Total Piano: The Ultimate Guide to Learning and Mastering the Piano

by Terry Burrows

It's one of the most popular instruments ever--at the pinnacle of classical music, as well as a major player in blues, jazz and rock. And now, with the advent of the electronic synthesizer and MIDI-based sampled music, keyboard skills are more important than ever. Whether you're starting from scratch, or took now-forgotten piano lessons as a child, this is the idea guide for developing your talent. It's a self-contained audio-visual course, filled with easy-to-follow exercises that increase in complexity along with your ability. Over 1000 computer-generated samples of music, from classical to pop to heavy metal, appear diagrammatically, many of which you can listen to on the accompanying CD. The disc also has karaoke-style backing tracks so you can improvise over them. By the end of the lessons, you will have a thorough grasp of fundamental keyboard theory and skills--enough to work your way through several demanding classical and jazz solos...also included.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2002

Reviews

[J. Bhardwaj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing! The first book for the Piano enthusiasts!

[Stephen L. · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's a lot of typos that can confuse the student, but more importantly there are problems with CD that comes with it. The first 16 Tracks are totally useless since the pitch is majorly off, which would baffle anybody trying to learn from scratch.

It concerns me to the point of not being sure if I should continue reading/learning from it... If something as important as pitch is off by a such a great shot, and many words are incorrect, I wonder if more important information within the book is correct.

[Peter Donovan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting biographies of pianist's through the ages from classical to jazz add some flavour to the tedious theory behind learning to play the piano.

[Viv · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has an interactive cd and would be suitable for an adult beginner.

[James Piper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful intro to playing the piano.