(Part 2) Best piano songbooks according to redditors
We found 225 Reddit comments discussing the best piano songbooks. We ranked the 96 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
Hi! I'm also 24, and I've been playing the piano since I was 8! I think I can help you out some. I taught my younger sister, who was 13 at the time, how to play the piano, and I started her out on a curriculum I put together myself. This consists of work in 5 main areas: Theory, Intuition, Method, Technique, and Musicianship. I'll explain this further.
Music theory is where you need to start. Without a good knowledge of theory, you're pretty much lost. It's analogous to being in the dark with no flashlight (theory), but turn the flashlight on, and you have a sense of where you're going and what to do. However, it's important that you don't become so reliant on theory that you can't play anything without reading the notes.
This is where intuition comes in. Intuition is built by listening to music. The more you listen to music and the patterns in different songs, the more you'll understand when to change chords, walk up or down bass lines, etc. This was my problem. I was never taught how to improve on my musical intuition. I had to learn this on my own, but I've got good enough now to where I can hear a song and pretty much know how to play it. This is what you're aiming for by building intuition.
Method is meant to take music theory and intuition and actually apply it. So the goal in learning method is to learn different approaches to different songs. For example, there's many ways that you can play a song like Amazing Grace. You can play it with three chords, you can include a minor to make a 4 chord progression, etc. All method does is teach you different ways of approaching songs using what you know about music theory and intuition.
Technique is also very important. Technique develops your motor skills and muscle memory. You might say technique is like exercising your fingers and your brain. It's probably the most boring part of a piano curriculum, because it seems like you're just repeating the same thing over and over and over again, and the exercises seem to hold no purpose. Still, the point here is develop your technique to where you can do things like trills, play very fast songs, and make your music sound beautiful. It takes a lot of time and practice to develop good technique, but it definitely pays off.
Finally, the last area is Musicianship. This is the final goal, and what the student has been working toward. Musicianship is combining all of the other areas and putting them into good practice to perform in front of an audience. A good musician will know their instrument and its proper usage and care, how to play it, it's role within the various genres of music, and be able to play it well. A good musician will also know proper stage etiquette and performance.
This is the philosophy I have developed over my years of playing. The whole point is to develop well rounded musicians. It seems very difficult and harsh, but it can be a whole lot of fun! My sister really enjoyed me teaching her to play, and within a few months she was doing far better than I ever was when I was that far in. My football coach always told us that we would get out of something what we put into it. If you put 30 minutes a week into it, you're not going to see good results. However, put in 30 minutes a day and you'll see results in no time.
So now for the big question... where do you start? I started my sister out in this book. That is the most comprehensive and well written book on music theory. It just goes over the bare minimum of what you need to be a good pianist, plus it's a great reference to look back on. More advanced study will come later on, but for now this is a great book to learn how to read music, how it works, and how to start writing your own pieces. I also got her this book, too, because it includes a lot of exercises in theory. As you do the exercises in this book, try playing them on your piano and getting used to associating each note on the paper with a key on the piano. While you're doing this, you might try to listen to which keys sound which way and begin associating each key and note with a particular sound. There are many different "courses" you can go through to learn the piano. I went through the Piano Adventures Series, which I thought was great. That is a link to the primer level books. There's, to my knowledge, 5 levels plus the primer. So, when you master/complete one level, you just move on to the next. I also liked the Exploring Piano Classics series. This is what I started my sister on, because it not only includes great pieces to begin playing, but it also goes through different eras in musical genres and introduces the piano from a historical standpoint. In my mind, this series is the perfect introduction to Musicianship. Here is a link to the preparatory book.
I hope this could be some help to you. The journey to becoming a great pianist and musician is a long one that needs time, hard work, and dedication to achieve, but many have made it before and so can you. I wish you well in learning to play the piano. Good luck!
Check out the Concert and Contest Collection, as well as the Classic Festival Solo Books, Volume 1 and Volume 2. Those three books are great for advanced elementary through middle school kids. NJ uses music from the Concert and Contest Collection book for their intermediate (junior high) region band audition pieces.
There's also a book from the Everybody's Favorite series. It's out of print now, but Amazon seems to have some sellers that have some copies of it. It's a bit more on the "poppy" side (as popular as classical music gets, anyway), but will do for the skill level you're specifying.
https://www.amazon.com/Hits-Superstars-Piano-Vocal-Chords/dp/B000K7H3H6
Exactly! That's my advice as well. Granted I'm not super experienced. I played as a kid for a few years, but I started again at 30 years old (just over a year ago).
I have a teacher, but we use the Faber Piano Adventures (Lesson and Performance) books. Faber has 4 books for each level. So I'm on Level 2B. This is the complete set, but as I said we only use 2 of them (they can be purchased seperately). If I didn't have a teacher, I'd probably pick up the theory book as well, but she covers theory in our lessons. But if I was learning on my own, I'd at least get the Lesson, Theory, and Performance books.
https://www.amazon.com/Faber-Piano-Adventures-Learning-Library/dp/B00C1Q7GB2/ref=asc_df_B00C1Q7GB2/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312128059570&hvpos=1o3&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17562334294320719267&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9016510&hvtargid=pla-762036596632&psc=1
​
These do a pretty good job of explaining what you need to know, and then you can google any questions you might have after that.
I think something like that is a good idea to keep you focused. If it's just "go to youtube and learn what you want to learn" then it's almost too much to take in and you get overwhelmed. This way if they explain the major triads, but you don't quiet understand, you can go search for that specifically, then back to the books. Also, having learns some songs from watching synthesia videos on YouTube... learning from sheet music is way faster, imo.
She doesn't even assign every song in the book. She has a list of them that introduce new concepts (which the book also explains when it's introducing a new concept) and she'll make sure to pick a song that demonstrates that concept. But if there are 3 songs demonstrating it, I usually don't play all 3. Unless I just like the sound of them and want to.
That way you keep your path narrow enough to not get lost and overwhelmed, and you're also having visible progress of completing a whole book of songs.
I post this site every time someone asks and it’s a great tool you can use at every stage.
I loved (and still do) this book in middle school. I don’t know your personal skill but for someone with about one year of playing, it might be too difficult.
Unbelievably, it's on Amazon!
Have your mom subscribe to this for you. I have it myself and it is excellent. And a lot cheaper than a private piano teacher. All the books and materials are available on the site so nothing needs to be purchased, but if you/she wanted to purchase something, you can get a hardcopy of book 1 here. The teacher is conservatory-trained and she really focuses a lot on good piano technique. You'll have no problems understanding her English, but to be sure, you can catch on of her Youtube videos here to check that.
The Eccles Sonata is a pretty commonly performed piece among young string musicians. It was originally composed for violin, but most every string player has worked it up. This would probably be a good choice because the committee will be familiar with it, there are many recordings you can use as source material, and it's not overwhelmingly technical. You should be able to work it up and sound good on it - not biting off more than you can chew, as it were.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00JG8P7EG?pc_redir=1405257070&robot_redir=1
I think I have a new copy of this I could sell you.
I think you'll pick this as the item you'll purchase with this order
Happy happy cake day
https://www.amazon.com/Clair-Debussy-Easiest-Beginner-Piano-ebook/dp/B00EZ47JQA
There you have the first page but it does work
Oh. Well it does say on the cover if that's it. I was just guessing what it might be based on my experience with easy piano duets.
I have it in this nice big book
https://www.amazon.com/1900c-Chopin-Klavierwerke-Oeuvres-Piano/dp/B01CSO414Q
which also includes the sonatas, op 11 concerto, and many others. But I don't know where you can find it.
A 2-piano edition would probably work. Just play the soloists's part, and when the soloist is tacet, play the other part. That's basically what this Peters edition is anyway.
SECTION | CONTENT
:--|:--
Title | Lost - Life and Death - Piano by Matthias Dobler
Description | Life and Death by Michael Giacchino Piano Version by Matthias Dobler 2012 Sheet is available: http://www.amazon.de/PianoMotions-Arrangements-Ambitous-Pianist-Songbook/dp/B00BZ8PIG2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371768410&sr=8-1&keywords=pianomotions or http://www.schott-music.com/shop/1/show,315690.html https://www.facebook.com/piano.dobler
Length | 0:03:35
****
^(I am a bot, this is an auto-generated reply | )^Info ^| ^Feedback ^| ^(Reply STOP to opt out permanently)
Sorry you didn't get a reply on here, but generally buying a piano book for someone else as a gift, while a nice thought, probably isn't the best gift unless you know exactly what they want to play. Pianists, especially those who have been playing for awhile, generally know what songs they want to play and have a list of songs they want to play next. Buying a pianist a book that doesn't contain those songs is pretty much just asking for it to go untouched for a long time.
That being said, if you were to ask her what songs she wants to learn next you could google that song and find what book has it and just buy that one.
If you want to keep it a secret from her, I would say buying another Mark Hayes or Dan Forrest book is probably your best bet as she is more likely to play a piece in one of those. Before you just go and buy one of those I would take a look at what books she already owns so you know you aren't getting one that she already owns. If those are at the church and you have no way of looking at them I found a book at the intermediate level by Mark Hayes: https://www.amazon.com/Mark-Hayes-Intermediate-Pianist-Settings/dp/0893282324
And an advanced level by Dan Forrest:
https://www.amazon.com/My-Fathers-World-Advanced-Piano/dp/B006SLEGDW
You would probably want to pick the advanced one because it is more likely for her to have played intermediate pieces than advanced ones.
Finally, you can't go wrong with the best of books as they collect their most popular songs. That being said it is far more likely she has these.
Mark Hayes best of volume 2 (less likely to have this one than the first): https://www.amazon.com/Best-Mark-Hayes-2/dp/1592352391/ref=asc_df_1592352391/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=266058510895&hvpos=1o3&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2167868115390079040&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9019572&hvtargid=pla-599332514364&psc=1
Couldn't find one for Dan though.
Finally, after everything I said - I can say that while a piano book potentially might not be the best gift because it might never get played. It's the thought that counts and i'm sure she would appreciate your interest in her love for piano more than anything an actual gift can give.
Assuming you mean this one, I was also recommended this edition by my tutor:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000786HRU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_of21BbHNC6TRA
My teacher bought this for me last Christmas, it's a really nice arrangement and I can't recommend it enough! Beginner arrangements of classics are usually not so good, and my teacher usually poo-poos them but this one is really solid.
http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Moonlight-Sonata-First-Movement/dp/B005J0I8RS/
It's a book full of leadsheets, which s a simplified form of sheet music. For each song, it shows the lyrics, chord symbols and the vocal melody on the treble clef. It's also good practice for getting comfortable reading sheet music. If you're into 90's music, I'd recommend the book in the link below; it's got all sorts of great 90's songs for beginners.
https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Nineties-Fake-Book-Songbook/dp/B004DDFSIO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1537454505&sr=8-2&keywords=90s+fake+book
The arrangement by Robert Schultz is nice. It adheres closely to the original, and you can pretty easily skip any section(s) you're not into if time is of the essence! It's been a very long time, but I also played the Alfred arrangement years ago. As I recall, it's a more straightforward arrangement, but was also well done. Good luck!