Hal Leonard Corporation John Thompson's Easiest Piano Course - Complete

Wow!Just received this item through, and I am already excited to facilitate trying it out. The problem is I do not actually have an instrument at the moment I'm afraid! I have long yearned to be able to play the piano (even badly!), but I did not learn as a child, and unfortunately never found the time during my working life.Thus, now I am retired, I really have no excuse and have been "plotting" a "beginning". As I know I will eventually purchase an instrument, I thought it politic to see what was out there re self-teaching materials, so I have to confess I have already purchased a disturbingly largish pile of books and other materials to date. This item was last admittedly on my list, as I deemed it was primarily aimed at small children in view of the funny characters exhibited to accompany the text, but, I have to say I was wrong and it is the item that has impressed me the most.Firstly, the item is brilliantly presented. It looks like a large plastic book, and contained neatly within are four cd's and the four tutor books. Very easy to access all materials, and they are all clearly marked which always helps. I read through the first book last night whilst the wife was watching the telly, and I noticed at once how cleverly the book has been laid out and written. Nothing forbidding or difficult to grasp, and it really makes you feel you cannot wait to begin. I have not played any of the cd's as yet, but I am sure they will prove as good as the books themselves.Of course, as I do not actually play the piano, and also have not even acquired an instrument as previously disclosed, this review has to be necessarily lacking in usefulness to other prospective purchasers - so apologies in advance. However, I am delighted with the purchase, and considering the price paid, if this course succeeds in allowing me to fulfil a lifelong yearning, it will be cheap at the price indeed.Highly recommended.

This book is highly recommended by the many piano tutors. As a parent with no musical ability, I can follow the instructions and support my kids to practise easily.Before, we used another book recommended by another instructor. OMG, it was mess for me and to the kids.

My 8 year old son started working his way through book one from the beginning one morning, after i'd left the books oportunistically placed for some time. Within 6 days, he had followed his way through book one, and gained the knowledge in a way that stacked up logically, so he was easily on to book two which took longer to get through but still was enjoyable and kept him interested. Book three is quite a jump - though he is doing this on his own without anyone else's input, at his leisure. I would definitely recommend it as suitable for anyone, it was useful as a recap and the illustrations are quite amusing, they don't get in the way of a more serious flit through it. It does seem very comprehensive, nothing gets missed out. All that said my son is quite an avid learner and doesn't have the distractions of TV and computer games so he has had a really good go at it - it's saved me a fortune in piano lessons and we had a teacher check on his progress and he seemed confident the books are doing the job on their own!

Having recently purchased the full set as we have two children learning at different stages it was cheaper.The CDs are fantastic support for practice at home after lessons.But our son came home rather worried as he said ' The words are wrong' The terminology used in the books we have been sent is American not English so instead of saying 'bar' it says 'measure' The name of the notes are all incorrect for UK teaching, It says 'Whole Note' not 'Semibreve', 'Half Note' instead of 'Minim', 'Quarter Note' instead of Crotchet and others which has caused some confussion. Luckily we have a very patient and good teacher who has pencil corrected the words BUT our 8year old is not adapting to the correct words well so we are going to need to cover the incorrect words which is a shame to spoil such nice books. Our daughter who alreday reads music is not having any issues.So the books are in English writing but American terminology.

Happy to see my daughter playing songs already so easy for her