Keyboard Musician for the Adult beginner is one of my favorite books to use for teaching adult beginners. It works really well as a book to use in conjunction with piano lessons, or for someone who has some background in music, perhaps someone who has played a different instrument for a while but is new to piano. If you are totally new to music and the piano, you might want to consider working with the Faber Adult Piano Adventures book first or in conjunction with this one (the Faber books are discussed below).

Keyboard Musician was written by Frances Clark, Louise Goss, and Roger Grove. Frances Clark was a well known piano teacher and author of piano pedagogy materials. The Frances Clark Center For Keyboard Pedagogy is named after her, and she was one of the founders of the The New School for Music Study (NSMS) in New Jersey.

This book does a great job of teaching the student how to read music. It emphasizes reading intervals by focusing on Distance and Direction. Distance here means the distance between notes, and direction refers to direction the notes are moving in. This approach is beneficial because it encourages students to take in sections of music at once, rather than focusing on one note at a time.

In addition to reading music, this book covers many important topics such as landmark notes, intervals, accompaniment of melodies, music theory, transposing, technique, learning by rote, time signatures, chord progressions, non-harmonic tones such as neighbor tones and passing tones, major and minor keys, and key signatures. Overall, it provides a very strong foundation in the basics of piano and music for a student to build on.

• Faber Adult Piano Adventures - Book I

• Faber Adult Piano Adventures - Book II

• Alfred’s Basic Adult All-In-One Course - Level 1

• Alfred’s Basic Adult All-In-One Course - Level 2

• Alfred’s Basic Adult All-In-One Course - Level 3

• Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano Course - Lesson Book Level 1

• Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano Course - Lesson Book Level 2

• Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano Course - Lesson Book Level 3

• Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano Course - Theory Book Level 1

• Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano Course - Theory Book Level 2

• Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano Course - Theory Book Level 3

• Bela Bartok - Mikrokosmos Volume 1

• Bela Bartok - Mikrokosmos Volume 2

• Bela Bartok - Mikrokosmos Volume 3

• Bela Bartok - Mikrokosmos Volume 4

• Bela Bartok - Mikrokosmos Volume 5

• Bela Bartok - Mikrokosmos Volume 6

Schott / Universal also publishes a Wiener Urtext Edition of Mikrokosmos that comes in three volumes. An Urtext Edition tries to reproduce the original score as closely as possible. The Wiener Urtext Edition Mikrokosmos books are really nice to use. The music is laid out well and the books use high-quality binding and paper.

• Bela Bartok - Mikrokosmos I (Vol. 1 & 2)

• Bela Bartok - Mikrokosmos II (Vol. 3 & 4)

• Bela Bartok - Mikrokosmos III (Vol. 5 & 6)

Preparatory Exercises (Opus 16) is a series of exercises composed by Aloys Schmitt. It contains a number of interesting exercises that can be practiced in various ways to develop some finger independence and technique. It also contains some good fingerings for scales and arpeggios.

Carl Czerny (1791 – 1857) was a pianist, composer, and music teacher. He is a very important figure in the history of classical music and the piano as he was a student of Beethoven, a teacher of Liszt, and wrote many important pedagogical works for the piano. His Opus 23 contains many short exercises and studies that are useful for developing important piano skills such as technique, interpretation, and reading. Although this book is called “The Young Pianist,” these exercises are also great for adult beginners or for more advanced adult students to use for sight reading.

Beginning Piano Solos is a compilation of relatively easy piano pieces from different periods. This collection was put together by Paul Sheftel, who has served as faculty at the Manhattan School of Music and Juilliard. Beginning Piano Solos is suitable for adults at the late beginner or early intermediate level who have a grasp on the basics of reading music, technique, and theory. It’s also a great book to use for sight reading practice if you are a more advanced student.

This book includes works by the following composers, among others:

• Bach

• Beethoven

• Mozart

• Bartok

• Purcell

• Schumann

• Tchaikovsky

This volume contains some very beautiful works from a notebook given by J.S. Bach to his wife Anna Magdalena Bach. The pieces in this book were used by Bach’s large and very musical family for learning and playing music. Many of the pieces in this book were composed by J.S. Bach himself, while others were written by J.S. Bach’s son Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach (C.P.E. Bach) or other composers of the time.

The Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach is suitable for adults at the late beginner or early intermediate level who have a grasp on the basics of reading music, technique, and theory. It’s also a great volume for any pianist to have in their library.

The Alfred edition of the two and three part inventions is a great volume to add to your library. It contains a wonderful introduction with a lot of interpretive guidance. The pieces themselves are heavily edited by Willard A. Palmer and contain many helpful suggestions for fingering, dynamics, articulation, and tempo. This book is a great reference guide for beginners unfamiliar with practices, ornaments, and interpretive principles of the Baroque Period.

The Henle urtext edition of the two and three part inventions is a nice compliment to the Alfred edition. An urtext edition is an edition that aims to reproduce the original score with only minimal editing. This edition presents a very clean and basic version of these pieces for those who want a copy of these works without editorial and interpretive suggestions.

I prefer the edition without fingerings, as I prefer to come up with my own fingerings. Henle also offers an edition with fingerings, though.

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) was a Polish composer of the romantic period. This volume contains some of the his easiest pieces. It’s a nice volume for those interested in exploring Chopin for the first time, as it’s fairly inexpensive and contains a number of the pieces that are good for an early intermediate player in a single volume. It also provides some helpful fingering suggestions.

Schumann’s Album for the Young contains a number of interesting repertoire choices from the Romantic Period that are a good fit for beginning or early intermediate students. It was composed by Robert Schumann in 1848 for his three daughters.

Although the subject matter of this books is geared toward children, these pieces are enjoyable for adults to play as well.