I was cleaning out my bookcase, and found:

"Playing the Piano for Pleasure" -- Charles Cooke.

I haven't looked at it for 40 years. It's still good! It was first published in 1948, and it's still available both on paper and in Kindle format. Try Amazon.com and/or Amazon.ca. It has a thread here, devoted to it:

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1770142/%22Playing%20the%20Piano%20for%20Pl.html

It has a few lists of "graduated difficulty" piano pieces, and several pointers to other sources.

It deals with all the difficulties that come up repeatedly in this Forum. That just shows that "learning the piano" hasn't changed much in 60 years.

Another book mentioned in that "Playing the Piano for Pleasure" thread -- newer, with excellent reviews on Amazon.com:

"The Musician's Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness" -- Gerald Klickstein

The Amazon.com link:

http://www.amazon.com/Musicians-Way-Prac...4467&sr=8-1

It's also available in a Kindle edition. I don't think it has "graduated difficulty" lists, and it seems to be aimed at serious, classical-music students (according to the reviews).

Neither of those books will "teach you to play the piano", but they both give general outlines about _how you should learn_ to play piano.

I don't know if there's "helpful books?" thread here, but there should be!

. Charles

I have Cookes "Playing piano for pleasure", excellent book. I found THIS download site, it seems extraordinarily cheap....I'm not sure if there are "catches".

Mohannad, people here on the forum are usually working in their piano learning efforts towards constancy. Don´t be surprised about the answers advising you to first build up a fundament while not supporting you so much in finding a piece which could serve you to become a one hit wonder only. Be aware that the fallacy of leaving in your piano playing apparent gaps unfilled will frustrate your future consistency as a musician. This is what (almost all) people here in the forum know, likely because they are usually older than you and therefore having had the chance to already collect more experience on this during life.

You can reach out for a top piece, and it even might work out here and there, but sooner or later you will fall if there is no fundament supporting you. Having followed your statements in your former threads on different pianoworld forum boards, and having seen which (consistent) answers you received there, and here again, I suggest that you really decide if you want to become a one hit wonder everyone smiles (once) about, or if you want become respected and saluted steadily.
I as well suggest you to first take advices to build a stable fundament serious and stop to claim that you would be "willing to (...) sacrifice a good foundation". You will have little chances to receive the answers you are looking for, if you are not bringing up the questions properly.

I just can´t help you with your question for the one hit wonder piece, because I wouldn´t know a proper piece for this. But I will at least try to help you to well develope on the long term by bringing up the following general guideline:
The brain needs time for little by little becoming programmed with what we by practicing asked it to succeed with. Once brain circuits have had enough time to interconnect better optimized on the requested task, doing the task results optimized. So, we need to frequently trigger the brain optimization process by practicing, but also need patience to let brain optimization processes happen. Each brain works at its own pace, which you can not outwit. And your own pace is usually much(!) slower than desired! Although a challenging trigger can occasionally push things forward concerning a _special_ task, things will need intelligently graduated triggers, and will need time (in case of making music: much(!) time), to develope to an all-purpose ability.

Keep this in mind, and you will have a nice journey!

Thanks! I just got it, it's a decent pdf scan!

Mohannad, don`t worry about some of these guys. Glean any encouragement you get, and run with it. There are 9 year olds playing Fantasie Impromptu. . . . and getting those fiddly notes in. You can get a copy of the music free online. If you get to the end of the first line or two, you`ll be able to finish it. Eventually!

Let us know how you get on. Lots here wish you well!

We should be encouraging people to play piano properly, not just bang out notes. Yes they are very young people that are playing this piece, but they've been playing for 5-7 years already, and constantly made to practice and practice and practice. For an adult learner (of course anything is possible) but in 99.99999% of cases learning something of that calibre is setting up someone to fail.

Mohannad - Keep playing, keep learning new things everyday and don't give up. You will before you know it be ready to play that piece or any piece for that matter! Work on buddy!

"We should be encouraging people to play piano properly,"

Very true. But he`ll get encouragement getting through the first few bars of Fant Imp. by himself. And if he doesn`t then he`ll pull back a bit. I dunno if he has a teacher or not but that`s what I did . . .

Bach is the man for you!

Bwv 939
Bwv 924
Bwv 926

Maybe too easy for you, but for us old dudes Bach is perfection!

Fair enough, everyone has their own style of learning. If anyone who's an adult beginner can hash out enough effort and dedication to play the first few bars correctly then all the power to them!

Mohannad I've thought of a piece for you! RCM Grade 3 Piece Arabesque by Johann Burgmuller. Its not too hard, but it's a fast piece and sounds awesome, I played this one for my grade 3 exam and it was a lot of fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aREB2y9ow_s

Tell me what you think

That's an interesting youtube channel. So much music!

yeah he has tons of pieces that you'll see in the graded books to help you pass exams. Dr Alan Huckleberry from the University of Iowa. Now anyone who has a doctoral in piano you know is legit! :P

Hi,
I Played some of the Burgmüller prior to für Elise.
Burgmüller is not easy but it is very comprehensive. You learn a lot about speed, dynamics, sound.