Piano The Books

I initially bought this book for an old friend because I borrowed the same exact book from him some twenty years ago and never returned it, intentionally! When he asked for it back long ago, I acted clueless about it and the guilt has plagued me ever since. I always wanted to replace it so I was thrilled to find it still in print and here on Amazon. The thing is, I reconnected with my friend recently but I just couldn't give up the new book, so I kept it for myself. I still have the old one (completely tattered and torn and turning brown) so maybe I'll just return that one to him instead. What's twenty more years of guilt.

My favorite songs in this book are Prelude in C minor (Chopin) and Prelude in E minor (Chopin) both sad, slow, and sweet. A happier more up-beat song that's always fun to play is Sonatina (Kabalevsky). Also contains the popular poetic song Gymnopedie No. 1 (Satie).

You can probably find most if not all of the songs of this book in the other newer and larger volumes in my other reviews. But I've always liked this book, it's a great standard collection.

My son's previous piano teacher recommended this book and our new piano teacher does, as well. Now my son is in the level two Fundamentals book. Having never learned piano myself, I have been learning with my children. This workbook provides an introduction to the language of written music and my children use it together with the John Thompson series of music books.

I am an intermediate piano student. This book is at the appropriate level for me. It shows fingering and contains 3 pages of instructions on how to play various ornament notations that are typical of Barouque music. If you want to learn how to play classical music, this is a book for you to get started.

This is a great selection of pieces. The arrangements are also very well done, and suitable for more advanced piano players.

Wonderful book of classical music. Most of the pieces are easier and shorter than the original compositions. The compilation is varied and includes many wonderfully talented composers from all timeframes. Love it!

This music went through a long period of being little known, but is gradually being rediscovered. And it's a good thing, since listeners who know these works consider them to include some of the finest music of the entire Classical period. For instance, Charles Rosen, in his excellent book _The Classical Style_, devotes an entire admiring chapter to these trios.

The amateur pianist will find that with a few exceptions the music is not all that hard to play. Haydn wrote these works primarily as piano music, with the violin only occasionally taking a solo, and the cello hardly ever. This compositional style has been taken as a basis for criticism of the work, but in fact, music for piano with other instruments "obbligato" was quite common in Haydn's day--for instance, Mozart's violin sonatas work the same way. In event, the consequence of this piano-dominance is that as an amateur pianist you can enjoy playing these works even if you can't find friends who play violin or cello to help you out.

As for this Dover edition, it has the usual great virtue of Dover reprints (very low price), and the defect of it being a reprint of a rather old, now out-of-copyright edition. The other defect is that it only includes about half of the mature Haydn piano trios, and omits equally fine ones. I'd really like to see Dover issue the others as well.

The book is great, it has the sheet music to some of his best song's, including "Moonlight Sonata", and "Pathetique". It was really great, and I plan on getting the whole collection!

This book is designed to supplement Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course Level 2 but can be enjoyed by anyone one has mastered about level two of any piano teaching series. The pieces are graded and placed in the book from easiest to most difficult and a note is included as to what page number in Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course the student should have completed before being "ready" for the given selection. I found that the "greatest hits" songs tend to be a bit more difficult than what is found in the basic piano course book but this is still a fun book of good arrangements to play and lyrics are even included so you can sing along.

The following are the selection of pieces in the book and their origin:
"There's No Business Like Show Business"
(ANNIE GET YOUR GUN)
"My Heart Will Go On" (TITANTIC)
"Que Sera, Sera" (THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH)
"Beauty and the Beast" (Disney's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST)
"Seventy Six Trombones" (THE MUSIC MAN)
"Yesterday" (hit song some The Beatles)
"Think of Me" (Andrew Lloyd Weber's PHANTOM OF THE OPERA)
"This is the Moment" (musical stage play JEYLL & HYDE)
"The Way We Were" (motion picture THE WAY WE WERE)
"Oh Pretty Woman" (Ray Orbison hit)
"My Guy" (Smokey Robinson hit)
"People" (FUNNY GIRL)
"Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" (Disney's LION KING)
"God Help The Outcasts" (Disney's HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME)
"ONE" (A CHORUS LINE)

This book was excellent reading material. I am 15 and i found this book to be one of the best books ever written about this type of subject. The writter used an excellent scenes of emotion and should be nominated for some type of award. I really enjoyed this book and hope that everyone who reads it likes it as much as I do

With The Green Piano, Janine Pommy Vega (Godine) has realized and written her finest book of poems. Forty years in the making. And every single poem and book since her first book with City Lights, Songs to Fernando (1968) has been an absolute contribution to a long life lived of many lovely books, each written with the heart of someone (you?) on the poet's sleeve. Calling a book "the finest" isn't meant to diminish the trail behind the poet; the trail is there, made by Janine and with many others she forever in the day wishes to acknowledge and uphold: whether stuck in prison where she has worked tirelessly since a young woman, poems as a citizen against the State, poems to the downcast and shadowed, the lovers (all becomes love), family homage, and the luxury of her poems from new and old Europe. If Janine's been there, anywhere, you'll know she might have a poem and you will want to hear it. Don't wait until she is gone and you can then say, I heard she was famous.  She's famous now. I said so.

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE

I learned a hundred lessons
in the garden
dig
deeper was the first

the least little root
of Jerusalem artichoke
carries a sturdy new
plant into April

like the vaguest hope for
a friend
buried, like a sliver of moon
in the heart in spring

there are hundreds of sun chokes
take more than you need
give them to people you've
never seen

look for me
in the garden laughing
and crying at once.

                                      Willow, New York, May 1999

Bob Arnold - poet; editor & publisher of Longhouse