I picked up used copies of books 1-3 and st teh goal of finishing all of them in 1 year (20-40 min daily. May miss that goal but agressive goals are needed lest I tarry too long with the sirens.

My copies didnt' come with the cds. Is there a link or place, possibly here where the varios songs are played so I can hear them?

Alfred's Adult Piano All-in-one/course books right? I also do not have the cd for the first book and I use youtube. There are lots of videos of people playing them on youtube, both teachers/professional players and also beginners keeping their progress logs. One such account is alanchan1024.

The only problem I see with it is that the further you progress, the less videos there are. At the part of the first book that I am in (popular selection pieces, the last several ones in the book) only 1-2 videos turn up in search. I fear there may be altogether absent pieces in books 2 and 3.

As for finishing them in 1 year, well I would like to be able to do that.. It currently takes me up to weeks for a single piece so I have set my time limit as a few years.

There is a list of links on the first page of the Alfred Book 1 thread.

How fast you progress will depend on lots of things including how diligent you are, your background, your learning rate and style, your practice habits, etc. Good luck, have fun, and post often!

I think there's a few on Youtube if you search. Posted by random people, not official.

On youtube is the best bet. You probably won't find the files on this site, as that would be copyright infringement.

Youtube is perhaps better, as the CD's with alfred, book 1 and 2 have awful backing tracks on them, rather than just piano.

Book 3 cd has "pure" piano only, from memory.

Amen! I hated those book two recordings!

What, nobody appreciates that lovely MIDI orchestration? But it makes the CDs sound so very posh! ...

Do the DVDs that come with the newer edition of the All-in-One book feature a actual piano?

Alfred book 2 cd is plain piano on one channel and the backing track on the other channel so you can listen to just piano if you want to.

When I got the 3 Alfred books from Amazon, only the second one had a cd and I have to agree with the previous posts, it wasn't exactly great.
For the first book, since I was also a beginner in music reading and I wanted to get the rhythm correct (I am not Anglo-Saxon so a lot of the songs are not part of my culture) I ended up entering them by hand in a midi software and use that as a reference.
It's a fair amount of work but if you enter them one by one as you need them it's not a lot of work and I think I actually learned a lot in the process. Of course compared to a real interpretation you don't get all the various inflections but honestly you wouldn't get them with the Alfred's cd either

I'm using an acustic piano. No midi available.

Midi? You don't need midi. The comment was referring to the CD, which is most likely a midi performance.

Correct. The CD is recorded with very cheezy sounding MIDI (synthesized) instruments. Other than that, it's just like any other music CD.

I'm still wondering whether the DVD that comes with the new edition contains video or audio of a real human being playing a genuine piano. Does anyone out there have the DVD edition?

The Book 1 DVD is a person playing the piano. It is an overhead shot so you can see the fingering. And it is not just playing the songs, there are some instructional interludes, corresponding to the book, as well.

I highly recommend the DVD with Book 1. As far as I know, Book 2 and Book 3 do not have DVDs available.