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Welcome springtime. Enjoy your piano and time with it!

Thanks for the welcome. What is the Piano Bar? Perhaps I don't want to know, I may have to post a video of me playing? Not anytime soon. You'll be glad.

Welcome springtime, I can remember when my mother bought a piano as a piece of furniture for no one in the house ever played it.

The Piano Bar (a monthly thread on the adult beginners forum) is just a nice place to share your playing with others, whether it be a set of scales or a simple single handed melody your happy with. We are all beginners and recognise the difficulty and the achievements of fellow beginners. So I hope to hear something from you in the not too distant future.

Just found this thread.

In a nutshell: About 25 years ago I took lessons for about 2 years, and we used the Alfred's books. Stopped after two years; teacher moved away, I was not progressing, raising my children was taking up all of my non-work time.

Fast forward to August of last year. Re-started my lessons with a fantastic teacher in Rehoboth Beach Delaware. She uses the Faber Accelerated Adventures for the Older Beginner. These books are fantastic! In my case, these books teach the basics the way I need to learn. After eight months I'm already in the middle of level 2.

Everyone learns differently, but for me, the Faber books get my highest recommendation.

Hi, I'm new to the forum, and to piano, and everything else related to learning music. Jut bought Faber's Adult Piano Adventures and was wondering if this is the right thread to ask questions in? There hasn't been a post in a while, but I haven't found a more recent thread yet either.

An overwhelming majority on this site seem to use the Alfred adult series, but I'm sure now that you've revived this thread that some PAers will come out of the woodworks.

I'm a piano teacher, and I've done a playlist up of all of the pieces from the PA book that might be handy for you:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeW-cELRAmSn7DZmgbLwp_9lAMoLrG0e7

I've skimmed through Level 1 and my little one is learning the last few songs from it to keep her busy so I'm pretty familiar with the pieces if you have any questions.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Faber.

In the past 15 months I have progressed through Level 1 and 2 of the Accelerated series for Adults (Not the "all in one" book) using all four books in each level (Lesson, Theory, Performance, Techniques).

I am now in Level 3A of Piano Adventures, as the Accelerated Adult series ends at Level 2.

I am quite the fan of the Faber series, and would highly recommend it to anyone. Many years ago I studied for a year or so using Alfred's Adult, and for me, Faber is by far the better fit.

However, one thing I have learned in the past few months, is that once you get beyond Level 2 (Basically Elementary B using Guild standards), it is a good idea to introduce supplemental material, as Faber does not have enough pieces in their original form to suite my tastes.

So for me, the combination of Faber methods books and Marlais's Festival Collection Book 1 is just the right fit.

Thanks for the responses. I'm glad to see there are people still checking this thread.

I will probably have lots of questions, eventually. My first though, after opening this book (the all-in-one Adult Piano Adventures book), is that I see the pedal is introduced almost right away. It seems to be used sparingly at first, but it's there. And my concern is that for me it's not there - I have an inexpensive keyboard to begin with, and no pedal. So, can I get by ignoring the pedal instruction in the book until I am able to either find an attachment for the keyboard, or else upgrade to something nicer (this probably won't be for at least another 6 months)?

Also, I am self-teaching. I would like to find a teacher eventually, but it isn't possible at the moment. Not ideal, I know. But for me it seems like it would be more of a shame to not try at all, on my own, even if it is harder this way.

I bring this up because the book seems to assume a teacher is involved. For example, the duet exercises at the bottom of some pages. Should I just ignore them? Or could I try playing what I see there, one octave higher (as many of the exercises instruct), and just recognize that it's meant to be done in unison with a partner? At least that's how I'm interpreting the exercise.

Thanks for any advice you can offer. This stuff is hard

tsmonk:

Here are a couple of things you need to think about right away, before you spend a lot of time on your piano journey.

The most important thing is, at some point hopefully not too far into the future you will need to get a proper piano (acoustic or digital) with the bare minimum features such as weighted keys and pedals. If you can scratch up around $2K there are many fine used acoustic uprights out there to be found, or many fine new digital pianos (starting around $1K) that have their own advantages. There are simply too many fundamental techniques that cannot be learned properly (especially in the medium and long term) without the right instrument.

Second, although most would agree that having a teacher at least part-time is a major benefit, there are many folks here that for a variety of reasons do not have one, yet progress is being made. There are lots of threads in this forum that can offer great advice in this regard.

Finally, especially if you are going to be self-taught, I would highly recommend a different Faber series than the all-in-one. Our teacher who has 40+ years of experience only works with the Accelerated Piano Adventures® for the Older Beginner series. This series has two levels, and each level has four books (lesson, performance, theory, technique).

Regardless, this is a great pastime if you ask me, and even if you are stuck with the keyboard you currently have, don't stop, keep making progress.

Best of luck,
Brian

P.S. Do NOT attempt the duet parts. They usually require a higher degree of skill than your part in the piece, and can be left aside for now.

BrianDX:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. What you say makes total sense. And actually, I initially bought the keyboard simply as an aid to help myself learn some music theory - I wanted to gain a better understanding of some of the music I listen to. But then I quickly realized that I wanted to learn to play too. So for the time being, I will have to do what I can on the keyboard. I've looked at a few electronic pianos, and for economy of space reasons, that is most likely the direction I will go. But not for a little while, unfortunately. In the meantime I will do my best with what I have. And yes, eventually get a teacher too. Ideally, I would like to make it through one of these self-teaching books and then reassess.

What are the drawbacks of the all-in-one book as opposed to the Accelerated books you mentioned? And if the Accelerated series consists of four books, how would you organize your study? The all-in-one at least leaves no doubt about what I should be doing, and in what order. Which seems helpful without a teacher to guide me.

Again, thanks for the encouragement, and for the helpful warnings. I intend to write back in this thread with any questions or difficulties I encounter. Hopefully it will keep the thread alive and offer assistance to anyone else who looks here.

Also, thanks to Beth_Frances and littlebirdblue for your responses. It's nice to know there are people out there listening and willing to answer questions. Makes the path seem a little less daunting. And Beth, the videos are already tremendously helpful even though I've only just started. Thank you!

The four books in the Accelerated series at each level are indexed so you know what pages of each book goes with main lesson Section.

The Accelerated series has many more exercises, performance pieces, and theory than the all-in-one book. It actually makes self-teaching easier IMHO. Plus, the All-In-One series jumps around too much for my tastes. That's why my teacher does not use it.

After being away from Faber Piano Adventures for a few months because my teacher didn't want to teach from them and only used RCM books, I am now starting with a new teacher and I'm going to reintroduce the Faber series to him and hopefully he will be happy to use them. I am toward the end of Faber Piano Adventures Book
3A. It isn't difficult, but there is a lot of pedaling required and I really don't enjoy using the pedal because I never know when to come off it and it is just one more piece to learn. The piece I am working on right now is from
Holst's The Planets and it uses the highest octaves. I really love this series
and I hope I will get to continue to use them. My previous teacher was a bit
of a stickler and I think the new person might be open to more things then before.This weekend I so look forward to practising and I will be working on
three Faber pieces. After this I have only two more to finish the book. I was
hoping a while ago to be finished with this level by the end of the year but it now looks like I will be using it until January which is fine. I look forward
to heading into Book 3B in the new year.

I'm an adult (57) who decided to get back into piano after having played from 3rd grade until the middle of high school.

I'm using Faber's piano adventures, all-in-one book. I do have a weekly lesson with a teacher. She gave me some choices in books when I first started and her feeling was that the Faber's have more "adult-ish" sounding pieces than some of the other beginner books. We do theory also, but I've expressed my desire to advance in the playing aspect more so than the theory initially.

I'm about to start the second book and the theory part is getting more interesting to me and making more sense than it did when I first started, and that makes it a bit more rewarding to wade through.

My biggest plus and minus is that I remember all these pieces from learning piano (and clarinet) many years ago. So sometimes I know I'm not actually reading the music, but simply playing from memory. My teacher will often let that fly only after I go back and a play the piece the way it was actually written. Yes, I tend to take "creative liberties" sometimes!

My teacher also asked me to buy and begin using a pedal very early on. (I bought a very nice used Kawai MP-5 off a local Craig's list, but it didn't come with the pedal.) She said it was good to learn how to use the pedal right from the start. The book starts with a very basic application, but it does advance along with everything else in the book, so I'm glad I took her advice and started using it right from the start.

I should be finishing book 1 by the end of this year. I've already got the next book and flipped though it ... it looks harder for sure, but good! Can't wait to be better than I am now! Being a beginner is pretty boring. I don't have much to add to any conversation because I simply don't know enough about what I'm doing yet.

I'm currently in the middle of Level 3A and things are getting a bit harder.

However, as has always been the case, Faber has a way of introducing the proper pieces and exercises for each new challenge. Once you have finished the section, what do you know, I now know triplets, 3/8 time signatures, etc.

Hopefully I will be getting into Level 3B sometime in the middle of next year, we'll see...

Hi, I am 42 and just beginning my piano journey. I purchased the basic Piano Adventure books a couple of years ago, but couldn't have lessons at the time , and not wanting to develop bad habits from the start, my plans were shelved along with the books.

I had my first lesson yesterday, and this week I have Hanon ex1 and scales C, G and D major to practice. My teacher doesn't use these books so will just be using them for my own enjoyment to supplement what my teacher gives me to do.

I guess it will be a long time before I am anywhere near level 3, lol, but I like slow , steady and methodical.