Learn to Play Piano in Six Weeks or Less Spiral-bound – March 3, 2009

I've played guitar for many years, and have been interested in learning a little about improvising music on keyboards. I'm not at all interested in learning to play traditional classical piano pieces, and have only a little interest in playing popular piano music written by other people. What I'd like to do is learn to create my own music on keyboards, and play along with other musicians at jams and song circles.With that background and for my purposes, this book by Dan Delaney has been excellent. The author teaches you, bit by bit, how to find the notes needed to construct chords, by showing you first where to find the root note, then where to find the corresponding major seventh note, and so on. The idea is that over time you learn to recognise and find the notes you need on the fly, with either hand. This lets you split chords across both hands, so you can create a full sound. The book also shows you how to play melodies with your right hand.I find this much more powerful than either of the two approaches I've seen before - either learning to sight-read chords from sheet music, or trying to memorise lots of different chord shapes. Instead you learn how to actually construct music, starting with the simplest elements, and building up from there. This lets you create something simple right away, and as you progress, you learn to create fuller and more interesting music by adding to what you already know.I've only worked through the first few lessons in the book, but already I'm excited by the fact that I'm making more interesting sounds than I used to. I'm also learning about some of the differences between guitar and keyboard, in particular, the amazing amount of control a keyboard gives you over the fine details of chord construction - you can put any note of the chord just about anywhere you like on the keyboard, something you cannot even dream of doing on a guitar.If your goal is to play classical or popular pieces note-for-note from a written score, this may not be the book for you. This book is also not a gripping read in itself - it's a bit dry and broken down into bite-sized lessons that show you what to do without a lot of extraneous words or narrative. The information you need is there, but not presented in a particularly interesting way.However, if you're like me, have an analytical bent, and want to learn to create your own music while also learning some of the music theory scaffolding on which music is built, you are likely to enjoy this book and find it very helpful.-Gnobuddy

Looking forward to my kids learning how to play. I might use it too. I recommend.

This was a good book for beginners; it gets you pass a certain level. Then you ask yourself which book should I get now to reach my goal. Don't get me wrong it is a good book for those who are just starting off, but I wanted to go further in a book.

Can't give a complete review yet since I've only worked my way through week 4, but so far it's been interesting. First my background. I've played guitar for many years but no piano/keyboard. Before I started this book I knew some basic chord theory but did not read music. Six weeks or less is pretty aggressive to master this material. To learn the material that fast would require at least one of three things: 1) You had a good piano foundation to start. 2) You were extremely gifted. 3) You spent 2 to 3 hours a day working on it. I didn't have any of those things going for me so I decided to spread out the lessons. I spend 2 or more weeks on each lesson and don't work ahead until I feel comfortable with that weeks material. That being said I am learning to sight read music and am learning piano in a manner I never could have come up with on my own. The material can be tough and it's often not that fun, but you're learning professional techniques which when mastered sounds pretty good. I'm about 2 months in now and I'm no master but looking back there's been a lot of progress made. The book should probably be re-titled "Learn to Play Piano in Six Lessons". Worth the price of admission, but you need to be disciplined to push through the hard stuff.

This is supposed to be a beginner book. I found it a little more advanced than beginner level because the beginner lessons included chord signatures but i dont remember seeing them fully an explain and introduced first. Thats not beginner in my opinion. So far I am disappointed.

Book is well done and illustrated!

I've been "learning" to play piano off and on for about 25 years, definitely a slow learner. This method takes a different approach than any other I've tried. In the end I believe you'll not just play better, but will know more about music structurally and be better able to improvise. With this caveat--it's aimed at students who will be playing from fake book style arrangements, just the treble clef. Definitely not for classical students. There's also online citations so you can listen to how each piece and exercise should be played.

Didn't think I could don. books it was fun. With the right