John W. Schaum Piano Course: Pre-A : The Green Book

I have taught piano to children and adults for over 60 years. This is the only book I will use for starting beginners. Even when I taught adult classes for piano, this book brought about consistent success. Why? The notes are large. The pages are uncluttered with "talk." The exercises move from page to page in logical steps, not too big, not too fast. And most of all, the student can master the right hand alone and the left hand alone before the confusion of combining hands. This also means reading treble clef alone and bass clef alone before reading both clefs. Another solid feature of this book is that the answers are often at the top of the page where the student is shown what keys to use. Near the back of the book, exercises start to use two hands. Then there are six songs at the end for two hands that serve as recital type pieces. They are interesting, very melodic, and boost confidence. This book is so well constructed that a person can almost teach themselves. When my students go on vacation or miss lessons, I tell them to go back to the beginning and work their way up to the page they were playing on. This is a great review and works within minutes to put the student back on course. There are fancier beginner books and prettier piano books. But this book is an old reliable standard in which I have about 95 to 98% success with training young and old. From this they go into a book requiring two hands at once.

Item as promised and fast shipment. Very pleased with the book. It looks great, almost new, very good condition.

Outstanding

Purchased to begin piano lessons with my 5th child (age 5, recently learned to read words). Have used John Thompson's beginner books previously. (The one with the little monsters on them - books 1 and 2). Bought this because at the end of Thompson 1st grade book with other children, the jump to 2nd grade book seemed rather high, so I use Schaum's Blue book (B) for some of my kids and Thompson 2nd grade for others, depending on skill/preference. Decided to start the 5th child with both Schaum and Thompson books from the start. Great beginning lessons. Begins with learning finger numbers and 6 short melodies (copied from teacher's example playing). Learns the melodies without staff or note names. Note names added next, then staff added last. These melodies use all 5 fingers in each hand, but hands are played separately. Next song after this repetitive 6 mini-songs uses some of 5 fingers (notes middle C through E in right hand) and progresses back up. So far, we like it a lot and seemed easier to begin than Thompson, but the Thompson does a better transition of slowly explaining note values (whole, half, quarter) and position on staff. (one note value at a time, then one note at a time). Will be using both together, but this could totally be used by itself also.

I've used this book for many beginner piano students and it's easy to understand even for younger students! Highly recommend this book to teachers or parents looking for a simple to follow piano book.

I have used John W Schaum's Piano Course for students of varying ages (grades K - 8) for the past 18 years. I believe the course has a steady and logical progression, which can be easily complimented with other exercises and tools. I will sometimes change the order of songs after #10 and have on occasion skipped #34 - #36 when moving on to B - The Blue Book in this same series. This book follows a Pre A - The Green Book, which I usually use for students 10 and younger. I also use other methods e.g., Michael Aaron, John Thompson, Alfred, and Bastien but I like the John W. Schaum course for most of the age group I teach.

Good

65 years ago, I learned to play and love the piano with this line of teaching. I bought the set for an adult friend who wanted to start playing and it is a very easy method of learning with instructions, pictures, bits of history on the various composers and songs that are familiar. Learning notes, scales etc.

Very nice book describes each function and methods with brief techniques to be performed.

Excellent cahier pour cours de piano. Partitions de qualité. Merci.

Libro genial para niños o profes en colegios para enseñar canciones en ingles y acompañar a los niños con piano. Se lo pasan miy bien. Schaum es excelente!

Kaliteli ve kullanışlı bir ürün

A mi me gusta este método y este libro para empezar a estudiar piano es muy bonito y entretenido. Las melodias son muy simples pero bonitas. Trabaja aspectos técnicos básicos... Están en inglés las letras de las canciones.