Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Faber Graduates

Hi Mario! First off, an hour a day of well executed practice is quite good enough I think. The journey IS the thing, you sure got that right.

What are you currently learning in 3B?

Hi Brian

I totally agree, It will take how long it takes, I'm not the least concerned about it. I enjoy the challenge as an ol' guy! Everything I learn seems like a bonus right now for some reason, so that's my attitude. Lots of fun.

regards

John

Hi Brian,

I have just started Liebestraum. I heard Chris Brent playing it on YouTube and it sounded so beautiful; very excited about playing it.

Hi Folks.

Yesterday was our teacher's Fall Adult Musicale, and counting me and my wife there were 6 adults at various levels of the Faber books, spread out between Levels 3A, 3B, and 4. It was interesting to hear what each person was currently playing, and their thoughts on it.

Best of all there are three student all pretty much at the end of 3A. The four page graduation piece Song of Kilimanjaro awaits them. Can't wait to see where everyone is in the spring.

Mario: I played Liebestraum at the last Musicale and it was one of my favorites in that book. Enjoy!

Hi all,

I started to write this post with my background, and my journey to this thread, when I realized it was way too long and boring. Instead, I'll just say that I'm yet another adult beginner coming back to piano after many years since childhood lessons, with flute, choir, guitar and ukulele along the way as well, some more rusty than others! I'm recently retired, and now have time to (re)start my quest to learn piano.

I bought a Kawai CE220 DP which arrived about four weeks ago, and the abbreviated version is that since then, I've gone through GarageBand lessons, then eMedia piano method (about halfway) and then some Alfred and Faber in the last few days. I'm currently working with a combination of the Faber Adult AIO book one, and the Alfred AIO book one, but after reading through this thread, I'm thinking of switching to the Faber Accelerated PA for OB, with the sight reading and developing artist books added, as I think it will give a more complete learning experience. I'm going through the initial level one material fairly quickly for right now (but not skipping any exercises or pieces or technical info), looking to find the proper place to pick up from where my knowledge/skills leave off, and because there's some repetition between methods, and also my previous knowledge. I'm self teaching for now, but I plan to find a teacher (local or remote) once I have a better sense of where I am skill wise.

I'm very glad to be here .

Welcome Linda!

Both my wife and I went through both levels of the Faber Accelerated PA for OB, and it was a very good experience.

The Developing Artist books are also excellent, as even the beginner pieces are in original form, so you can take joy in playing pieces exactly as they were written many hundreds of years ago.

If there are teachers in your area and you have the resources I would advise finding a teacher ASAP, as without our teacher guiding us through the various Faber pieces and exercises, we would be nowhere near where we are after 3+ years.

Welcome again!

My update:

Well tonight I started the Level 5 books. My teacher has never had a student use these books, so this will be a learning experience for both of us.

After the holidays I'll have a better initial feel to what is going on with these books. There are no technique or sight-reading books at this level, which is a bit disappointing.

Hello everyone. Thought I'd drop by as it's been quite I while since my last update. At the beginning of the summer I found myself with less and less time to play. This, coupled with finding myself at a frustrating plateau where I needed to put in some serious effort to progress… well, I have somehow made it about 5 months since I last touched the keyboard!

I still don't have the time, but *do* have that desire to play again. I recently heard a nice version of Pure Imagination (from Willy Wonka) from one of the Faber books, so I'm going to have a go at that to ease myself back in. I'm obviously without teacher right now, so my first port of call will be to go back to some of the pieces I had learned from before in book 4.

If anyone has some spare time they could lend me it'd be great!

Here's a recording of that piece (not by me!), in an attempt to hold myself to account.

Thanks for the welcome, Brian! I have enjoyed reading about your journey and progress over the last couple of years, through this thread. You've come so far!

There is a local teacher who focuses on teaching adult beginners, and uses the Faber method as well. He's a little more expensive than other teachers I've come across, but that may be a good sign. I'll get a little further on my own and then get in touch with him. My piano teacher as a child may have made an impression, as I seem to still have some muscular memory with respect to curved hands, posture and wrist movements, even 40+ years later. But I am wary of developing new bad habits...

It seems that the videos that accompany the Faber Adult AIO books don't have counterparts for the Accelerated PAOB, that I've seen. I'm really enjoying getting these video insights and demos from Randall Faber, so I may stick with the adult AIO level one to the end of this book, before moving over to the APAOB, if that happens before I connect with a local teacher. Or I may try to do them side by side, even if they don't match perfectly.

Hi Linda;

What is interesting is that when my wife and I were going through the Accelerated PAOB books there were not "official" videos available form Faber as you said. However, there are many such videos available on YouTube that I really liked, that pretty much cover all of the pieces in the books.

I can tell you that our teacher much prefers the APAOB books to the Adult all-in-one series. However that is just one teacher's opinion.

Welcome back Trevor.

I can understand completely the frustration of not having enough time yet having a strong desire to practice. I can barely manage 1 hour and that to with lots of interruptions from family, dog, etc. I told myself I have the rest of the life to progress so now am much calmer and actually enjoying the process rather than focussing on finishing.

Plateaus are another issue. I think your idea of playing such a beautiful piece as Pure Imagination is a good one. It would be just the thing to motivate you to get back into swing and possibly start climbing again.

BTW which of the Faber books is that piece from?

Welcome Linda. This is a great forum to share our journey set up by Brian.
A lot of us here are without a teacher for various reasons so you are not alone.

Thank you for the welcome, Mario

I have been wanting to do some self assessment and gauge where I am with respect to my existing knowledge and skills, before I engage with a teacher (I do realize they could help me with this, but I have many times found that my own self assessment can help expedite various things). So I'm encouraged to hear that there are others here without a teacher for the time being.

By way of an update, I've been working through the Faber Adult AIO book (after initially going through some initial material with other methods as well, for the last month), and the expected slowdown did happen a few days ago starting about unit 9 of this AAIO book 1. I'm now going through sections more slowly, albeit perhaps at a slightly faster pace than completely unknown material would be, but I'm intent on addressing my weak areas (I'm stronger on reading treble than bass due to my experience with flute, and of course weaker on dual hand material beyond my childhood piano experience). So right now I'm doing an initial work through of unit 11, while reviewing and practicing pieces in units 9-10 as well. I think things will progress more slowly from here on out, which is okay with me, as there are basics that need to be learned/built. Right now, I'm just enjoying being at the piano, learning and moving forward.

Nice to hear from everyone!

I can tell you that the Faber series is especially good IMHO for those folks who do not have a teacher at the moment. In those cases, it is especially important to pay close attention to the exercises and technique sections. Normally most of the corrections I get at my weekly lesson are those things already mentioned in the books.

On Monday I passed my last Level 4 Performance piece. I actually felt a little sad, as for over 3 years+ these books are all I've ever known. Don't get me wrong; it will take a considerable amount of time in 2017 to complete Level 5. Some of the pieces look downright impossible to play at first glance.

Still, our teacher has several adults that have "graduated" from Faber in the past, and she had a plan for any of her students that accomplish that in the future.

Welcome Linda!
Glad to see you are working with the Faber AAiO 1 book. Like you I had some piano experience before I picked up the book and breezed thorough the first 8 chapters. Then BAM! Chapter 9 and beyond have been tough going. The concepts themselves seem very straight forward but getting those pieces to sound ok has been a slow and steady climb uphill. But I am almost there, started on Banuwa Village this morning. Slow and steady wins the race as they say.

I also do self-assessments. Mid-year I realized my counting was not up to speed and I worked for a few months on pieces that had a simple structure in 4/4 and the 3/4 time. I also found Randall Faber's videos to be really helpful and a nice addition to learning since I do not have a teacher. Although, I was initially surprised by what he was suggesting we get out of the book. I'm now looking forward to working on AAiO2 with Randall's videos as a guide.


Wishing you continued success!

Linda:
Another thing I found overly helpful was doing the 40 Piece Challenge. I highly recommend it. Working on a lot of simple pieces and a few challenging ones really helped with getting my hands to do the same thing together or different things at the same time. I sure those in this forum who have worked on the challenge can attest to its benefits. Already thing about next years challenge as i start learning more Grade 1 pieces.

Hi folks -

Long time listener and nearly first-time poster here. I just found this thread the other day and have been catching up to the present. Right now I'm on page 9: July 2015. There's so much useful info here and thank you to everyone for sharing it.

My son and I bounced around the 2B core books plus Jewish, Ragtime, Jazz and Blues, and Classical for a year or more without much purpose. Two months ago I decided we really needed to make tangible progress so that one day we could play more complicated pieces and do so with confidence. So I have been methodically working through All eight books in total with a goal towards finishing 2B and starting with 3A over the holiday. We are more or less on track. My son is a little more advanced than I and is starting 3A now. We have the core four plus sight reading, Classical, Jazz, Ragtime, Sonatinas, and Blues Improv. I really enjoy having many books to work from that all aim towards similar goals. It gives me a lot of leeway as to what to work on for any given day. It's especially nice to have the theory books to work on if it's 11pm and I want to do something that won't wake the neighbors.

Has anyone figured out how to approach the books that are marked 3A-3B? Should we work through half the pieces while we're doing the core 3A books and save the other half for when we get to 3B?

Greetings and welcome Adam107!

The core books for 3A and 3B are separate levels in Faber Piano Adventures, much like Levels 1, 2, 4 and 5.

You will start and completely finish all 4 core books in Level 3A, before proceeding to 3B. Now no peeking ahead of time!

+1! I have done this in both 2015 and 2016. VERY helpful!

But the accompanying books - in this case Ragtime, Classical, and Jazz and Blues - all say 3A-3B on them. So while we're going to do all the 'core 3A' books together and then of course proceed to the core 3B books, what should we do with those accompanying books?