Piano The Books

If you're at the beginner/intermediate level, this is a good book to pick up on after you finish your Mel Bay Deluxe Accordion Method book. ;)

I've only mastered (well, learned, anyway) a couple of the songs, but 100 songs for this price ain't bad.

I have used these arrangements for student quartets, and as a soloist in professional settings (weddings, pubs, etc) with guitar/mandolin (the chords are written in) A great celtic sound, foot-stopping but fairly easy arrangements.

i was pleased with this book - fun to play- great value- good assortment of songs entertaining. i combine these with hymns and use them as offertories and preludes for church. much fun.

This is one of the best flute books with accompaniment CD that I have owned. You can choose between a piano accompaniment track or a pipe organ track. The pipe organ sounds fantastic. It does not sound like a fake computer-generated organ sound. Each hymn is arranged so that you play the melody on the flute one time and then the organ gets the melody and you play a descant on the flute. I like it because it's written in a great key for flute. Some of my flute books go too high. It's not that I can't reach the high notes, but I just don't ALWAYS want to HAVE to play those super high notes in church. The descants are not too hard, but they're interesting enough so that you won't get bored. You can play this music just for fun or at church. It sounds really great.
It's a good Hymn selection too. There are a few hymns that I haven't found in any other flute books with CD's. I really love "The Church's One Foundation."

"Jazz Album for Piano" is a fascinating collection of original pieces composed in the styles of various major artists in the field of jazz piano. Logically, this begins with Scott Joplin (1868-1917) and goes through Bill Evans (1929-1980). With short biographical sketches before each piece, the player can learn about each composer's place in music history before learning the music. The chronological order of the pieces also clearly demonstrates how this style of music evolved over the course of about a hundred years. Unlike Stefanuk's previous "Jazz Piano For the Young Beginner," these twelve pieces are fairly advanced, requiring good sight-reading skills and a solid understanding of rhythms. Most of the pieces are written in easy key signatures, but several have a lot of accidentals as well as dense chords. For the student with a good ear, the accompanying CD will be of tremendous help. The pieces were recorded by Stefanuk on piano with a simple percussion back-up. Hearing the more abstract pieces and more difficult rhythms before they tackle the music or while they are learning it will be a big help for many pianists. Along with Joplin and Evans, the composers who are referenced are Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Count Basie, Pete Johnson, Duke Ellington, Erroll Garner, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubeck, and Thelonius Monk. For the aspiring jazz pianist, this is a great book for getting the feel for how these jazz composers differed in style without having to buy a book of music by each composer. These pieces are somewhat easier than the composers' "real" music, but it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to go from this book to Joplin's easier original compositions. I had a lot of fun playing through this book, and recommend it to pianists looking to explore jazz and its history in one concise album.

Mel Bay Paino Chords Made Easy is a good study guide for learning
piano chords.

I've been enjoying this collection. It is different from other collections in that the pieces aren't published as they were originally. But the arrangements are still pleasant. My favorite thus far is the "Yellow Rose of Texas".

This book presents a large number of songs, many not well known, and suprisingly beautiful and melodic. There is a respect for Burns and an apreciation of history and accuracy. The arrangements are unusually excellent, often simple, and so intriguing and exactly right -- sometimes pleasantly quirky -- beautiful.

This is described as a pocket book, and it is. Don't buy it if your eyesight is poor. My daughter has young eyes and she loves it, and it carries easily in a pocket for portability. Lots of songs inside, including many common, identifiable tunes to play. I'm giving it 5 stars because it is exactly as described, and quite useful in that sense.

This is fairly challenging melodic banjo playing but not totally unplayable for intermediate players. The fingerings Alan Munde chooses tend to flow as efficiently as possible. The songs have an excellent groove. The CD is a bonus and a genuine listening pleasure because it has both Alan Munde and Joe Carr playing each tune at performance tempo. A number of these tunes don't show up much in bluegrass jam sessions, but they are very fun to play and will give you some neat licks to expand your approach to arranging banjo tunes melodically.