Adult Piano Adventures Popular Book 1: Timeless Hits and Favorites

Fantastic book for beginners!

Perfect to use together with Adult all in one Book 1. More songs to practice at same level.

This book is Level 1 for Adult Beginners and I was just finishing the Level 1 method book and the first few songs in this book are very good and easy, I am especially fond of My Heart Will Go On which I learned to play on the Ukulele a few years ago. Then I hit the Downton Abbey them and let me tell you, this is my favorite song I have learned to play in the nearly two years of being a Piano Player. It's also one of the most challenging. I've tried many different exercises and songs from YouTube videos but they were either too complex or just the introduction to a song. And while this is an arrangement made for beginners, it is still a complete song, so it has become my go-to song for warming up and what not. It's also a great song to practice isolation techniques because it is a long enough song with enough variety that when you have trouble with chord changes, or whatever, you can easily isolate those measures or notes. Any way, I have only moved on to the song after this, which is also a very good and challenging (but not too challenging) song for the beginner which is There's No Business Like Show Business. But I am no Piano Teacher so, being self-taught, I have no idea if I should have been using this and the Classics book all along or as I did, waiting to complete the Method Book and then take on these. I actually felt the Method Book gave me enough to do so that I didn't need supplementary material. Now I am using the supplemental books as well as reviewing the chapters from the Level 1 book, mostly the Three Minute Technique pages and theory pages before moving on to Level 2. But I highly recommend this book based on the songs I have played and getting the Downton Abbey theme is worth the price of this book if you want a great song that sounds great. I can't tell you how I travel with the notes as I play this one song. It's so Heavenly. And I have never even watched that show!

Great practice book. Love the fact that they included good music theory. Very helpful

I started taking piano lessons as a retirement project and am using the Faber series of books on my own. The songs in this book are a bit dated, but still useful for beginners like me and mercifully include the suggested fingering. Some of the comments for this book complain about the lack of information for each song. I found a wonderful resource on YouTube that walked me through each of the songs step by step. Search for the channel "LetsPlayPianoMethods" and then look through his playlists for the "Faber Adult Piano Adventures Popular Book 1". He has 33 videos that go into detail on each of the songs in this book. This is not my content, but I am glad he took the time to go through each of the songs.

Gift for an adult family member - includes tunes they recognize, can sing and play to!

I think that now that I'm finally coming to the end of the book (3 months at around anywhere from 10 to 60 minutes a day), it's a good time to leave a review. This book is only for beginners or possibly people who want to refresh their memory of the basics. It introduces you to simplified pieces and you gradually make your way onto the more complex pieces (complex for a beginner). One example for me was the Entertainer. That piece was when I finally enjoyed playing piano. It took me a few hours to perfect it and the enjoyment from doing so felt amazing! It also mixes in plenty of theory so your not just playing blind. Along with scannable QR codes that show you how the pieces should be played at different tempos. Very handy to hear the pieces if you struggle with rhythm. Some memorable pieces include: The Entertainer; In The Jungle; Home On The Range; Amazing Grace and so many more. These are all snippets though and never the full song. My only negative is the finger positioning holds your hand way too much. To the point that, without it, you struggle to play normal sheet music. Instead of remembering the notes, you remember the first and settle your fingers in the position number instead. It was hard to snap out of that and the book should force you out of it more (especially in the easier, shorter pieces). Understandably it helps a lot for the trickier ones. Do I think it's helped me play and understand piano in general? Of course, I could only play frère jacques before this book, now I can smash through a piece and look like a pro (to a person who doesn't play). But with time and practice, I hope to get better and this book was a big step in the right direction.