because I am spending most of my time working on pieces outside of the book. But both my teacher and I agree that it is a good idea to keep chipping away at pieces that come in a logical progression.

I guess the question is what direction does your teacher think makes sense? Is it a different program, or a build-your-own-structure thing?

Here's what I think - books are cheap compared to lessons. Even if you end up not using them, getting the next book in the series seems like it is worth the risk.



I guess it is true that most people talk about Alfred - but this thread will be around for people to post questions on going forward... don't despair too much

Does anyone know why Alfred is more popular than Faber? Is it more in line with RCM or something?

Don

Just curious Donzo;

What type of pieces are you playing outside of the core lesson book?

As far as Alfred's popularity is concerned, first off it is a very good system of learning, embraced by teachers and self-learners alike.

However, I did not ultimately thrive in the Alfred's lesson books. After we hooked up with our current teacher and asked her why she only teaches from the Faber series, her explanation has mirrored my current experiences with these books after 11 months.

Keep in touch!
Brian