Keyboard & Piano Instruction Books
Many instruction books provide a self-study of the piano so you can learn at your own pace. These piano lesson books include those centered on basic skills, advanced topics like music theory and improvisation, and songbooks of sheet music.
What topics do essential skills books cover?A good essential skills piano lesson book covers music theory, scales, chord charts, and provides a history of composers. It should teach topics in small, short lessons that focus on only one topic at a time. Each book or book series differs in its approach, so it is important to review the contents of the book and determine which presents the material in the simplest way for you to understand.
Who authors these types of books?Many of today’s piano masters author piano instruction books. This includes Leonard Bernstein, C. L. Hanon, Hal Leonard, John Williams, James Bastien, David Carr Glover, and John Thompson. Some, like Bernstein, Leonard, and Hanon, have written a one-off book while others, such as Thompson, have written a series.
What age groups do these books target?You can find piano instruction books for every age group. Many series target young players, beginning their first instruction book targeted at pre-school aged children. These build on one another, some going to year 12. Other books are designed for adult learners and present the equivalent of numerous books in one, longer tome. Both target audiences will have short songs included in their books.
What other types of keyboard & piano instruction books are there?In addition to lesson books, you will also find songbooks and fake books. The former contains full songs using musical notation, also called piano sheet music books, while a fake book includes the lyrics, melody notes, and chord symbols to a variety of songs. Both types of these books come in various genres, such as blues, gospel, jazz piano, and rock.
You can also obtain instructional piano DVDs that accompany some instruction books or songbooks. You can find modern instruction or songbooks or vintage ones. Some older books remain popular with teachers such as Bernstein’s and Hanon’s. You can find lots of vintage piano instruction books so you can purchase an entire series of like-new books at once or a mixed lot of instruction and songbooks. Some advanced instruction books focus on synthesizers and keyboards, teaching topics such as funk keyboards or bebop jazz.