This compact edition of BASIC PIANO FOR PLEASURE will have you playing in no time with its accessible and comprehensive tools! The authors present vital keyboard skills in a smooth, carefully calibrated progression that makes you feel comfortable learning to play the piano. By the end of the first chapter, you will play a Hilley arrangement of "Amazing Grace," and a piece written especially for this title by Lynn Freeman Olson. Subsequent chapters build your confidence by offering a consistent synthesis of keyboard skills, music theory, and creativity. Olson's original and appealing musical selections consistently complement Hilley's legendary teaching skills. As a result, you will learn difficult piano skills as you experience the excitement of playing old favorites.

Skyhorse Publishing is proud to revive Playing Piano for Pleasure. With the wonderful writing one would expect from a longtime New Yorker reporter, Piano aficionado Charles Cooke, offers concrete routines for improving your piano performance. A pleasant and constant cheerleader, Cooke asks readers to practice every day, suggesting that they work through just that section time and again until it is perfect. In addition to his own thoughts, Cooke includes material from his interviews with master pianists, artists, and writers. The result is a book that should be cherished for years to come.

Now you can master Bach’s most beautiful prelude—even if you’ve never sat down at a piano before! Do you have a piano (or keyboard) and forty-five spare minutes every day? Then spend the next six weeks with acclaimed concert pianist James Rhodes. By the end, you’ll be able to perform Bach’s Prelude No. 1 in C major—no prior musical experience required! Rhodes reveals How to Play the Piano step by step—how to read the treble and bass clefs as well as sharp and flat notes, and then how to practice—before teaching the Prelude in easy, bite-size segments. His method is free of tedious drills, and filled with inspiration: “If listening to music is soothing for the soul, then playing music is achieving enlightenment.” Before you know it, not only will you have learned how to play one of Bach’s most beloved masterpieces—you also will have unleashed your creativity, exercising your mind (and fingers) and accomplishing something you never thought possible. Bravo! Includes four instructional videos supported by select e-reader devices.

Ten progressively advanced sections, each with notations and keyboard diagrams, make up a new approach to learning how to play the piano quickly and pleasurably, with no scale exercises and a minimum of memorization

The Guardian editor and amateur pianist’s account of a remarkable musical challenge during an extraordinary year for news. As editor of the Guardian, one of the world’s foremost newspapers, Alan Rusbridger lives by the relentless twenty-four-hour news cycle. But increasingly in midlife, he feels the gravitational pull of music—especially the piano. He sets himself a formidable challenge: within a year, to fluently learn Chopin’s magnificent Ballade No. 1 in G minor, arguably one of the most difficult Romantic compositions in the repertory. With pyrotechnic passages that require feats of memory, dexterity, and power, the piece is one that causes alarm even in battle-hardened concert pianists. Under ideal circumstances, this would have been a daunting task. But the particular year Rusbridger chooses turns out to be one of frenetic intensity, beginning with WikiLeaks’ massive dump of state secrets and ending with the Guardian’s revelations about widespread phone hacking at News of the World. “In between, there were the Japanese tsunami, the Arab Spring, the English riots . . . and the death of Osama Bin Laden,” writes Rusbridger. The test would be to “nibble out” twenty minutes per day to do something totally unrelated to these events. Rusbridger’s subject is larger than any one piece of music: Play It Again deals with focus, discipline, and desire but is, above all, about the sanctity of one’s inner life in a world dominated by deadlines and distractions. Praise for Play It Again “An absorbing, adroitly crafted tale of humility, discipline and the sheer love of music . . . [Alan Rusbridger’s] triumph is an inspiration.” —Katie Hafner, The New York Times Book Review “A unique mélange of political and musical reportage . . . [Alan Rusbridger] illuminates not only print media in this digital age but also the changing role of the music within.” —Iain Burnside, The Observer (London)

Great modern teacher and pianist's concise statement of principles, technique, and related material. Includes 10 musical examples.

Eighty-three popular piano classics arranged for the beginning student are accompanied by a short history of each piece and advice on playing each arrangement.5NjBwBT