Customer Reviews
This Is The Piano Instruction Book You Want 
2008-03-12
Let's start off with some assumptions:
You have bothered to spend the few weeks it takes to learn how to read music, even if only slowly.
You are mainly interested in playing pop music (rock, country, soul, r&b etc.) as opposed to jazz or classical (not that this book can't help you with the latter as well).
You have noticed that most song books have what are called lead sheets that only have a treble clef melody line with chord letters over the bars of music, and lyrics.
You have gotten far enough with your keyboard playing that you can play some basic chords with your left hand and a melody with your right hand. Which is all that most songbooks show you how to do.
You have realized that on the recordings you listen to professional musicians seldom play a straight out melody with their right hands, and almost never while the vocalist is singing. Any more than guitar players play a melody, but instead play more interesting chord patterns for accompaniment.
This is the book that teaches you to play the way professionals do. In 88 pages no less. To put it as simply as possible, learn how to read music then get this book as the only book you need to learn how to play keyboards. Just as snowplowing is a useless skiing technique once you learn how to turn stop on skis, simply learning to play left hand chords and a right hand melody is nearly as useless a technique for actually accompanying a singer.
I say 'nearly' because there are in fact times when playing the melody line is fitting, but as your only right hand technique is frustrating and being stuck in a rut. This book gets you out of that rut and gives you the tools to strike off on your own with no musical limitations to hold you back. Man am I happy I found it. In retrospect I would gladly have paid $100 or more for this book when I first started.
Informative but annoying 
2007-11-27
I was reading the reviews for the book Piano for Dummies on Amazon. There was a lot of whining about the dire humor in the book which I thought was a coincidence because I had been working on this How To Play From a Fake Book and I was finding it so difficult because the so called funny bits were putting me off. Then I looked at the "writer" and realized they were one and the same! Boy! This guy is not funny in a major way. The information provided is fine and the idea behind the book is illuminating but it is trying to learn how to play the piano with a 12 year old sitting beside you on the stool trying to brighten things up with some of the lamest cracks you could imagine. Therefore three stars for this "book" and minus three for the hilarious gags. I do not think I will be going near the Piano for Dummies book. I Neely did. Geddit? Ho ho ho!
(Oh man, it's contagious.)
Great way to learn all the chords 
2007-11-02
If you're a self-learner who wants a very nice and gentle instruction on all the chord variants, this book is pretty good... it almost feels like you have a good-natured teacher sitting beside you. The book is interspersed with 50+ fake book songs, and comes with a chord reference chart, so it's hard to go wrong for the price.
However, it doesn't cover much more than block chords, so if you've learned all the chord variants already (or are going to learn them from the many websites), and don't care for the songs it includes, then this may not be the book for you.
Excellent book - easy to follow 2007-08-13
I played piano for over 40 years but couldn't tell one chord from another, I'd only learned to play from written music. This book explains basic chords, variations, inversions and more in a simple, straight-forward manner that makes using a fake book and improvising a fun challenge. It's also helpful in embellishing my current music. I'd highly recommend it! It's brought new life to playing piano.
Should get another half star, it's pretty good, 2007-04-02
This is not a bad book at all. My rating comes from comparing it to the similar "The Next Step" by Bradley Sowash and Scott Houston, to which I gave 4 stars. My complaints with this book are that, aside from the really dorky and thus grating attempts at humour, a few of the songs in this one are obscure to anyone under 50, and quite lame (Streets of Laredo and Simple Gift are two I had to track down and wished I hadn't), without being muscially interesting in any way. The treatment of the LH is not very in-depth. For general readability, TNS is much more engaging, and the goal of producing a full arrangement is kept more clearly in focus, particularly with respect to integrating the LH. So that's what How to Play from a Fake Book is weaker on: presentation and the big picture. Why buy it?
Here's what Neely's book has going for it: the section on chord types is MUCH more extensive than what you get in TNS and his "common tone" exercise is a great way to get the hands used to moving around the keyboard. There are some very entertaining songs to play that use minor and altered chords which take you to regions of keyboard geography you're just never going to get near with TNS. "Ain't Nobody's Bizness" is a great bluesy number to practice substitutions and swing rhythms on, for example. The book is more extensive and goes further than TNS, but the presentation just isn't as engaging as TNS. I'd say they complement each other. I find that I apply the approach to fake book playing from TNS, which I refer to for motivation, while I'm working through the more advanced material in "How to Play from a Fake Book". If you only want to buy one, which one? I'd say TNS if you're more of a beginner and Neely's book if you're a little more advanced, though at some point all you'll need is a decent fake book and a chord dictionary.
Pretty Good 2007-01-09
Ever wondered how to create better accompaniments for the melodies in your favorite fake books? This "teach yourself" book introduces you to chord building, various rhythmic styles, and much more, so that you play the songs you like just the way you want them. Keyboard players with a basic understanding of notation and sight-reading will be on their way to more fun with fake books. The relaxed tone of the text and selection of fun songs keep How to Play from a Fake Book entertaining throughout - perfect for amateur musicians, or as a supplement for keyboard teachers and their students.
King Of all Fake books! 2007-01-09
Awesome! If you want to play fake books this is a primer. 101 the best book especially if you haven't played much before. Well done for an awesome book! you get A for this!
A Good Book to Know What's up on a Fake Book 2006-08-05
I'm a Begginer student of keyborard and i found this book very helpful in my first steps of learning, and when you get a song with only a few letters in the top coded as "c#,a,c7" or something like that, now you may know what to do an even add your own style.
A good book 2006-04-18
I am a new piano player and I found this book very helpful. It described chords in such a way that I can now figure many of them out without looking in a book. I knew there was a logical pattern to chords which this book unlocks. The music examples are corny but the rest of the book is great. You will learn a lot with this book.
Easy to follow Guide 2006-03-10
I really liked this book, it is very easy to read and also easy to follow. I am already playing some very nice tunes!!
