Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum I need Book Recomendations

I am now at my 7 month of playing piano learning from private lessons from a good teacher. I already have her recomendation for a book of songs called " Essential Keyboard Repertoire vol. 1" by Lynn Freeman Olson. I was wondering what book you would recomend for scales/chord and any other exercises involved with piano. Also I would like a good sight reading exercise book that allows me to start off easy and build up to improve my sight reading skills.

This may be a dumb question, but are there exercise techiques and diets that improves your abilitity to play piano and if there is I would also like a book recomendation.

As you could tell I am looking for any book that will help me to become a better piano player and I appreciate the help that you give me.

I have the Alfred's book of scales. (Never use it, but I have it... ). It's certainly comprehensive.

For sight-reading, I like to use Easy Piano or Beginner Piano collections of pop hits (there's a gazillion of such books out there). It's a lot easier for me to sightread if I know what the song is supposed to sound like, and it's more enjoyable for my family to listen to.

Hanon, of course, is a classic exercise book. I understand there's a free version kicking around the web somewhere. But I would listen to your teacher and ask her what she recommends with respect to exercises.

I'm not sure about diets, but a healthy diet, not too much caffine etc is always good. Walking is extremely good for the spirit and the body. Good posture is essential, and regular light exercise and stretching will help you to be physically ready to sit down and play.

I'll let Mel make a recommendation about books that address the physical/posture aspects of piano playing.

One book I highly recommend is "The Inner Game of Music." This book deals with the mental aspects, how you approach playing and practice, concentration etc. I think this book is very accessible (in terms of the information being very easy to understand and easy to put into practice.) It's easy to read and applicable to beginners or advanced players. I can't recommend it enough!

If you have a teacher, I would recommend that you ask her for a recommendation for both scale books and sight-reading books. She can make recommendations that fit with the other work you're doing. That's just my opinion though. I'm sure other members will share their favorite books here.

Good luck!

Definitely check out Fundamentals of Piano Practice by C.C. Chang. Not the easiest read, but it is free and the content is golden!

Re Sight-reading, I worked through this book and found it to be helpful:

Super Sight-Reading Secrets by Howard Richman.

(I should probably work through it again.) Also, this is another good one:

Alfred's Basic Adult Sight Reading Book.

I have level one, I don't know if there's another level or not. I got this book probably 5 years ago, and worked through half of it. I think I'll go through and re-do it from the beginning. Pulling out the book to tell you the title reminded me that I have it, and should use it again. Thanks!

The Alfred book is probably easier to use because it has exercises and is very thorough, so if you're just going to do one, I'd recommend this one.

Here is a link to a thread about books:

http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/32/2305.html#000004


Here is a place to get free downloadable sheet music:

http://www.sheetmusicarchive.net/

always, The Piano Handbook:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0879307277/ref=pd_kar_gw_1/104-2328776-0974307?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155