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

I think us beginners really only have to worry about a single dot. Certainly in my method book, I've never seen more than one dot so far.

Good to know! I won't have to worry for the next 5 years then

Hey Tech-key thank you for the advice! I'll try to take it a bit slower. I'm trying to do one piece a week and today has been a week that I've been working on Scarborough Fair but I think I need a few more days.

My pinky is indeed misbehaving and much weaker than my other fingers. It presses the wrong keys, or presses both keys at the same time, or the pinky sound is barely heard. This happens when switching from one broken chord to another. Funny thing was that when I played it in f or ff then there was no problem (I had to let out some of my anger haha)

Thank you for the site I'll check it out!





Hey Animisha! Thank you for mentioning On top of old smokey! For me it's on page 68 (I use the Alfred Adult Basic Book 1) and tbh I don't remember having this much trouble with it. Shame I didn't record it but I am recording every piece I play for the 40 a year thing. I'm just going to take it slow and not yell at my LH so much

Haha. Your pinky definitely deserves some scolding. Mine too actually! It collapses at the most misopportune times.

The pieces in the book will steadily get more difficult from here. So you may rethink your strategies now. Instead of just one piece at a time, you can actually pick 2-3 pieces and take them all slowly. If you look at the previous page of this thread, Progman was mentioning some posts where there are some real good practice strategies for beginners like us. I'd put his quote here for your ease.


These guys are at it for a while now, so don't start doing everything they are doing at once . It may get a bit overwhelming. But there are some very interesting ideas there, which should definitely help you.

Superman2048, if you like Alfred's, they have lots and lots of free preview pdf's on their site. Download those that you like, and you have lots of complementary material that you can play.

Coming in a bit late on this - I'm using Alfred's Self-Teaching (now there's a mis-nomer - how come it's still so much work for me?) Adult Piano Course, which sounds much like the regular book but uses a lot more pages to cover the same material, maybe to make up for the lack of a teacher?

Anyway, about your RH/LH problem, my book pretty early on has 'When the Saints Go Marching In' in 2 versions, the second one has the melody in the LH and the accompanying chords in the RH. I found this a bit of a brain-expander at first, but once I got it down, it's really sort-of fun to play the 2 versions in sequence.
So @Superman: I would think practicing this piece might help a lot with your LH problem. Had you tried it?

That's funny what you say about the difficultly gerhard! It's hard for all of us.....in fact, there is a thread right now where people are 'arguing' about who is slowest! You are correct that On Top of Old Smokey has a similar broken chord LH that Scarborogh Fair has. Wait until you get to page 129 The Stranger. Now that is a song with real melody in the left hand. I do not feel unprepared to handle this however, it just takes smart practicing....

Thank you Tech-key for the interesting pov. I will experiment with 2 pieces at the same time. My practice currently is as follows:

First block of 30 mins.

5-10 mins of sightreading from this book. Progressive Sight Reading Exercises for Piano
10 mins of scales, the ones I know so far.
15-20 mins of the piece from Alfred I'm currently on.

Second block of 30 mins.

30 mins of practising the current piece I'm at on the Alfred book.

That's my 1h practice every day. From today onwards I will try doing two pieces each day using easy pieces from this book that I have. Big Book Of Beginner's Piano Classics. So my second block of 30 mins will be 15 mins Alfred piece, 15 mins Piano Classics. I'll see how it goes and take it from there!








Thank you Animisha that's a great link! Didn't know they did that!




Hello Gerhard! Yes my book contains the two versions of 'When the Saints Go Marching In' as well. Thank you for mentioning it. It seems that I have been too harsh on the Alfred book and myself. So I will change my schedule and practice 2 pieces. I very much like this idea and it makes sense to do it this way.

I am no expert at practice technique, but I'll share what I am experimenting and it might spur some ideas. The central thesis I understand from Holly's and Keselo's threads is that our brains can only absorb a certain amount from any 1 piece/section we play a day....something around 15 minutes. Another point I take to heart is that we all want to play the whole piece through every time, but that approach is likely inefficient. And the 3rd thing I am doing new is taking notes after my 15-20 minute slice of whatever to write what I specifically practiced so I can start from there next time.

I am also experimenting with learning a song with minimal HS practice and another song learning it only as sections (no playing through until I have the sections at speed). I am currently working 5 pieces between 4 and 9 lines in length. 4 are from the Method book and 1 from the Greatest Hits book. My practice time is 1-1.5 hours per day. My warm-up is several 5 finger progressions from different keys, 3 scales, I/IV/I/V7/I chord progressions - all for both hands. For extra sight reading Teach said I should play random pieces in the Method book that I haven't touched in some time.

I do a lot more work with sections this way, so the whole topic of how to section becomes much more relevant. Very interesting! I've only been doing this for 2 weeks but I can tell there are definitely improvements to my practicing....

I want to commend you on your experimental outlook and testing out these different techniques on yourself. We all learn differently, an although even research results can be interesting, it's a starting point to see if a successful technique for someone else can work for oneself most effectively. I'm sure all of these successful techniques do fail to work for some people, while others might be more successful for a given individual. I think based on the results of others, candidates for testing out on oneself certainly should include the practices you are trying out - HS vs HT, 15 min rule, practicing alternating days, learning in sections, etc.

Thanks Tyrone - I'm a geeky retired engineer so I enjoy a good experiment! I did try out skipping a day on one of my pieces and upon playing it this morning and there was a noticeable improvement with that skipped day. I need more data points.....

Progman, I remember reading in the 2019 goals thread, that you want to become a great piano practiser. A very smart goal to have. Please keep sharing the results of your experiments!

ha, very interesting... my results may vary from yours but one thing is for sure... if an occasional day off winds up working for you, it will do wonders for my guilt complex when I miss a day :-)

Hi! This is my first post here.
I took about a year of lessons as a young child, a basic keyboard class in middle school and nothing since. I’ve been going through the self-teaching all-in-one since September. I’m up to the Entertainer and Amazing Grace now. So far the hardest song for me has been, and continues to be, Little Brown Jug. Something about moving the right hand up just trips me up every time. The thing I struggle most with overall is feeling like I have the style right, not just the mechanics. I’m sure a real teacher would be the solution to that at some point, but I feel like I’ll benefit more if I’m more advanced in the mechanics first.

I’m a spreadsheet nerd and have this practice schedule system that works really well for me. The idea is once a song is learned, to practice it every day until I can play it perfectly on the first try three days in a row, then every other day, then twice a week, weekly, biweekly etc. I have graph paper with the songs written down the rows and the date across the columns at the top and fill in a check or an x as I go through each, then use little dashed lines for skip days on a song. I wish I knew how to post a picture. Anyway, I practice 45 minutes a day and really enjoy it.

I also have the Sacred Piano book that goes with it and have worked through most of those as well, as they came up in the “goes with page ___” thing. I’m considering getting the greatest hits as well for level two, but I wish they could make an updated version.

Question: How faithfully should I follow the fingering written on the pieces? For example, on the Entertainer, the 3-1 cross in measure 11 was way too awkward, and I’ve done much better playing the F# with my thumb. I also really want to play G-A-B-C in the left hand as pinkie-pinkie-pinkie-pinkie... is that ridiculously unsophisticated?

Welcome Domestic Engineer. If you started in September and are nearly finished the book, that is a fast pace. The risk you might be running is developing some type of technical flaw that could be time consuming (and frustrating) to un-learn. Like the fingering stuff, I think this book is extremely well thought out and changing fingerings should probably only come from someone really experienced.

One thing I have picked up lately is the importance of practice technique. If you get really good at practicing effectively, that is the route to be a really good player. So I really like what you have done with the spreadsheet and repetitions. That bodes well for your future but recommend you get in front of a teacher soon.....even just a short series of lessons will pay off. Look for someone with significant experience and is already teaching Adults. Good Luck!

Welcome, Domestic Engineer


Very intrigued by your graph papers! This forum has this FAQ page. You'll get your answer under "How do I add an image to my message?". You will first have to upload your picture to a website like imgur. Thereafter, just follow the instructions in the FAQ section.

Hi Domestic Engineer, and welcome to the forum!


The 3-1 cross in measure 11 makes use of a very basic technique, that you will need to learn and master. Also pinkie-pinkie-pinkie-pinkie for four consecutive notes is not a good idea at all. It may go well in this piece, but once you play faster, you'll need to be able to make those skips.


I could not agree less. When you say "the mechanics", do you mean technique? You will need a teacher to show you.

The Alfred book hardly gives you anything when it comes to technique. They don't discuss it, and as a beginner, you run the risk of happily playing these pieces, thinking it is going well enough, only to discover later that you used the wrong technique. You could take a look at this video, just to give you an idea. (I am not a big fan of this teacher, but watching what he says is better than only working with the book.)

My Teacher gave me a present at my lesson yesterday! She was very complimentary and said I am her adult student role model.....then she said I am ready and gave me the score to Billy Joel's Piano Man. She knows I am not motivated by Classical Music (at this point anyhow), so I thought it was super nice of her. I sight read the first page melody and bass clef - she said just work on first 1.5 pages first. Super cool.

I am working my way through the F major/A minor section of the book right now. She is picking out the specific songs so I am not doing it exactly in order. Yesterday I got checked off on Greensleeves and really close on Go Down Moses and Auld Sang Lang. The Stranger is the hardest one, I probably have 2 more weeks on that one. I have also been doing What a Wonderful World from the Greatest Hits book - I played that one for her and did a nice job of it. We talked about the key dynamic area of the score and she said to polish it. We picked out the next song from the Greatest Hits which is the Sound of Music (for my Mom) and sight read the beginning of that one.

I think my upgraded practice approach is paying off. I am just barely 2 weeks into that and still refining how I do things, but it feels like I can fix the problems pretty effectively. I am working 10-20 minute sections and making brief notes after each section. When I get back to that song in a day or two, I review the notes from last time and start there. So more sections and less trying to play through the entire song.

Progman, you are an inspiration.. If I had a hat, I'd take it off to you!

(not sure this was new thread worthy so sticking this question in here)

Is this a solid book to start off for a 17 year old? I just met with him yesterday. He's had just a little piano when he was really young but it had zero to do with reading music (which isn't a problem, just pointing that out). It looks he will be a fast study but, hard to say, I've never taught someone that age before.

I remember this book existed. How is it "adult" compared to this Alfred book (which I have a copy of): Piano Lesson Book: Complete Level 1, for the Later Beginner?

Are there any alternatives that people use for adults starting out or is this pretty much a solid choice? I can supplement it but I mean generally speaking.

(I am considering "17" an adult, essentially, although I understand the brain is still developing through the 20s)

Thanks for any help