Piano The Books

It'an excellent book. It can be very technically challenging at times but don't give up!! I recomend starting with "Nun freut euch, lieben Christen gmein" [Rejoice, beloved Christians] an then go with "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" [Awake, the Voice commands]. I hope you enjoy it as much a I do.

Busoni was famous for his transcriptions of Bach's organ music. The true genius of his work becomes evident when one can see the adjustments Busoni made to the originals. These works are a very rewarding challenge for any serious pianist. I personally am quite fond of the Tocatta in C Major.

The first reviewer may as well complain about not being able to find guitar tablature for Chopin. It's Tori Amos; I think it's reasonable to assume the music will be written for piano. Still, as in all the other books, the chords are included. I couldn't wait for this book--"Scarlet's Walk" was amazing, but "The Beekeeper" has more songs that I actually want to play myself.

Please ignore the other user's comment about the book - it DOES have all of the chord diagrams in it, just like all the other books had. It also includes the bee side Garlands, which is beautiful, and some wonderful artwork. A beautiful music book for a beautiful album - I recommend it to any Tori fan, whether you play piano, guitar, or nothing at all.

To start...this book is not for one who is just beginning to play piano..nor is it for a good intermediate player. For one it will prove too hard, for the other quiet simple. The works are all arranged to make them a bit easier. For instance "The Flight of the Bumble Bee," by Rimsky-Korsakoff contains the same trebel notes but in the eighth note (quaver), and the base is much simplified into chords. Nevertheless, the music maintains its quality and will prove beautiful when played right. Other works include "Caprice No. 24" by Niccolo Paganini, "Cantabile" by Chopin, and many other works by Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Strauss, Beethoven, Khatchaturian, Verdi, and many others.

Overall the collection is beautiful, and anyone with some quality experience (early intermediate) will love this book. Enjoy!!!

Beautiful compilation of classics of authors ranging from Tchaikovsky to Verdi, Debussy and Rosas, though only arranged versions.

This book is totally amazing i got it to study up on some of the more popular historical temperaments before i started to tune them and expirement with them on some pieces i am playing and it astounded me on several occasions. His explanations are clear and easy to understand and the history he provides is very pertinent and valuable. If any of you out there have this book and are looking to sell I'd like another copy so send me an email at Ira_parrot@yahoo.com

I saw this book few times, I like the flowing on each character of ear training. But this is a old book, so it was not easy to fund.

This book is invaluable for any pianist who wants to teach. Bernstein provides very clear directions, pictures, and exercise to illustrate each motion. So often teachers focus mainly on the abstracts of music such as the notes, the rhythms, the sound, the dynamics, the expression, without much discussion of how we produce the sound, and how different motions, and engagement of different muscles affects the sound produced. I highly recommend this book for piano teachers of all skill levels and educational backgrounds.

As a book for students, I would only recommend it for older students who enjoy reading, problem solving, and have decent attention spans--because of the lengthy blocks of text. He does use some rather silly looking and sounding exercises (such as playing with a pencil) to illustrate the basics of sound production.

The only real problem I had with the book is that his assessment of proper hand position. It seemed to me that either his idea of perfect hand position involved wrists raised above the natural line of arm and wrist, or he had unusually structured hands. He speaks at one point of playing with "straight fingers" and I myself cannot play that way without raising my wrists to an almost painful level. However, that is a small thing, and the wealth of information in this book, and the physical understanding of the act of playing piano makes this book worth every penny!

Mr. Bernstein has again authored an invaluable volume. This book contains a methodical and straight-forward instruction in the key principles of expressive piano playing, and the fundamentals are the best that can be found in modern piano literature. The salient point is that Mr. Bernstein uses simple and effective means to demonstrate how to achieve control. In addition, it is noticable that a section on the piano mechanism itself is included. This is something that most pianists and teachers have very little knowledge about - but they certainly should! We can thank Seymour Berstein for his efforts, may he continue to produce excellent piano instructional literature.

I recently ordered this book from Amazon and must admit to hesitating a bit before I spent the money - but this book is truly extraordinary. It is as advertised, perfect for the beginning student starting out without a teacher. It is structured for studying by yourself and covers subjects in a way not found in other books or tapes. If you are in the market for an introduction to music through the use of a keyboard, then this book is for you.

The first thing I appreciated about Julia's method was her "absence of guilt" approach. Music is supposed to be fun and she ensures there is never any guilt feeling that will detract from the fun. Her method is also an extremely logical, orderly method of learning about music. Once you train your eyes, mind and hands to work together and instantly recognize and play a chord, you have made the first leap towards being able to sight-read any music you choose.

She's written some fabulous music to help speed the "learning" portion of music so you can get on to the fun part.

I simply cannot express my full appreciation for Julia Wade's method of learning music.

I had searched for quite a while for a passing libretto of Wagner when I stumbled upon this gem. Sabors translation is sheer poetry and is a joy to follow along with during the operas. A must buy if you want a fantastic Wagner libretto!

I've read much of Rudolph Sabor's Wagner material, and I want to be sure he knows, from and ardent student of the composer, just how much I love and appreciate all his work. But these four books from Phaidon on the Ring cycle are masterpieces. The extraordinarily elegant presentation not only invites you into another world, but Sabor's clarification and mythic understanding of Wagner goes far beyond anything that is available to the reader so far. In "The Real Wagner",which I have in both English and Spanish, Sabor's deadly sense of humour peeked through whenever irony was appropriate, and even in these translations and notes, he, as a writer and critic, never forgets the subtleties and contradictions Wagner offers to us. If possible, please extend both to the author and to the publishers, my profound appreciation of the symphony they have created together. Let's call these books "collectors items". And in paperback!
And thank you, Amazon, for getting them to me so quickly up here in the mountains of southern Mexico.

Linda

For parents looking for books written for children about death,I recommend this beautifully composed story. Children are exposed to death in a variety of ways and this is a book that can help waylay their fears, allow them to feel with the young boy and experience his healing. Howard Kaplan's words put the reader into the story with his lyrical prose and images. As a woman who faced the loss of her mother at a young age, I felt like Howard had captured the emptiness and the lost feelings I had at the time. Howard,as your sister who sat at that piano and played "Fur Elise" over and over again with that G Clef lamp over my head, I congratulate you on your ability to combine poetry and prose and create a beautiful book.

I recently had the opportunity to read this book to my third grade class. They enjoyed the story so much that they asked me to read it to them a second time. One of my students commented that the book was "poetry put to music". The children said that they could feel the author's emotions as I was reading. They particularly enjoyed the descriptive language. Even though the topic was sad, the students enjoyed Mr. Kaplan's writing style. The book was a fine example of what they have learned this year in Writer's Workshop. It has been strongly suggested to them that their personal writing be based upon what they know best - themselves. Mr. Kaplan wrote a book about personal loss and death and addressed the topic in a meaningful and non threatening manner.

Make no mistake. This book isn't for the casual piano player. I think I'm a pretty good player but this book assumes you know a lot about sophisticated cording and comping already. The recordings are good and Warren is an outstanding player. The playbook is a thin 32 pages or so and it's hard to do much more than play what's written there.
It didn't work well for me. Way too advanced.

I have few book/CD on Bernhart jazz piano and I found that his teaching sytle is of practical. As a non musical reading ( note reading) I also be able to gain fundamental concept of playing jazz piano.

Like many other say, Jazz is has no limitation and boundary,and its you who explore the JAZZ.

I really enjoyed this book. I'm not much of jazz player, and never will be but I learned a lot from this. It's helped immeasurably by the inclusion of a CD covering all the lessons. Not quite like having a private teacher, but not far off, and a hell of lot cheaper.

The poems in this beautifully designed book have both depth and a wide range of perception about places, people, and ordinary objects rendered in a way that makes them strange-- in the best sense of that word-- and new, whether Lefcowitz is writing about an old violin or the fascinations of Sardinia, Sicily, the coast of Maine.

The poems in this beautifully designed book have both depth and a wide range of perception about places, people, and ordinary objects rendered in a way that makes them strange-- in the best sense of that word-- and new, whether Lefcowitz is writing about an old violin or the fascinations of Sardinia, Sicily, the coast of Maine.