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The first edition book is outstanding and you will get years of good use out of it. SO much good music in that book!!!

Preview of videos for supporters announced:
http://fundamentalkeys.com/blog/

I am strongly considering getting the new edition books and all videos when ready. I only became aware of it recently and was thinking Faber adventures, but this may just be a good solution for self teaching by the sound of it, if I don't succumb to the idea of a real teacher and lessons before than.

She gets all my support to get it done after seeing her blog I hope it will be a successful. All my best wishes to Rachel .

In other fields there are "Student" books and "Teacher" guides.
The (design)decision needs to be made early in order to structure the material properly for this.

At least the approach allows for the mixed messages - you need a teacher - you can do this on your own - this is for students - this is for teachers - SOME people MIGHT be able to self teach with BOTH.
...and of course it produces more "product" for sale.

I don't know, I am just yet another self (not successfully) taught student throwing out an idea.

If you prefer something with student books and teacher's guide, I highly recommend the Celebration Series Perspectives series of repertoires, etudes, and student workbooks (2008 ed.), and the well written 300-page Handbook For Teachers that is meant for this series.

This series is the official music for RCM exams levels prep-10 (2008 exam syllabus), and I'm learning all my music from this series. The teacher's handbook is helpful, but it is not necessary for a teacher or student to follow.

Note that Celebration Series 2015 Edition is now released, and the 2015 Edition do not have a teacher's handbook. (2015 Exam Syllabus will go into effect Sep 2015.) I have to add that piano is an activity best learned with a teacher. As much as there will always be those who cannot have a teacher, I think Fundamental Keys with videos is as good as it gets for beginner classical piano.

Received the intro video sample today, with Rachel asking for feedback on audio and video quality and file download size.

My feedback was all POSITIVE - I think the sound and picture are excellent, file size is remarkably small for the quality (larger would be ok with me), and I prefer downloading to streaming (she's asking for feedback on that question, too).

Thanks pwl. For everyone who are receiving the first batch of videos, do provide feedback. The streaming v. download issue is one that we went back and forth on a bit since I think streaming is really the only way to deliver the videos in HD because they would be gigs in size and not hundreds of megs. The current videos are in SD. There's also cost of delivering all the data from website provider to consider etc. All your feedbacks are much appreciated.

I thought that the size and quality of the sample video was fine. I too prefer downloading to streaming, but I did comment to Rachel a concern about being able to re-download them in the future should there be a virus or crash or whatever that corrupts the files. I make regular back ups of important files, but not everyone does.

What is your primary reason for preferring download over streaming? Would you take streaming over download if the streaming video is in HD (unlimited streaming)? The download video is not, and it probably won't be.

Thanks for your feedback!

I personally don't care about HD vs SD. I like being to have videos available when I'm offline. Also, while this doesn't apply to me, I still have friends on dial-up. A surprising number of people still are. Not everyone can stream HD video content. Just a thought.

I see no GOOD reason for high definition in THIS context.
In an earlier comment to Rachel I said that there is little point in my being able to count her eye lashes when the video is paused
An earlier mp4 of intro-page 10 was about 1.3 Gig and the video on that was THAT (uselessly) good.

I am in between speeds with DSL, it was fast at the time.
I have NO TIME for TV, so having fiber or satellite doesn't interest me.
Occasionally I download data DVDs, but I can wait overnight or a day for those if/when traffic is high.
USUALLY the servers or torrent seeders don't keep up to the 115 Kbs or so that the DSL is limited to, so more available bandwidth would be a waste.

My BIG WEAKNESS with instructional videos is that I tend to NOT pause them where I should and actually DO the practice or exercises.
I'd watch a 4 year college course at a single sitting if I could and THINK that I had learned it all.
I may have understood it all at the time, but little would have stayed with me

I also commented to Rachel that SOME people may want to save these to DVD or even CD-ROM, so under 720 Meg might be a good size.

For ME the ideal file size is ONE LESSON.
At least that helps me to CONSIDER doing the exercise before watching more - and more, more, more.

R_B that's a good point, although it would be a pain if you had to download 90 (or whatever) separate files. Though having an option for many small files would be good for people with slower connections, and one could have an option to download a big zip file containing all of them (or at least several of them)

I downloaded the original videos for the first edition of FK, and they worked fine for me. Rachel divided them into two or three pages each. I've just gone back to them as I'm rejoining the first edition at page 39 until the new books come out. It was easy to go to page 39's video when I needed it and then on to page 40, just forwarding through to that point in the video. I've also occasionally penciled in the time of the video at which she plays the piece in the book so I can easily find it. If it was in larger chunks I think it would be harder to find my place now.

I imagine it would be possible to put in "chapter" points in the video to make finding individual pieces easier, but I'm not knowledgeable about such matters. The notion of downloads so that you can view them without being online is interesting. I also am ambivalent about HD vs SD (except when it comes to watching baseball games).

In any event, I will eagerly snap them up in whatever form they appear.

I am NOT going to suggest that ANYONE mess with what is probably copyrighted material, but;

It isn't VERY HARD to slice any MP3 or MP4 file into a number of video clips and create One's own DVD with whatever menus and player controls you want to have.
(in my case almost NEED to have, for study discipline)

Again, do NOT do this with copyrighted material.
I might do something like this with later material, but it will NOT be for distribution to anyone else.
It will be for testing purposes only, destined for my re-cycle bit bucket.

re streaming;
I am not always able to connect to the web where I want to play/practice.
Maybe I have a possessive/retentive problem, but I like to feel that once I get it I *HAVE* it
Storage is cheap, CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray discs are SO cheap.
Not that I have a tidy library, but I have a few discs from way back that I can play on any system - except the 8 inch floppies

Rachel has finished the videos for volume 1 of fundamental keys. Hopefully now that she has the process of getting them made figured out, she'll be able to get volumes 2 and 3 (and their associated videos) out with a more reasonable time scale .

How are they going to be made available for purchase ?

It seems that Rachel is leaning towards having the video content available as streamed video. Presumably through the fundamental keys website. She hasn't said when they will be available for purchase, but I suspect that it will be soon as all the hard part (actually shooting and editing the videos) is now finished.

WeTransfer has problems, not LEAST of which is referring to their IT staff as "Server Monkeys".

They need to
a) harden their site.
b) get it back up when it is shredded.

IMO their IT staff just MIGHT take things more seriously if (Rodney speaking) they;
"got some respect around here".

Is this information in response to some other comment in this thread or just general information out of the blue ?

It is the site that (supposedly) distributes the video files.

It is incredibly unreliable, which is annoying to say the least.
It is even MORE annoying that it doesn't support retries.