Mastering the Keys: A Beginner's Guide to Piano Playing

by Donald Hays

"Mastering the A Beginner's Guide to Piano Playing" is a comprehensive guide for pianists of all skill levels. It covers everything from the basics of piano technique and reading music to advanced concepts such as scales and modes, chords and harmony, and improvisation. The book also delves into practice strategies, performance skills, and repertoire development, making it an essential resource for anyone looking to improve their piano playing.

One of the unique features of this book is its focus on ear training. This is a crucial aspect of piano playing that is often overlooked, but is essential for playing by ear, improvising, and developing a good sense of timing and rhythm. The book includes a variety of ear-training exercises and techniques to help pianists improve their listening skills and become more musically expressive.

The book also covers a wide range of styles, from classical to jazz, pop, and rock, making it an excellent resource for pianists who want to expand their musical horizons. The section on playing different styles of music provides valuable insights into the different techniques and approaches used in various genres, and offers suggestions for repertoire and practice strategies.

Another important aspect of the book is its emphasis on practice techniques and strategies. It includes tips and advice on how to practice efficiently and effectively, as well as guidance on how to overcome common obstacles and overcome plateaus.

The book also includes a section on performance skills, which is essential for pianists who want to take their playing to the next level. It covers everything from stage presence and musicianship to sight-reading and accompaniment, and offers valuable tips and advice on how to prepare for and deliver a successful performance.

The book also covers music theory and composition, which is crucial for pianists who want to understand the underlying structure of music and create their own compositions. The section on sight-reading is also very useful for pianists who want to improve their ability to read sheet music quickly and accurately.

Finally, the book concludes with a section on piano lessons for beginners. This section provides a solid foundation for anyone who is new to the piano and offers valuable advice on how to get started and progress quickly.

Overall, "The Piano An In-Depth Guide to Mastering the Piano" is an essential resource for pianists of all skill levels. It offers a wealth of information and resources on piano technique, ear training, practice strategies, performance skills, and much more. Whether you're a beginner or an advanced pianist, this book will help you improve your playing and achieve your musical goals.

48 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 13, 2023

About the author

Donald Slaven Hays aka: “Skip” Hays

Arkansas author Donald Slaven “Skip” Hays has published novels and short stories as well as edited an anthology of Southern short stories. He served as director of the Programs in Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) from 1998 to 2013. Hays is most noted for his novel The Dixie Association, written in 1984 and reprinted as part of the Louisiana State University Press’s series Voices of the South (1997).

Skip Hays was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on June 14, 1947. His father, Donald E. Hays, a chief petty officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II, returned to Arkansas with his family to farm and work in a furniture factory. His mother, Mary Slaven Hays, taught school. Hays and his brother, Philip, grew up in Van Buren (Crawford County) in the midst of a huge family of grandparents, aunts, and uncles who loved to tell a good story.

As a young boy attending school in rural Arkansas, Hays read voraciously. His mother encouraged his reading, often borrowing books for him at the library at Fort Chaffee (Sebastian County). Hays earned a BA in English from Southern State College (now Southern Arkansas University) in Magnolia (Columbia County) in 1969.

Soon after graduation, Hays faced being drafted by the military to serve in Vietnam. He believed that “people should never be asked to fight and die for a cause as vague” as the one in Vietnam. He was granted status as a conscientious objector and served two years in alternative service as a psychiatric aide at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Medical Center. The painful choices his generation made regarding Vietnam became a recurring theme in his writing.

Hays married Patricia Chambers on September 28, 1968, and the couple has one son. The young family lived near Mountainburg (Crawford County), where Hays wrote a novel about Cabeza de Vaca, a sixteenth-century century Spanish nobleman who led survivors of a failed expedition through Florida and the southwest. Although the 900-page manuscript written over three or four years was never published, the experience taught Hays much about storytelling and perseverance. For eight years, he played semiprofessional baseball on Cape Cod and in eastern Oklahoma while holding other jobs, such as the two years he worked in Van Buren as a social worker with foster children and with abused or neglected children and juveniles.

Hays received an MFA in creative writing at UA in 1983. His first published novel, The Dixie Association (1984), about an Arkansas minor league baseball team, loosely based upon the Arkansas Travelers, was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1984. The Dixie Association centers upon ex-convict Hog Durham and his ragtag teammates who play minor league baseball for the Arkansas Reds. Critics have called this witty, satirical, Southern baseball novel sacrilegious, exquisitely funny, and occasionally poetic. The 1997 reprinting of the novel in the Voices of the South series recognizes The Dixie Association’s established position in the history of Southern fiction.

Hays’s other works include the novel The Hangman’s Children (1989) and Stories: Contemporary Southern Fiction (1989), edited by Hays. His short story “Dying Light” was reprinted in New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best (2003). His most recent work, Dying Light and Other Stories (2005), is a collection of Hays’s short stories. In 2006, he was awarded the Porter Prize, Arkansas’s premier literary award. He retired from UA in 2013.


Mary Hawks
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Library