The Best Piano Books for Beginners and Advanced Players

Recently, have you been finding your piano sessions quite boring? Or are you not able to practice or revise the notes taken a long time ago? Well, hold on. You need not worry about it. We recommend you to purchase the best piano books for this purpose. They are the perfect guide to let you know about your current skill levels and will push you harder into learning new skills daily. Now, if you are wondering as to which books will suit you the most, then for that you can refer to the rest of the article.

We have enlisted down the names of 5 best piano books available in the market. Each of them comes with a wide range of content along with easy-to-understand language. They also come with several practice problems for checking your overall progress.

Factors to look for while purchasing the best piano books

• Piano Fingering: As we all know, in the language of piano, piano fingering refers to the act of correctly using your fingers for playing every note of a particular song. Therefore, make sure that your chosen variant teaches you about proper finger and hand positioning. This is considered to be very essential for those who are in the beginners’ phase. The best piano books must include correct piano fingering techniques.
• Piano Scales: This is again one of the most important contents that must be included in your book. Studying piano scales helps one to develop skills necessary for laying the foundation of one’s understanding of music.
• Theory of Music: Every language comes with some sort of grammar rules. In the same way, the language of music also comes with some set of rules. Therefore, it must be noted that your chosen book can teach you well about different rhythms, melodies, and harmonies.
• Learning Exercises: It is very important to take assessment tests after you are done with a particular topic. Therefore, best piano books must come with a series of songs for practicing with difficulty levels increasing gradually. These learning exercises are very important for improving one’s dexterity. Also, it boosts technical proficiency and hand independence.
• Practice CDs: This is again one of the important features that you must look for in your best piano books. Make sure that your book comes with CDs and DVDs of various songs in different genres. Practice CDs help teach you about the basics and you can even practice along while playing the CD on your laptop.

1) Piano and Keyboard All-in-One for Dummies

This book is one of the go-to reference books for every aspiring and budding keyboard player and pianist. It makes the learning sessions easier and a lot more fun than usual. Now, composing music can be an activity-filled with excitement and thrills.

This book is perfect for those who are struggling to read music. It comes with an easy-to-understand language that explains every basic related to the theory of music in a friendly way. It also teaches how to apply the knowledge to your keyboard and piano set. Also, if you used to take piano lessons since childhood but haven’t played for quite a long time or you have been playing around for a while but sometimes things go wrong, then you can refer this book as well.

 It comes with a series of valuable tips that can improve your overall playing skills. Not only this, but it can also be a kind of refresher course to your music learning curriculum. This source of indispensable knowledge comes with the best combination of Dummies books. This includes books namely Piano Exercise for Dummies, Music Theory For Dummies, Keyboard for Dummies, Piano for Dummies. All these books are the best means to get you up from your bed and take you to your music room.

These reference books can be used to master the skill of playing those traditional black and white variants of keys with excellence. Not only this, but it provides the learners with the opportunity to understand every single possibility that unfolds whenever those black and white keys are used to create music. On opening the book, one can find tips on choosing your piano and how to take care of it. Reading notes are also provided to understand the beats.

It also comprises of a section dealing with how to start playing using one hand at a time. It also provides a good exploration of every genre of music. In addition to this, it even comprises of exercises for developing your playing techniques. It also tells about the skinny electronic keyboard effects and even comprises of tips on how to play using keys and recordings.

Features:

• It lets players discover the secrets required to master the art of playing the piano.
• Its easy-to-apply piano exercises improve one’s playing skills to a great extent.
• One can use their creativity to compose their song using the teachings provided in the book.
• It also helps to learn to play the piano along with tablets, computers, home stereos, amps, external speakers, etc.

2) The Perfect Wrong Note – William Westney

This particular book was written by the great author William Westney who had been the past winner of the Geneva Interactional Competition. Not only this, but he had also won several prizes as a concert pianist, teacher, and for being an educational innovator. He has always been an artist-in-residence along with a distinguished professor. This book written by him comprises every single detail that one might require to master the art of playing the piano.

In this book, the author helps the budding pianists rediscover their path that leads to the composition of great music. It also guides them on how to approach natural and traditional ways of making music. The book comes with the best inspiring and unique set of philosophy which has been detailed out with extreme clarity as well as immediacy. Not only students or beginners, but this book can be used even by the professionals, teachers, parents who aspire to restart their learning sessions.

The author has even laid out a bunch of healthy alternatives for boosting lifelong learning. It also helps to bring about significant changes in the ways of how music is being taught. The author even believes that sometimes playing a wrong note can be a lot useful, constructive as well as enlightening. The author has been the energetic creator of the world-famous Un-Master Class workshops.

He aspires individuals to explore the potentials of group work if they want to learn music. His knowledge and the basic guidelines provided by him have successfully outlined the potential of his revelatory workshop. And, with every passing year, his workshops have transformed the overall experience and transparency of music to every participant globally.

Features:

• It comprises of easy-to-understand language.
• The book inspires people to create their music from the wrong notes.
• It inspires piano learners from all age groups.
• The author has beautifully portrayed the true essence of music.
• Due to its varied content, it is also enlisted in the list of best piano books.

3) The Art of Piano Playing

This book was written by the famous authors K.A Leibovitch and Heinrich Neuhaus. The book teaches about the beautiful art of playing the piano. It says that the art of learning itself is so precious that it can be adopted by any people.

The book contains a total of 256 descriptive pages, which explains the basics in explanatory ways. The language adopted by the authors is English and the vocabulary used is quite easy-to-understand. Overall, the book enlists down every single detail required to excel in the field of learning and mastering the skill of playing the piano.

Features:

• The overall layout of the book has been kept simple.
• It comes with distributed topics to learn more about the concepts.
• It encourages detailed learning to master the art of piano playing.

4) Alfred’s Basic All-in-one Piano Course Book

This book was specially designed for instructing students about the basics of learning piano. The book can be best used with a piano instructor. This book is perfect for those who possess a strong desire for doing a piano course. It is one of the expanded versions of the old Alfred’s Basic Adult one format. Apart from introducing basics to the readers, this book also comprises of features such as written assignments for reinforcing lessons’ concepts and finger strengthening drills.

Not only this, but it also comes with several isometric hand exercises. The book has been written in a way to deal with every topic slowly and steadily providing enough time to learn the concepts of that particular topic. One can find a smooth and slow progression between its every lesson. It also gives a thorough explanation related to the chord theory.

In addition to this, it talks about different playing styles and other variants of outstanding creation. A different genre of songs such as contemporary, classical, folk, etc can be dealt with utmost precision while playing. Also, at the end of every topic, the book urges the students to play some of the most unique and iconic songs. This allows the instructor to know whether that particular student has gained enough knowledge about the musical styles and concepts or not.

Features:

• It comprises 160 pages in total.
• It comprises of several self-assessment exercises after every topic
• It won’t be wrong to consider this as one of the best piano books available in the market.

5) Piano Technique (Dover Books on Music) Kindle Edition

This volume of the book was written by the great author Walter Gieseking along with his teacher for 5 years and also a great pianist of his time, Karl Leimer. The book focuses on concepts that are important for giving a radical approach toward learning. It emphasizes more on expression-technique rather than finger-technique. It encourages the readers to properly listen to their inner conscience and understand the basics that are required for developing the proper techniques for playing the piano.

This volume of the book comprises book number one which is titled “The Shortest Way Possible to Pianistic Perfection”. It deals with some of the author’s great piano works. The book urges the students to visualize every piece by indulging in silent reading. These instructions aim to let the students discover the approaching process of every piece. Though it includes a series of notes that could be memorized it emphasizes more on understanding the overall structure of music.

It also comprises of instructions based on natural interpretation along with the sensation of relaxation and touch. In all, the book aims to put more emphasis on practice. Also, it deals with topics such as tranquility, the trill, broken chords, scales, etudes, etc. The book number two has been titled as the “Rhythmics, Dynamics, Pedal and Other Problems of Piano Playing”. The author continues with their method of visualization along with a detailed study of the concepts.

It helps the readers create their piano playing techniques via the exercises and practices included in the book. The different exercise aims to cover different topics. Topics such as phrasing, dynamics, Rhythmics, etc are dealt with in this book. The book even comprises extensive chapters on topics of pedal and touch thereby giving a lot of options to learn from.

Features:

• The book comes with a good number of assignments.
• It comprises of 149 pages in total.
• It emphasizes the art of visualization.
• Its extended chapters are perfect to learn in-depth about a particular topic.
• Various exercises are provided under various topics.

Therefore, here are some of the top-rated collections of best piano books. If you are planning to brush up your piano playing skills, then investing in piano books is always a wise decision. We recommend the readers to go through these books once if they are looking for some best piano books. We are 100% assured of their content and quality as these best piano books have got the most customer reviews and ratings. Therefore, these books are one of those deals which no one would want to miss out.

FAQs:

i) What is a piano book?

A best piano books are a guide that helps people from different genres understand the basics of playing the piano. It doesn’t matter if you are taking classes from a teacher or are learning from online classes because, at some or the other point, you will require a piano book for brushing up your playing skills and revise the techniques that you have already learned. Therefore, piano books are always one of the best methods to achieve your piano playing goals in a planned way.

ii) Which is the best piano book to go for?

Well, the word best simply depends on how well a book works for some people. As already mentioned, whichever book you choose for, be 100% assured that its content is easily understandable and it comes with a lot of practice exercises to help you check your level of skills.

iii) What is the best piano book for adults?

Well, in this case, you can go for the book named “Alfred’s Basic Adult All-in-one Piano Course Book 1. This book is really helpful as it comes with several titles of songs for easy learning.

iv) How long does it take to learn piano from piano books?

Well, it depends on the level of hard work and dedication you have put into your learning sessions. On average, it could take you from 6 months – 3 years to 10-15 years.