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I love the Popular Repertoire series in all the levels of the books. For younger students, (preK/K), see Music for Little Mozarts by Alfred. If students find Alfred's pace challenging, Faber helps fill in the gaps. Working on the black keys for a few weeks gives young fingers the opportunity to play sooner, and gain coordination.
These come in a variety of genres like Classical, Popular, Jazz, Ragtime, Rock, Children's Favorites, Hymns, (Hebrew Favorites only in Chordtime), I like to use as many as possible in the early years and then focus in on what student shows an interest in for later study.Later versions of the Faber books teach higher notes on the treble staff that Alfred misses. These books come in a system that you can self select, definitely start with the Lesson book. I always recommend the recital book for extra songs (no one wants to play or hear the same four to eight measure song over and over again for a week between lessons, too much repetition leads to boredom). I've been teaching for over 12 years and I use the Faber Piano Adventure series, starting with Primer level for young students, usually 5-7 years old. Try starting 5 min per year old for the lesson and 1 song per year old per week, and see how it goes. These have come and gone out of print, but have recently come back into print.I use the Faber books as a bridge with another series called Alfred Basic Piano library.
It also teaches "Middle C position" where both thumbs are on middle C (the singing range of most young children), on the staff earlier in the primer level. This allows use of the fabulous set of Faber books in the Pre-time (primer), Playtime (level 1 five finger melodies), Showtime (level 2A-just outside the comfort zone), Chordtime (2B-wait for fingers to mature to play 3 note chord progressions-but are really the best in the series), Funtime (3-more challenging) and Big Time (usually used around level 4-5).
A five year old can sit and play for 1/2 hour on about 5 short pieces, with some singing, clapping, and other activities. For more information see piano and voice teacher drives 2 you web site.The primer level starts slowly, but shows overall good use of the keyboard, even before the student starts learning the note names.
But the Alfred books are very good at teaching intervals sight reading. Just look at the covers for names of the songs.
They are all well known tunes the students love. My feeling about these books is that you want more books that keep the pace nice and even, if there are a few songs that seem too similar, and the student is ready to move on, move on, but more often than not, the extra songs give a student many opportunities for sight reading, which is really what I try to teach.
Whereas a nine year old can sit for about 45 minutes, and has no problem with 9-10 songs a week.Give your child the gift of reading music as you would reading books.
I've been teaching piano for several decades, using various lesson series over the years. They really have some nice compositions for beginners, pieces that students enjoy and those they share the house with like too. I really like the Faber Piano Adventure series. While I supplement with pieces from other publishers occasionally, Faber is the best overall. The pace of the lessons is very nice also, allowing the student to play plenty of pieces well in a reasonable length of time. Overall, the Faber series has plenty of really fun and intriguing pieces of music for teaching the student to play piano, hold the students interest, and foster the appreciation of good music.
Wouldn't hurt to have one of these on hand even if you didn't assign it to a student (since most young students find it a bit daunting to have a theory book, lesson book, performance book, technique and artistry book). I find, though, that the Fabers offer an at-times confusing array of products (a criticism of how they have named or organised their materials, not a criticism of the product). Good book, good material. If you have other Faber materials, like the lesson book or classics book, these lessons dovetail with those. This book is not essential, but is good for students who are motivated and want to become more serious performers. That said, I do find myself working the lessons from this book into my other students' instruction - which is good for all of us. For example, the first lessons in this book deal with staccato and legato techniques, which are features of the first lessons in the lesson book and the classics in the classics book, not to mention the theory stuff in the theory book. Also included is stuff on how to hold your wrist, which is not mentioned in the other books.
Not only the name was written in pen, the pages were also drawn with pen randomly, making a few pages unusable. I purchased this book for a student of mine. In the description it said the book was used but the only sign of that was the name of prior student written in pencil on the first page. I wanted to return the product but I was on a strict timeline and did not have the luxury to order and wait for another book. Needless to say, this was a very disappointing experience.
Very happy with the book. It has added pieces so that someone can work at their level for a longer period of time.
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