Beginning Rock Keyboard by Mark Harrison | Piano and Keyboard Instruction Book with Online Audio | Learn Rock Comping Soloing Theory Chords and ... Players Guide (Hal Leonard Keyboard Style)

Hal Leonard's Keyboard Style book/CD range welcomes another title from the master educator himself, Mark Harrison. This book fills a gap in the series that is complimented by "Blues Piano" & "R&B Keyboard" also by Harrison, and the more intermediate level "Rock Keyboard" by Scott Miller. "Beginning Rock Keyboard" gets straight into comping for classic & contemporary rock styles with some notes on soloing using minor pentatonic & blues scales. Since I personally own the other books in this series I am always wary that there will be a level of lesson duplication, but I am pleased to report that the Blues rhythm examples are kept to a bare minimum. After all, there is already an excellent Blues piano book in this series. Artist styles used in the examples include Elton John, Billy Joel, Train, Ben Folds, Bruce Hornsby among others. This book/CD is a great guide that is just the right level for someone wanting to explore the Rhythm side of keyboards. The soloing tips are there to give you step up to try and improvise but is not too heavy handed. The "Rock Keyboard" book by Scott Miller is definitely the next step once you are very comfortable playing these examples.

I love Mark Harrison; his books are by far the best on how to play piano in a contemporary way. I've studied piano on my own for a few years now, and the examples in this book, while not technically difficult, are still satisfying to play (which is the best kind of music, right?). Some musicians have made good careers out of playing stuff that isn't much more complicated than what you'll find in this book; one of the descending arpeggios examples might even fool you into thinking you're playing a small snippet of "clocks" by Coldplay. The examples are also well-explained, and are simple enough that they make for good mental transposing practice (the best way to really learn how an example works), if you know your theory. Work through this book, then buy The Pop Piano Book for a more in-depth look at contemporary styles. Long live Mark Harrison! And don't think you're too good to learn anything from it, either; you might be, but I bet even a pro would learn something they didn't know from it.

This is my second Mark Harrison book and I think he's an outstanding author and educator. His descriptions are clear and easy to follow and the music examples are fun to play and rewarding to practice and perfect. The accompanying CD makes it easy to listen and learn. My only suggestion would be to add slow tempo versions of each exercise. My piano teacher has incorporated this material into my weekly lesson and from time to time he refers to this book when explaining other concepts. I plan on purchasing all of Mark's books. He's already taught me so much. I'm excited to see where he'll take me.

Listing said online audio access included but its not. The book is written as though you have the cd, which is also not included.

Hal 's music books a very educational have learned about music and how to play music because of them. If in the future another good price makes itself available I too, will plan to purchase more of these educational instructional books in the future.

Book is just like listed..Learning songs

Like new condition. The book was what I expected: alot of basic stuff, but some fundamentals I needed to go back and work on. Mark Harrison is perfect for this job.

I like it a lot. I wish Mark gave some more examples on improvising, for organ and piano keyboard lines, but still great value, high quality. Thanks Mark. In next edition, more improvisation examples, please.

Sencillo y al grano. Como complemento o introducción está muy bien. Quizá con más ejercicios sería un manual más completo.

Ich habe einige Bücher von Mark Harrison. Die sind alle wirklich total super, so auch dieses hier. Die Comping Styles in der Mitte des Buches sowie die Style Files am Ende haben nicht mehr viel mit "Beginning" zu tun, sie sind schon etwas anspruchsvoller (was ich aber auch erhofft hatte). Also für den etwas erfahreneren Pianisten (aber auch für Piano-Novizen): Nicht von dem Wort "Beginning" in die Irre führen lassen... Dieses Buch bietet eine solide Basis für Rock Piano. Dann noch kombiniert mit "Rock Keyboard" von Scott Miller, welches eher auf Licks oder Soli eingeht, und der Weg zum Piano-Rock-Star ist gepflastert!

This looks like a good book and it came on time. My one-star review is because I do not think this is a beginner book. I understand that the title can be read as, "If you are an accomplished keyboardist in another style and want to begin playing rock keyboards then this is where you should start." However, that isn't clear. The book assumes you already know a fair bit. And even if you are branching into rock keyboards this book skims the basics of playing rock keyboards, in favour of getting into the meat of more intermediate/advanced playing. I haven't gone through the whole book yet so I cannot speak about how good the whole book is. However, it ramps up in difficulty very quickly. This would be extremely difficult for someone who has never played piano or keyboards before. There is definitely room for another book to be written to bring the beginner up to the required level to start this book. As well as that if anyone was able to, there would be room for a 'rock/pop' version of Hanon, Czerny and Schmitt rolled into one. For example, Hanon and Schmitt focus on one finger at a time exercises. whereas, in rock music, you can play 8 or 16 notes with the same finger. In the past, I have played guitar, bass, drums, trumpet and had some experience playing the piano. However, that was a classical piano style. Based on my experience I have written some exercises to help me get up to the exercises in this book. It's not just about being able to play the exercises in this book. It about spending the time developing the muscles, stamina and mind-muscle connections in the basics before ramping up to this level. It's like the old question about can I just learn the grade 8 pieces, pass the exam and say I'm a grade 8 piano player? That may be possible, but you will not be as good as someone who spent ten years practising and playing hundreds of pieces and exercises before they got their grade 8. This book also lacks a lot of the necessary teaching for beginners on how to learn the pieces. I feel if I was a complete beginner I would be put off playing by this book.

Bonne méthode de progression.

bonne méthode mais présentation austère et peu intuitive