First Piano Book for Beginners

The First Piano Book for Beginners is the latest version of the Little Pianist First Steps method books. Although the First Piano Book for Beginners presents the same pedagogical ideas and contains the same as in previous edition instructive repertoire, a different form of the book was used. Instead of "lesson by lesson" structure the material is presented in the consecutive order of piano playing skills, which are explored in the book. This gives the teachers more freedom and flexibility in adjusting the speed of learning to the abilities and individual needs of different students.One of the most important strategic pedagogical goals presented in The First Piano Book for Beginners is to build in strict order the process of mastering by the student the basic piano playing skills. It is also essential to understand that only freedom of all playing movements and flexibility of hands and arms can make the acquisition of correct piano playing skills and habits possible.Freedom and flexibility of hands is the fundamental principle of piano playing.The teaching strategies and carefully selected repertoire in our book allows the teacher to focus on developing in students the ability to relax hand and to keep it flexible. We understand how important it is to start working on this essential technical device from the first stage teaching beginners and to keep working on it throughout all the years of training young musicians. Only freedom and flexibility of playing movements allows to produce beautiful tone, coordinate different articulations and lay the foundation for all piano technical skills.The above-stated principle of hand freedom and flexibility dictates a particular order of learning different technical elements on the piano, and the selection of the repertoire, so as to better suit this goal.To develop the student's ability to play the piano without tension, we start with exercises and little tunes based on detached notes. At first, all tunes are written for either only the right or only the left hand.Such material allows both the teacher and the student to focus on the mechanism of hand relaxation in its most pure and simplified form. Here is the order in which we introduce basic piano playing skills in our method: Non legato (detached) notes Two-note and three-note slurs Staccato notes Legato notes