Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Piano Selections [Paperback] Review

I have been playing violin for quite a while and just bought this book. There is a version that comes with a cd which is very helpful. Their are note in 3rd, 4th and 5th position but they are transposed down for those who can't play them. The most recognizable themes are there (harry's wonderful world and hedwig's theme) and a few that are hard to recongnize, such as dobby's theme (this is why the cd is so good). Since their are not that many copies on amazon.com, be sure to check out your local music store. Mine had a book for every instrament and also came with paino accompaniment!!

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Product Description:
Featuring stunning full-color photos from the hit movie throughout, this deluxe songbook contains 11 John Williams compositions arranged for piano solo: The Chamber of Secrets * Dobby the House Elf * Family Portrait * Fawkes the Phoenix * Flying Car * Gilderoy Lockhart * Harry's Wonderous World * Hedwig's Theme * Moaning Myrtle * Nimbus 2000 * The Spiders.

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Piano for Kids (Jewel Case) Review

This is a first-stage beginner's program with an excellent presentation.The cute characters provide a very good education about piano basics and how to play the piano.For the software version, screen animations provide a level of interest for kids.Recommended for age 6+, but I believe it could start younger for those that can read a little.The software version features printable sheet music, tempo adjustments, puzzles, games, and an option to download other free MIDI songs (but on Windows Vista with a broadband (cable internet) connection, this option did not work).SelectSoft/ArcMedia's website also did not produce a listing for free MIDI music downloads.If the download MIDI songs function works for you, this would be an excellent choice for long-term teaching.Piano for Kids (Jewel Case)Piano for Kids

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Product Description:
Meet Professor Rhythm and his staff: five cheeky characters who will open up the world of music and make playing the piano as easy as pie-ano. Children learn to readand play music with the help of an amazing magic piano that shows which notes to hit and when.
Features:

Adjust the tempo bar to match learning speed.
Left and right hand movements taught separately and together.
Watch the ladybug follow the notes as the tune is played back.
Look up musical terms in the glossary.
Well-known, recognizable tunes plus printable sheet music with finger positions and notes that kids can color.
Introduction to the basics of general music theory.
Puzzles, games and drag & drop exercises with fun sounds and animations to support the lessons.
The unique touch & click piano helps kids learn where the notes are onthe piano keyboard and the staff.

System Requirements for Windows

Windows 98, Me, XP
Pentium PC or faster
32 MB RAM (48 MB recommended)
100 MB free hard disk space
800x600monitor, 16-bit color
Windows-compatible sound card & speakers
2X CD-ROM drive (4X recommended)

System Requirements for Macintosh

Mac OS 7.5-9.2, OS X Classic mode
PowerMac or faster
32 MB RAM (48 MB recommended)
100 MB free hard disk space
800x600 monitor, thousands of colors
2X CD-ROM drive (4X recommended)

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The Music Tree (Part 2A) [Paperback] Review

As a piano teacher, I have been on the lookout for the perfect piano series for a long time.

The Music Tree has been the series I constantly return to. I have tried "Piano Adventures" and other books, but I find that the way this book teaches notes and rhythms helps students like no other.

Learning the songs in these books take effort, but kids learn their piano very well.The president of the college I take piano lessons from uses this series and highly recommends it.

Use the Music Tree. You will be grateful that you did.

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Product Description:
THE MUSIC TREE series continues the development of complete musicianship by providing the beginner with delightful and varied repertoire. The pupil learns a variety of idioms encompassing folk, jazz, and pop. The creativity of the students is emphasized since they are given musical segments to rearrange, transpose, complete or to use as the basis for a new composition. Technical aspects are also addressed including greater facility, blocked intervals and chords, and more hands together playing. Guided training steps are used to encourage intelligent practice skills.

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PianoHead Review

This is a Win/Win product for teachers and students.With over 30 years experience, and a large studio of successful students, I can attest that Piano Head taps into the quick visual perception both honed in today's youth by video games, and required by successful music readers.Kids are further motivated by the challenge to appear on the Worldwide Scoreboard, which entices them to practice their note and interval recognition to the desired level of automaticity.I have many students who have leapedto a higher level of understanding and enthusiasm forplaying the piano, as Piano Head has lifted them beyond the mundane level of "hunt and peck".At a time when national studies show that a large percentage of piano students drop out after two years of lessons because they cannot read music,I cannot recommend this product highly enough!

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Product Description:
This easy-to-use software product teaches fundamental music theory skills in a fun, game-like format. Explore self-paced practice areas for note recognition, scales, intervals and key signatures. A practice-and-play interface helps you learn through repetition, feedback, and increasing levels of difficulty. When you're ready to move on, play the PianoHead Challenge, a game that combines all of these skills in 16 challenging levels. An online scoreboard lists the top scores of players from around the world. PianoHead is not a replacement for a piano teacher or music education books, but it is a powerful supplementary tool for solidifying the foundational skills required to read and perform music.

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Piano Wizard Premier with Silver M-Audio Keyboard - Standard Version Review

I've had this Piano Wizard premier version for a year and a half now. My son has been practicing the piano 90 minutes a day with it. He is 8 years old, mentally retarded, and for the longest time I've had trouble finding something he could do. He could hardly even understand enough to appreciate toddler TV programs. The Piano Wizard is my son's first project of his life. It is an intuitive piano teaching system. You see the color dot on the screen, you press the corresponded colored key on the musical keyboard. The music's speed can be controlled so much that you can have it coming literally at a snail's speed such that even people with the worst reflexes have the time to find the right key to push.

That's how my son got started with Twinkle Twinkle, pushing one key at a time. There is no need to know how to read music at that point. However, music notation is still taught in the system. My video here shows my son playing the first level of a song, where the eggs go straight up exactly in the order of the layout of a piano's keys. This makes it possible even for him to figure out readily when to push which key. Once he's familiar with that, level two has the eggs going sideways, so it is a little less intuitive. Once my son gets the fingering down in level one, he doesn't have much trouble adjusting to level 2. Level 3 shows normal musical notes but still in the color system to indicate the keys. Then Level 4, which I show my son play here in the second half of the video, has just the normal musical notes. As you can see, my son adjusts to that rather well too.

The Piano Wizard premier version is extremely well designed with convenient features. You can set it so that it repeats any part of the song such that you play the difficult part again and again. You can stop the song anywhere and scroll it back to any other part and start right there. I use those two features all the time. It keeps count of how many keys my son missed and gives a score at the end, so I can just let my son practice while I do housework, then check the score to gauge his performance.

The easy level has 100 songs divided by difficulty into 10 levels. This video shows my son play a song in level 6. These songs have the fingerings already keyed in, which is another help for beginners. One can also input or edit any figuring easily for any song. It is also an easy matter to input ANY midi song into the Piano Wizard. I have downloaded free Disney and Star War songs and watch the notes go up inside the Piano Wizard. Learning to play them, however, is still a lot of work!

I use two keyboards with Piano Wizard: the one that came with the program, and a cheap Yamaha keyboard I bought around 6 years ago. Both keyboards work flawlessly with the Wizard in my XP desktop, but with my XP laptops sometimes the drivers fail, and out of the blue the Piano Wizard loses contact with the keyboard and I have to restart the computer to make things go again. But it is not a big problem for me.

The Piano Wizard with keyboard isn't cheap, but it's a lot cheaper than piano lessons. It is enough to get somebody going in learn to play at least up to medium level. I don't even know how to play the piano myself, and yet, by using the program, I have great fun teaching my son to play and watch him improve. I start him slow and gradually increase the speed until he can play at full speed. Who'd ever imagine that he could do this? And it takes me little time because once I get him going, he just practice until he gets good at it; I only have to supervise on occasion. Once you choose a speed, it will play again at the same speed until you change it, so it is really convenient.

In the end, this is easier than driving him to piano lessons even if you don't count the cost. When my relatives and friends watch my son play, they always exclaim, "Wow, you are doing so good with him!"

During the time my son's been playing the piano, his speech and understanding has also improved greatly. I don't know if the piano playing helped? But there is some evidence that music improves a child's intelligence. It's worth a try.

The Piano Wizard is an ingeniously designed system for somebody who wants to teach himself how to play. If even my son can do it, who can't? ( As long as one possesses basic motor skills and hand eye coordination.)

I highly recommend it to anyone.

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Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course, Duet Book Level 1 [Paperback] Review

This book is great for a teacher to accompany a beginner, but also for an intermediate student to learn the teacher portion. I teach two sisters and one is more advanced than the other. I was able to use this book with both of them and it was great! They could really enjoy working together and be equally challenged while enjoying a beautiful piece.

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Product Description:
As with all Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course materials, the Duet Books correlate exactly with Lesson Books 1 and 2. The duet parts are delightful accompaniments which serve to enhance the student's part. Adults will find the pieces fun to play, musically rewarding and very motivational.

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Alfred's Basic Adult All-in-One Course: Christmas Piano Book (Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course) [Paperback] Review

I'm thrilled with the results I am achieving with Alfred's Basic Adult All-In-One Course.
Before starting this course I simply knew what a piano looked and sounded like let alone where Middle "C" was.

Be sure to buy the books with their CD's where provided. It's helpful to hear the pieces played giving one an idea of the appropriate tempo to achieve. Having mastered level one I'm now deep into level two including Broadway Hits, Christmas Song and Alfred's Basic Adult Jazz/Rock Course. I also use Alfred's Basic Adult Finger Aerobics. I've been going it alone now for 15 months.

If you are hiring a piano teacher to help you with this course he/she can guide you with regard to tempo along with much more I presume.

Remember this is the All-In-One Course.There are other and older Alfred's Basic Adult courses be careful to look for this specific course.

[...]

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Product Description:
These collections by one of our most popular composers are full of easy solo arrangements of favorite Christmas carols for adults who are studying Alfred's Adult All-in-One Course, Books 1 and 2.Each selection will bring enjoyment and inspiration to lift holiday spirits!

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Maran Illustrated Piano [Paperback] Review

For all the many self-help, how-to books published The Maran Family has polished the book-led guide to learning to a fare-thee-well. This well-conceived and very well written book is an excellent introduction to the joys of sitting down in front of a piano keyboard and actually creating music instead of fantasies.

As one of the maranGraphics books (others include such wide ranging topics as Weight Training, Computer Guides, Dog training, Guitar, Yoga, and Knitting and Crocheting!), this volume uses the technical consulting of Frank Horvat, a composer, performer and piano teacher, and then applies the approach to the keyboard in a highly visual series of photographs and schematics that begin a survey of the types of keyboard instruments, the history of the piano, and progress to the basics of what makes a piano make music and ultimately walks the willing student through a very sound technique of learning.

As a life-long pianist I am amazed at the facility developed in this beautifully designed book.For those who question learning to play the piano by a 'how to' book, just peruse the careful steps and clarity of instruction offered by this helpful guide.Much musicology is included and many examples of fine piano music are used in the lessons.Whether it is the classical route you wish or the popular medium of chord based music or the intricacies of blues and improvisation, the steps are here.At the end of the book is a fine discussion on how to choose your piano from the many types that exist and even a discussion on the various periods of piano music history (although brief these are succinctly to the point).

Terrific for the adults who moan 'if I'd only taken lessons as a child' as well for the young students who are willing to commit to the goal of learning to 'make their own music', this Illustrated Guide to the Piano is a solid source of didactics.And for those addicted to the computer, there are even "MP3 files available to listen to and play along with for all the chords, scales, exercises and practice pieces in this book."Truly a book for the 21st Century!Grady Harp, June 05

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Product Description:
Produced by the award-winning maranGraphics group, Maran's Illustrated Guide to Piano is a valuable resource to a wide range of readers-from people who want to play a few songs for their family in the living room to those who aspire to become serious musicians. Maran's Illustrated Guide to Piano shows the reader the best way to perform each task, while the full-color photographs, music examples and clear, step-by-step instructions walk the reader through each task from beginning to end. Thorough topic introductions and useful tips provide additional information and advice to help enhance the readers' piano experience. Maran's Illustrated Guide to Piano is packed with essential information for readers who are sitting down in front of a piano for the first time, and will provide more experienced players with a refresher course on the basics and the opportunity to add more advanced techniques to their repertoire. Maran's Illustrated Guide to Piano will cost less than the price of one private piano lesson and will be a permanent resource that will provide years of enjoyment.

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Learning to Play Piano: Book 1 [Paperback] Review

My five years old daughter started practising piano. It is a very good book. Our piano teacher advised us. Also my daughter likes the drawing on the pages.

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Product Description:
This new, four volume piano course presents a fresh, unhurried, and sound approach to piano study. It offers a veritable treasure of delightfully melodic, inventive repertoire to illustrate and correlate technique, theory, and musicianship.

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