Faber's Adult Piano Adventures vs Alfred's Basic Adult Course - Piano Method Comparison 

I’m an adult learner and unfortunately the first teacher I had for classical piano also started me with the piano adventures basic series level 1, which is more suitable for children around ages 7-10. However I must acknowledge that the series for children provides much more scaffolding and practice for the same concepts, even if the songs sound kiddish most of the time. And that scaffolding and reinforcement of concepts in piano adventures series for children became really useful for self learning after I stopped piano lessons with that teacher after half a year. Hang in there, the pieces start to be more engaging after a a while even in the children’s series :)

Thank you for your support. I will hang I. There. Thanks.

​@@phyllisgordon6577 -- it will all come together after a while. All the components are needed -- scales, intervals, chords - broken and blocked, inversions -- are all the building blocks for playing the piano. Even if they seem "childish" or are in childish pieces, they are the same elements used in all other pieces strive to become as good as possible with each assignment and you will progress.

Try Decplay, it will be easier, more enjoyable and give you back your motivation.

Yeah I think we could all be using both methods The more …

Which one do you prefer?

@@Mi-rinconcito I mostly used Adult Piano Adventures (Book 1 and 2) although I learned some tunes from Basic Adult Piano Course (Book 1 and 2). I also have some other Faber books and Alfred's Basic All-in-One Course Book 3 (it is quite good). From my perspective of learning to play piano from books and also going through online courses, I would probably choose Alfred's books. I think that the course books are more concise and arrangements of the pieces of music are better. On the other hand Faber book cover theory in more detail. I did not like many of their simplified arrangements. It all depends what kind of music you want to play in the future. The online course I initially used was Pianote. I had subscription for ~ a year and I would still use it if I were interested in popular music and a bit of classical music. The course that I most benefited from was ArtistWorks course with Zachary Deak. He is a very good teacher if you want to play classical music. Be prepared for very good and detailed reviews. He is a better teacher than any private teacher I had. I currently consider myself to be an advanced beginner/early intermediate piano player (RCM Level 3-4). I mostly play classical music (I also have a life Tonebase subscription) with some plans to learn jazz. Michael Ps. Alfred’s Basic Adult or Basic Adult All-in-One Course books are better for future reference.

Hi how is the Faber on Kindle working for you? I've been debating between that and spiral bound. Also I have played violin as well. It really messes with my head to learn and play bass clef with my left hand. Do you have any tips or thoughts?

​@@KaiOpaka​ hi there! I purchased the Kindle version of Faber Adult Piano Book 1 and 2. What I did was create it into a PDF so I could mark them on my iPad. I did the manual way by taking a screenshot of each page and then combining them into a file. Time consuming. So I think if you want to write on the pages it would be better to get the spiral bound. I finished Book 1 and started Book 2. But realized the Adult book 2 is very similar to the Faber Piano Adventure Level 3 series, which I have in physical form. I'm using that one now.

​​@@KaiOpakasorry forgot the answer to your other question. Like you, I have no issue with treble clef. Bass clef reading is getting better. I memorized the most important reference notes on the bass clef like middle C, low F, low C, bass F, and bass C. I also used digital flashcards. I used to "transpose" treble notes into bass notes, but that was very inefficient. Right now I'm using the Faber Sight Reading series to improve my sight reading ability to get used to reading the grad staff as a whole, which is challenging but it's really helpful! Good luck on your piano journey! It's been a year for me and I'm enjoying it so much! There have been some ups and downs, but it's so rewarding!

It's a different approach. Both work as long as they don't stay too long in the same position.

Frederique Constant

Good point! The title is already so long that "All in one" just didn't fit in anymore. Anyway, it's the same book with a few extra pages. RE chords, yes, you should really try to understand how they are created and recognise their shapes. It will be soooooo much easier to play and make music that way.

😮I skipped that song. I don't know. With 🙏🏽 the 2 hands are coming along and moving a little bit around on the keyboard. I'm in the last quarter as well. Somewhere around pgs 100 to 106 now.

That's exactly where I am now in the Alfred's book and I honestly almost gave up the piano, it's such a difficult piece. My piano teacher said that it's completely misplaced in the book - it should be much further on. I worked on it for 2 weeks, got it so-so and now I've moved on to Lone Star Waltz. So much nicer!

@@paulasimson4939 Glad to hear an instructor said that!! Was really really tough. Great to hear you got it down, so did after after alot of time!

Coincidentally had played “Bow the man down” when I read this comment 😂 I’ve completed piano adventures level 3A and had just returned to Alfred’s, which I had given up on years ago, as additional practice. Had found Alfred’s difficult for a self learner actually. The Piano Adventures basic series (as I used the basic series rather than the adult’s) does help in building hand independence, and is scaffolded pretty well.

1. Piano Adventures continues to level 3 standard fro level 2 adult, so you can go onto level 5 with it. There is no better, they are just different. Piano Adventures moved a bit slower and gives more practice material. Whichever you go with, you will need extra books at some point for sight-reading, technique and more repertoire. Piano Adventures is easier if you learn alone without a teacher. 2. Both books explore the whole keyboard in book 1. So 61 keys is not enough. If you don't want to invest right away, you can just omit those notes. It's always better to have a better piano with heavier keys but it doesn't mean that you can't learn on what you have.

@@pianotips2623 fantastic review and insights, I just wish I’d seen it a week or two earlier. After doing lots of research online and getting a little overwhelmed by all the information and options, I finally decided to purchase the entire Alfred’s all in one series, a sustain pedal and keyboard thinking that I had all the basics I would need. I compromised on price by not getting weighted keys and just a 61 key keyboard as I thought that would be good enough (as most reviewers suggest) to cover a beginners needs. This is the first I’ve seen any mention of the Alfred’s and Piano adventure books requiring the full 88 keys to get the most from the books. 🙁

Where is this app ? I couldn't see this on playstore

@@Proud_Pagan its a desktop program. Google search Piano Marvel and download the software on your desktop computer or tablet. One problem with Piano Marvel is that their lessons is not organize well. The lessons jump around too much.

Same here. Don’t like Faber at all. I wasted 33€ on it.

Get yourself a good beginners theory workbook.

@@DivineSource444 yup, I recently got a theory book, it's helped a lot...Ty for advice🙂

,s

@@anthonyclark8564 May i ask which one did you get?

@@jewguy667 I got Bastien, Piano for Adults book 1. And I'm very happy with it.

both of them have jazz basics. However, I'm sure there are method books specifically for jazz but that's the one genre I never got into, so can't really advise.

There's one method book for jazz that looks great, it's called Jazz Piano Fundamentals by Jeremy Siskind. The first book is designed to orient you for the first 6 months of jazz studies, however they recommend as prerequisites to have knowledge of scales and the coordination needed to play a Chopin Nocturne or Bach Invention. I'm guessing that would be the equivalent of something like Grade 3, maybe?

faber also offers Jazz books in their Pretime to Bigtime series