The Pop Piano Book [Paperback]

I already own a couple of books and recently bought this one. This finally bridges the gap which all the others could not! Harrison just tells you everything including some good tricks which would take some time for you to realise on your own! Ok, make yourself familiar with some basic theory first because I doubt you can find the necessary details here. Also, better get some technical skills, practise scales, Hanon, Czerny whatever. This remains important also in this genre! If you have the technical know-how you can really do without the MIDI files because you will be able to play it for yourself and get used to the sound he wants to create. Yes, and then it is totally up to you and make no mistake, this is serious brainjogging what you are asked to do! But I really think it is worth it and will give you some automatism later which will really pay off.

What I particularly like about this method is that Harrison teaches proper voiceleading which I am missing in nearly all the other books. If you are an experienced piano player, you feel there is something wrong without the correct voiceleading. Here this is not the case. It is hard work but good fun and will hopefully give some good sounding results and finally the ability to improvise in the near future.

He has an abundance of technical exercises in rhythm patterns, which is something that cannot be gained from Hanon, the king of technical exercise books.

Many teachers are not very good at teaching popular piano, instead preferring to reinterpret it as classical music (which is not appropriate given its different rhythm patters and key signatures--often less complicated than those in classical). This was written by a man who teaches popular piano and has a very clear idea of the rhythm patterns that make that unique. For example: He makes extensive use of the tie line and syncopation in his examples of R&B, which is what one finds in real music of this genre. But it is very hard to get that type of practice if learning classical songs.

As it has been noted before, the binding for this book sucks. But there are ways to get around that.

Also: This seems to encompass almost everything in other basic theory books that I have read/ own. It has actually obviated my other theory/ rhythm books. It will be a good saving of money to invest in this before any others.

Finally: The book CAN be used by beginners (in tandem with learning some scales) if it is used as he recommends. He says in the opening pages that it was written/ designed to be used by people at myriad levels.

As the others said, this isn't a book for beginners. Someone with years of piano lessons can probably go right through it, whereas I spend 30 minutes just on a couple patterns. If you're a novice and don't mind spending a lot of time praticing, you can greatly benefit from this book as well.

Finally, I purchased the MIDI files from Mark Harrison's website. I strongly recommend these if you're not a really good piano player. I mute each hand while playing the other while learning each hand. It's very helpful.