Hi all

Thought I'd better introduce myself and have just signed up to the forum.

Been hankering to have a go at learning the piano for a number of years and my New Year's resolution was to finally give it a go. I have invested in a Yamaha NP30 and Carol Barratt's Classic Piano Course.

Now from subsequently reading on here I discover my choice of electric piano will not meet with the approval of some, but I just wanted something fairly inexpensive to start on. If I progress well I will invest in a 'proper' electric piano further down the line.

I also see that Alfred seems to be the book of choice for the beginner, although so far I am finding Carol Barratt's book challenging but enjoyable.

I am not taking lessons, but I have a good friend who is a grade 6 pianist who has promised, in return for dinner, to tutor me periodically to ensure I am not picking up an dreadful habits.

My ultimate goal is to play popular music (everything from Stevie Wonder to Coldplay) although most learner books seem to focus in classical pieces. If anyone has any suggestions for books I could consider once my skills have developed a little I'd be grateful.

So all in all quite exciting really, certainly a much more productive use of my free time than watching Celebrity Big Brother!

Hi Captain Sensible,

Welcome to the forum. Sounds like you have a good plan in place. It's nice you have a friend to help you out.

You might want to take a look at the Piano Handbook by Carl Humphries. I don't know if it's the easiest book to learn from but it has a good selection of songs and it comes with a cd. So you might want to check it out as a supplement to what you are using. It also has some history of the piano and some really nice pictures.

Captain Sensible?

WOT???

Steven

Kymber, thanks for the welcome. I have checked out the piano handbook on Amazon and it looks pretty decent so am going to order it.

Steven, I'm not going to even pretend I understand your post!

Oh dang.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMQrIjd0t8c

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Sensible

I like your name anyway!

Memories ... may be beautiful, and yet ....

Steven

Hi CaptainSensible, welcome to the forum! Glad to hear you have been weaned away from CBB to spend the time at the piano instead - always a good choice

Welcome to the forum, Captain Sensible! You may want to browse some sheet music stores/websites, and look for some collections of Beginner Piano pop/rock songs to supplement your method series. Hal Leonard is a major publisher that has many good such collections. I particularly like the Dan Coates arrangements. It sounds like you are starting completely from scratch, so you would want to get collections that are labeled "Beginner" or "Easy" (and even some of the "easy" collections may assume several months experience).

Good luck, have fun, and keep us posted.

Hi CS;
If it is Pop music that you want to learn, you should check out the web site http://www.poppianopro.com
There is a free lesson from his book on this Piano World thread.
http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/32/7708.html#000013
Join us on that thread. Pete is giving all kinds of tips.

Dale