Your Golden Ears: First Piano Lessons for Adult Beginners Vol. 1: Learn With 5 Minutes Daily Practice, Master Finger Dexterity & Technique Using Sheet Music, Songs, Music Notation and More!

I have recently started to use this book to help me learn and I have to say I am super impressed. So much so I am about to order the next one. I am a complete beginner and this is so well written, explained and the short videos, making it visual too, to assist, means everything makes sense. The fact that you are learning the music theory along the way with it is just amazing. I feel I am not the most academic, I am definitely more of a creative and I thought I may struggle with a written book to learn, rather than hands on, but this is as I say, so well done and I am really enjoying it so far. I have learnt a lot already. Highly recommend.

I was pleased when I recently received this book as a gift. It is comprehensive, well presented, and, obvious to me, the author's labour of love. I should emphasise that the course of lessons it contains are most definitely aimed at the absolute beginner. In other words this first book, volume one of a two book series, is designed for a person that has no prior experience of either playing the piano or sight reading music. If this exactly describes you then it might be perfect for you. I should point out that this does not best describe me, as I received my copy when I had already been learning to play the piano for almost a year. Plus I have been able sight read music for quite a while longer. That said, because I'm a relatively recent beginner, I think I'm still well placed to recommend this book for absolute beginners because of my personal learning experiences. Even though I'm not an absolute beginner, I can still say that I have enjoyed reading through this book, from beginning to end and sampling the lessons. Having done so, I might additionally say that I wish I'd received my copy earlier. It has provided me with a useful resourse for revision. That's because it has been compiled as a one stop shop, stock piled high, with just about everything I've previously learned but from a multitude of sources. If you are an absolute beginner, then in my opinion this book will provide you with a structured course that will enable you to make good progress rapidly; at the starting point of your journey towards becoming a piano player.

Excellent book. I have learned a lot in a very short time. Easy to understand, easy to follow and progress along. This book is better than my daughter’s school music book!

Update: ok …I admit upon returning to give an update to the review, I admit I do need to curb my enthusiasm and not ramble as much!….… I just wanted to say that I would encourage everyone to consider starting out with this book even if you decide not to progress to the next book you will leave at least having learnt the rudimentary steps of piano and through your own self paced learning process probably venture on to explore much much more…It’s now been a year since I took up the hobby and though I am still very elementary I have to admit what I took away from these two books has indeed been very helpful and I have just managed to learn to play - not sounding like a pianist… obviously nevertheless and though it may at the moment be sounding like a toddler clanking away at the xylophone level …haha - it’s thanks yo stumbling upon this book and an introductory course on udemy that I was able to achieve my personal goal of learning two tunes I always wanted to learn and now though I admit I am still a ways to go in terms of fine tuning, harmonising and well admittedly yes….less clanking on the keys I think the daily practices have come to fruition and I encourage others apprehensive in embarking / embracing the journey to take the plunge and use this book to make start it eases you in gently - much less abrupt and not gr8 at analogy but I’d say this is a good starting point and rather than feeling like you are being thrown in the deep end of the pool with just your rubber arm bands and panic attacks you are more likely to feel like you are gently dipping your toes in the paddling pool and slowly edging your way towards that alluring water fountain you spotted in the distance as you approached the water park :)Ok yes rambling sorry… update is the two pieces I always wanted to learn and play I can now play being…The Entertainer [ at beginners mode admittedly - still each day sees a bit of speed in playing too ] and chiefly …Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata- which I have finally pieced all sections together and yesterday for the first time I hit every note without error - jeez a year ago I thought I’d bitten off more than I could chew and I began that path with the help of this book - I’m now adding Fur Elise but that’s got some difficulty to it - the keys were learnt in bite size chunks like Moonlight sonata I’ve set the challenge to get both the tempo and rhythm locked down and it will be some time before I can play it but that’s how I started with moonlight sonata chunk size learning daily repeat learning small sections- 2 to 3 to 4 then 8 bars etc etc - tips taught to me through this book - the snapshots uploaded may look simple but it’s those building blocks that guided me to repeatedly practicing difficult bars … truly feel you will gain a lot from this bookI started an online introduction to learning to play the piano for adults beginners via Udemy that teaches fundamentals and provides a downloadable primer book which furnishes you with the necessary information to aid the learner experience and serves to complement the process of being a self paced student. Upon nearing completion I then sought out a book that would first sim to strengthen my newly acquired knowledge and help me to build on this experience. I chose to purchase the first piano lessons volume 1 book last month to run alongside completing the online course with its complementary primer book and was able to complete the final chapter - lesson 12 - of this volume 1 book in unison with the online course with ease.I think when it comes to choosing a book though I wanted something that spoke to me in an easy to understand manner without leaving me feeling lost or overwhelmed and not needing to go and do more searching to understand what is being said. This book, I feel is very easy to follow and has been written in a way that enables you to learn the fundamentals in a gradual self paced way quite quickly. There are also links to access online videos that provide visual and audio content for each of the lessons and that means you can check out how a piece of music should sound, see if you are reading the note’s correctly and even following along to the lesson you are working through.The music pieces are not as varied as my online course and is focussed on building and strengthening the knowledge base and perhaps when I was able to scan through the book before purchasing I decided to select this one and found it has helped. I have since purchased first piano lessons volume 2 and this week begun studying lesson 13 which introduces C G and F arpeggios that will be incorporated into the Brahms lullaby song which I am trying to learn alongside the next lesson song of oh Danny boy and plan to build up knowledge volume 2 is providing so that on the practical side I will eventually make improvements in the way I actually play the piano as I have purchased the initial book from trinity college as the next step towards my personal development that I believe will be enhanced as I progress through volume 2 of this book. As a self taught learner lacking the guidance of a teacher I have sought to find the approach to learning piano that will help me gradually develop in a self paced way where I remain interested and perhaps allows me to remain focused yet comfortable.I am a latecomer to the piano who admits learning something new doesn’t tend to come easy and finds learning in whatever capacity sometimes an arduous process yet it seems I chose a course and now these books which yes some days may appear a little daunting but with practice seem to get better. If you are looking for a book that talks to you in an easy to understand way, have no knowledge or and ready to begin from scratch this book provides the building blocks from the ground up.It’s worked well with meeting what I was aiming for as I approached completion of the online course and now I have now progressed to Volume 2 …which I admit is something of a step up level wise in learning is proving valuable as, ironically , upon purchasing volume 2, it is proving very useful too with complementing a chords 101 online course I have began via MuseScore where no material or book is available so having the books at hand are helping me in my desire to improve on a practical level plus the effort put in to lesson 12 of this book that focuses on harmonising notes you play together has, indeed shown me just how much I am developing at such an early stage just from the last two lessons of this book and the lesson I am now in the process of learning in Volume 2 alongside the chords 101 course both are which are adding to the theory and practice that is making my attempt to learn new pieces of music provided in the trinity’s initial stage book - building me up to grade 1 level is for my own personal interest goal - that combined are enabling this to remain an ongoing enjoyable piano learning experience overall.

I'm a latecomer to learning the piano, and this book makes taking the first steps very easy, within a couple of days I was reading music and playing Ode to Joy.

Excellent fully recommend

I found this book to be a great, warm and gentle introduction to playing piano for the adult beginnerGreat explanations, exercises, theory, and presented in a way which re-enforces lessons learnt so that you're continuously building out a solid foundation in preparation for moving onto Vol 1.A note for UK folk, like the vast majority of books and tutorials, it uses whole/half/quarter/eighth note terminology rather than the UK-language of semibreve/minim/crotchet/quaver, but that does not detract from it being an excellent adult tutorial, but just something for you to be aware of.In addition, there is the option to join their virtual piano community of adult learners so that you're all sharing the journey 🙂

I bought this for myself I find the notes confusing . So I am lettering them instead and it’s so much easier and more convenient and fun . Finding the letters on the keyboard mark them down. And work from them