Piano Lessons - Pauline Hall: Piano Time, or something else?

[roisin]

What piano tutor do your children use?
DS2 started with Me and My Piano 1&2 (Fanny Waterman - Faber), which was superb: great, fun pieces - he loved it and made rapid progress.

Unfortunately Faber don't do a sequel to this series. So then he moved on to OUP's Piano Time 2, and I have to say I loathe it! The pieces are quite tricky, but also fairly boring, and very 'exercise-like'.

(He does have "Dozen a Day", which he loves; and also "UpGrade" - repertoire pieces, which he plays just for fun. And his teacher has just asked us to get the AB Grade 1 pieces - so he has plenty to work on. But I just wondered what good tutor books there are out there for this stage?)

[SueW]

DD also did me and my piano, then Up-Grade (0-1) and More Up-Grade (0-1). And her Grade 1 pieces and scales and that was it.

Her teacher would work out and write up pieces DD asked for e.g. Disney pieces or simplified versions of popular tunes e.g. that song from Titanic.

From grade1-2 she has her G2 pieces, a book of romantic pieces and a John Thompson book. Nothing 'tutorial' really. And her teacher still writes bits up.

[roisin]

Up-Grade is great, isn't it? Good fun - which is what they need at this stage. He's only been learning for 6 months, and has made amazing progress, so I don't want him to be turned off at this point.

One great thing is it has inspired me, and I've been playing loads too

[threebob]

I can't stand piano time - Hal Leonard Book 4 & 5 would be good for this level, but some of the material would have been covered in the Faber book.

But I would do the AB pieces, maybe get Little Peppers by Elissa Milne and generally enjoy playing real music.

[roisin]

I do feel slightly guilty as I worked for OUP music before having kids! In my defence I didn't work on Piano Time

I'll have a look at the Hal Leonard next time I'm in town. Thanks threebob.