Big Book Of Beginner's Piano Classics: 83 Favorite Pieces in Easy Piano Arrangements

Some of the pieces are a bit short otherwise this is a good book if you are interested in playing Piano classics. The Authors have made these pieces more approachable so should suit a piano player who has been playing for about a year and has therefore covered the basics such as reading music and able to find notes on the piano with some ease. All the pieces can be downloaded as MP3 files so you can listen to them and hear how they should sound which is great.

An ideal book for me. I am elderly and was a complete beginner one year ago.Unfortunately though I can’t seem to find on Dover Publications website how to download the tunes which is very frustrating, hence the lower score.

Cannot

I've been playing for around a month and have found this book to be excellent.A problem with a lot of tutorial books for beginners is the tunes you learn are often things like 'Old MacDonald', which may be OK for children but as an adult it's pretty uninspiring.This book has very playable versions of classic piano pieces that you'll actually want to learn.They are clearly set out and all show suggested fingering, which I find particularly helpful as a beginner. Of course they are significantly simplified, but still easily recognisable, and a lot more satisfying to play than nursery rhymes!The pieces are also available in mp3 on the Dover website, and for me these are an object lesson to other publishers - it's not some stylised backing track or a version that sounds like it's being played on a stylophone, it's just someone accurately playing the piece, on a piano, so you know exactly what it should sound like.The only slight negative is it's not spiral bound, but that's not enough to deduct a star from what is an excellent book.

I was looking forward so much to receiving this book. It seemed to offer exactly what I wanted for my age and stage - an adult beginner with about 18 months' experience. The reviews were excellent, but the reality was so, so different.Firstly, the pieces are arranged in alphabetical order of composer, so that difficult pieces sit cheek by jowl with much simpler ones. It would have been much more helpful to have had the easier pieces first with the level gradually rising.Some pieces have very simplistic parts for the left hand to play, which means there is no depth to the music. For example, 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring' has 9 notes spread across 8 bars for the left hand to play, whilst the right hand plays 69 notes. Conversely, there are others which are written in keys (A Major and E flat Major) and/or with a very wide range of notes which are beyond a beginner.Despite the price, the paper is thin and cheap. Sadly I feel that my money would have been better spent elsewhere.

I acquired a keyboard last year after a break of over 30 years from playing the piano - so I needed some easy but 'meaningful' music to play. This is a great collection - lots of familiar and (to me) less familiar classical tunes - a good range, with some easier than others - and it is well set out in fairly large print, with the composers in alphabetical order - and I'm really enjoying using it. The notes, sometimes humorous, about the composers and their music above each piece are interesting and a nice touch too.I thoroughly recommend this book, but having had it a year I was starting to find it mostly quite easy (so after a bit of research I bought a rather more challenging book, also from Amazon - and it is one that I would also recommend: Classic FM-Smooth Classics for Solo Piano). However I still really enjoy using this Beginners' book of Piano Classics whenever I feel a need for a more relaxed session.

Not sure how long binding will hold together as it is glue and you have to squish it to get at the notes.Content is excellent though. I can plod through many of the pieces at my pre-grade one piano level and it is quite satisfying to play things which sound musical rather than more kids pieces or exercises. However, I do already read music well so those for whom piano is a first instrument may find this harder. Certainly excellent site reading practice.

This has a lot of recognisable classical favourites. The left hand is fairly simple, consisting of mostly single, bar-long notes to accompany the right hand tune. I am a re-starter having had lessons 30 years ago and trying to kick start a new hobby. I have found this book good for confidence building as some tunes can be picked up in an hour or so and others will be more challenging. Don't expect the full piece of music as most of the pieces are only 1 or two pages. Most tunes are set in simple keys too, avoiding too many sharps and flats. Good value.