hey there fellow piano learners,

i have a question and suggestion...

how many of you have read C.C Changs Fundemenatals of piano practice, if you have read it what was your opinion and did you find it helpful?

I'm reading it now and i thinks it's been enlightening beyond words.it's also been an impetus for further research on my part.

Anyone that hasn't read it i suggest you do, he aims to help you get past "speed walls", develop technique and get more out of your time practising, as well as make you aware of intuitive methods of practice that are many peoples greatest barriers to improvement, of which i was using many.

it's free, on html or pdf...

here's the links to his site where you can download his book.

http://members.aol.com/cc88m/PianoBook.html

I have the book, and read a good portion of it. Because I'm a beginner some of the concepts and the theory involved are a bit difficult for me to understand. But I would have to say the book is very informative and the practice and techniques he discuses are invaluable. I highly recommend it.

i guess many of us have read it and found it useful, at least i did. but the thing is that reading such a book doesn't make the technical development process any faster than it would naturally. you can practice as it says, but you just have to do it long enough to gain real techniques. there's certain 'feel' of touch over keyboard which cannot be gained over short period of time. i got such a feel only lately which is the start of a new begining for me.

I've recently being reading Chang too.

My take so far - there are some interesting ideas in there. BUT, a whole lot of padding and bad editing. Too much spent trying to sell/justify himself rather than just getting on with it and explaining what it's all about. I don't mean to be disparaging here, I think the ideas stand alone with out the hard sell. It was so tiring slogging through that sales bumphf and I was tempted to dump it a few times.

From what I've read so far, I estimate that the core, useful, information in the book can probably be covered in a tenth of the space.

That said, I like a lot the ideas. Especially the 90% making music rule. I've modified some of my practice ideas because of it - a lot more playing pieces than I was before and it's more fun that way. I think 10% working on new stuff is too little for a beginner like me.

Do a search. It's been discussed quite a few times here and I found them interesting.

Finally, it's free. The man has spent a lot of effort in putting out. Kudos to him.


ciao,

jo

small print: Newbie alert! ymmv

"Too much spent trying to sell/justify himself rather than just getting on with it"

Unfortunately, if he hadn't spent so much time backing up what he's saying with all the justifications and "justifications", the work would not have been taken seriously. It's a great book!