Customer Reviews
Learned a lot. 
2008-04-30
This book should be for intermediate to advanced players with
reading skills.
The book is well bound, covers many different styles and theory,
also has cd and written music examples to play.
Almost through it, will read thru it a second time probably.
Recommended, but not for beginners.
Never received 
2008-01-22
Even though the supplier says that they shipped my order on 12/3/07, it is now 1/22/08 and I have yet to receive the book. It was shipped by the United States Postal Service and, according to my local USPS office, it went to the wrong place and is sitting in Philadelphia with an unknown delivery date. So - I've paid for merchandise that no one can help me retrieve.
Fantastic book for anyone w/ some musical background 
2007-12-21
This book is fantastic for anyone with a basic musical background who wants or needs to learn piano. Especially great for any musician who needs to add piano. It's hard to imagine how this book could be made better, it's so close to perfect now, and a tremendous bargain at this price!
Very bad binding 
2007-12-12
It is very difficult to use this book cause of the binding, the content is so so, want to learn, go with other books.
An excellent course for the "post-beginner" piano student 2007-11-22
I've found that this is a fantastic book for those, like myself, with prior musical backgrounds. While some reviewers here don't like the fact that there is not a wealth of simple, children's tunes here to teach them the fundamentals of the musical vocabulary, I find this refreshing and one of the reasons I appreciate it as much as I do.
There are plenty of books and methods available to teach beginning material such as the musical staff, clefs, sight reading, etc. through simple children's songs. Some reviewers seem to want that. I don't. I wanted a method that would teach me step by step how to play music on the piano by way of musical examples other than "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", Happy Birthday" and "Home On The Range" and the like.
I have found this book to be unique in that the author seems to respect the serious student by using simple yet interesting musical selections to comprise his beginner exercises. The author uses examples that present the fundamental beginning finger motions that one will need later on in their practicing and playing. The exercises provided, refreshingly, are NOT kid's tunes and are excellent in teaching these fundamental motions.
Some on here have complained about the lack of beginning material and that the author moves too quickly for beginners. It seems to me instead that the author actually expects each student to study and practice each exercise to perfection before moving on. By presenting a perfectly graded series of exercises that up the ante of challenge in just the right amount, I have found that my skills are increasing with each exercise I master.
I would recommend that one take their time with this course and thoroughly master each exercise to get the most out of it. I've gotten through the first 2 chapters in just about a month of daily practice and can't wait to continue working through the rest of this book.
Cognitive Dissonance 2008-06-29
This book's ambitions are tremendous within a single volume; perhaps that is the reason why it fails so monstrously. With the aim of giving the player footholds in classical, jazz, bebop, fusion and experimental music along with instruction in music theory, history and development of the modern piano dovetailed with biographies of immortal figureheads of music within the bound of 290 pages, each page is about another twenty laps around the track. What's worse is that in order to maintain its pace, the author must sacrifice valuable practice exercises designed not only to strengthen and improve performance and flexibility, but to give the player some confidence, especially for a beginner.
We are not all music prodigies, nor are we actors in a musical in which everything magically falls into place the second or third time after first becoming acquainted with the move. The book does come with a CD of how the music should sound. However, the paradigm moves as such a quick pace as to make the aspirant not only confused, but cringe at the height of the new summit of work to be called at least fairly performed.
To the beginning student, I would recommend this book only as a supplement beside a far more general piano book to serve as a test for particular skills and challenging music. For the more advanced student, still, I would urge him not to buy this since it mixes very general terms and skills with incongruous and brief music: it would be better to find a book that matched both musical difficulty with learned information.
Great for my purpose 2008-06-27
I am a professional pianist who wanted to get out of some bad habits.
Mr Humphrie's book takes you back to the beginning so you can undo bad habits and weaknesses you did not even know you had.
The CD is a marvellous drilling tool.
Set your CD player on repeat and you can drill until you get the the exercise right.
Yes,he progesses rapidly but if you are determined and dead serious about becoming as good as you can be,this book may be for you.
Beginner's Take 2008-06-13
This is a bit more advanced than I had anticipated. But as I move into it I find that I am learning very quickly and am impressed by the overall quality of instruction. Sometimes I have a few double takes where I don't fully understand something(I have 0 musical background) but I just pop on the internet for clarification. Using the book combined with various internet sites I'm progressing rapidly.
So if you are a beginner and are not easily intimidated go for this book. But know that it doesn't exactly hold your hand through the exercises.
Perfect book for the quick learner, hard-worker, and/or current musician 2008-05-18
I am a professional musician who never really got around to formally learning how to play the piano. I was looking for a book that didn't spend a lot of time introducing fundamental musical concepts and "cut to the chase" fairly quickly. This is entirely the case with this book. Although the highly motivated beginner music student could use this book, I think it's best for those who are coming to the instrument with some background knowledge of music as well as good practicing habits (as the book doesn't get into this at all). The range of subjects covered is really wide, and you really get into the "meat" of everything rather quickly. Highly reccommended!
Intense study 2008-05-05
Book starts out with a pictorial history, then moves into lessons. The lessons move quickly. Fortunately, there is a CD to let you hear how the music should sound. A lot of theory also. If you want to go a little slower, try "Play Piano Today!" by Hal Leonard.
Good section in book on buying a piano also (what to look for and buying a used piano).
