Most of my reviews thus far have been online courses or large course packs you can buy. The market these days is flooded with piano books for beginners, so I looked and discovered a series I found interesting. The books are quite unique, good quality, very informative and great value.
The are known as Piano Time by Pauline Hall.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Price: From £7.49 on Amazon.
£8.95 on Oxford University Press Website.
(All prices at the time of writing)
Requirements: piano or keyboard – weighted keys preferable.
Pros: Traditional tuition book including reading music. Aimed at Young beginners, but anyone can benefit. 45 pages in initial book packed with techniques and songs.
Cons: No accompanying audio or video. Print only book, but a few Audio samples available from Oxford University Press Website.
Suitable For: Beginners, although intermediate players or those looking to refresh their skills may find useful.
Course content : ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Tutor knowledge/skill : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Customer support :⭐⭐⭐⭐
Value for Money :⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Acumen rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐
There are three tuition books available, but I will focus on book 1 for this review.
Other books included in the series include piano pieces 1, 2 & 3, carols and piano time Jazz.
Tuition format.
The first thing that strikes you is the illustrations and colour which break up the monotonous black and white feel a traditional text book would give you. This should appeal to children and won’t scare them away from learning.
The books can be used by the individual beginner (including an adult) or could be easily used by an accompanying teacher as a learning aid.
The books get straight to the point, learning the notes on the piano keyboard and there is an emphasis and getting the student to find notes themselves. This is a theme throughout the book with questions and puzzles. Children generally like quizzes, so it’s a fun and effective way of cementing what they’ve learned.
As I mentioned before, this is a traditional teaching method which includes learning to read music. The Treble and Bass clef are first shown on page 3, together with the symbols for music beats.
A whole page is dedicated to learning your first note – middle C – with small one line pieces on both the Treble and Bass clef. This sounds daunting to the beginner, but get’s you familiar with music manuscript very quickly. This format is then continued building your knowledge of notes on both the left and right hand, including small pieces to play.
The short pieces can be exercises, original pieces from Pauline Hall or traditional tunes. All the time. the illustrations continue. Books that I learned Trumpet while at School many years ago were dull black and white transcripts. It’s a challenge to get Kids to look at books these days with the competition of multimedia, but these books give it a good shot.
Other things you will learn.
The book continues with the development of music reading including
- Time signatures,
- Accents,
- Rests,
- Ties and
- Playing with Legato and Staccato.
Again, this sounds daunting to the beginner, but each is introduced in an informal manner. Flats and Sharps are introduced roughly halfway through the book
The book also includes music theory with
- different time signatures,
- introducing different keys
- chords
- Intervals and
- Scales.
Pieces then tend to get longer and more challenging as the book progresses through the halfway stage.
I find the pace of the book a good challenge and a student should take a measured approach not attempting difficult pieces before mastering the basics.
PDF samples from the book can be found here.
Audio samples for the book can be found here.
About the author
Pauline Hall taught privately and in schools after graduating from the Royal Academy of Music in London. She lived in the North of England and saw a need for tuition books aimed at youngsters that would make learning fun. Her first book Tunes for Ten fingers was a result of compiled tunes she wrote for her pupils in their notebooks. The Piano Time series tuition books and accompanying music books developed from this.
Conclusion.
If I had these books when I was a young student, I certainly would have found them invaluable. They teach a traditional method in a unique and fun way.
There is a lot of information and technique included in the 48 pages and is great value for money. I would like to see more support in terms of audio samples.
Including a CD or link to online audio files could be an idea – this has been done before with other material. This may push the costs up and take the theme away from being a traditional, print-only tuition method. Some people may not respond to print only and would prefer interactive learning on a computer or tablet.
But if you would like a good value tuition book, this is a great book and series and one I thoroughly recommend.
Other books in the series include
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