Nancy FaberAdult Piano Adventures Popular Book 1 – Piano Sheet Music | Timeless Hits & Favorites for Beginners | Includes Let It Be, My Heart Will Go On, ... (Adult Piano Adventures: Popular, 1)

I am a beginner aged 40 and have been playing for about 6 months.I finished PA 1 and am now working through chapter 7 of PA 2.The songs are beginner which, in this case, is not synonymous with “easy”. Some have taken me a couple of weeks (no business like show business, someone like you and the infamous downton abbey), while others I completed in a weekend. The pieces do a good job of getting your hands moving all over the keyboard. Much more so the PA books. Honestly, after playing some of Popular pieces, the PA book exercises seem way easier.The difficulty is somewhat mixed and im not sure if this an intentional strategy to build confidence going into a harder piece.I do wish they had play-along tracks like they do with the piano adventures. That way i could practice at multiple speeds. They also don't really seem to necessarily correspond with the order of the PA books.All that said, i love that this book includes classical , pop, theater and movie. Its a nice combination of different styles and they are elegantly arranged. I feel like the Fabers have high expectations for their budding pianists but the feeling of finally playing a song through is worth it.I highly recommend the book to add some substance to your playing.

This book is Level 1 for Adult Beginners and I was just finishing the Level 1 method book and the first few songs in this book are very good and easy, I am especially fond of My Heart Will Go On which I learned to play on the Ukulele a few years ago.Then I hit the Downton Abbey them and let me tell you, this is my favorite song I have learned to play in the nearly two years of being a Piano Player. It's also one of the most challenging. I've tried many different exercises and songs from YouTube videos but they were either too complex or just the introduction to a song. And while this is an arrangement made for beginners, it is still a complete song, so it has become my go-to song for warming up and what not. It's also a great song to practice isolation techniques because it is a long enough song with enough variety that when you have trouble with chord changes, or whatever, you can easily isolate those measures or notes.Any way, I have only moved on to the song after this, which is also a very good and challenging (but not too challenging) song for the beginner which is There's No Business Like Show Business.But I am no Piano Teacher so, being self-taught, I have no idea if I should have been using this and the Classics book all along or as I did, waiting to complete the Method Book and then take on these.I actually felt the Method Book gave me enough to do so that I didn't need supplementary material. Now I am using the supplemental books as well as reviewing the chapters from the Level 1 book, mostly the Three Minute Technique pages and theory pages before moving on to Level 2.But I highly recommend this book based on the songs I have played and getting the Downton Abbey theme is worth the price of this book if you want a great song that sounds great. I can't tell you how I travel with the notes as I play this one song. It's so Heavenly. And I have never even watched that show!

I've been playing piano now for a little over 7 months. I've been working with a piano teacher that has been going through different books (Such as RCM 1, Alfred Jazz Book 2b, etc.) and classical music. I've also completed the Faber Adult Adventures 1 book. I feel this book is a fantastic transition from Faber Adult Adventures Book 1 to Book 2. It has a lot of fun pieces that are challenging for a beginner and get right up to the lowest levels of intermediate. Its been a lot of fun learning these and I feel its been very helpful as I continue to proceed through Adult Adventures 2.The main thing I'd say that is that this book really gets you to learn basic chords and basic chord inversions. It'll also consistently get you to move to slightly different 5 finger basic positions within songs. It won't push you to big jumps in hand positions but it will definitely require you to move a little. Due to this I believe other than the very beginning pieces in this book the average new pianist shouldn't start with this until they finish with at least the first Adult Adventures book.