Looking for a book on piano for Christmas (for yourself or someone else), or maybe just to add to your music library? I just realized that we’ve reviewed a lot of piano books on this site over the last couple of years…but we’ve never listed them all on the one page. Here you will find the best Piano Music Books, across various skill levels & age groups, suitable for learning to play the piano, keyboards, techniques, music theory, composition & more.
Introduction
Here’s why you need Piano Books
Learning the basic music notes and being able to play simple songs on the piano is not a great deal. The challenge is to improve yourself so that you can accomplish a lot more. Most experienced players don’t own just one or two books; they have a library full of music books from different authors, each focusing on different aspects of music.
Over a period of time, even you’ll need to own a collection of piano books.
As a beginner, you will have lots of options when it comes to piano music books. You can just visit any music store and pick up a beginners piano book. It will definitely keep you busy for a few months.
But for intermediate players, it is better to do some homework before you buy any book. Otherwise you may get disappointed with the contents later.
Here we take a look at some of the best Piano Music Books (and Magazines) that are packed with some solid and useful lessons.
25 Piano Books for Christmas: All Time Favorites of Piano Players
So here’s a list of the top 25 piano books recommended for beginners and intermediate players.
Piano Method Books / Teach Yourself
How to Play Piano Despite Years of Lessons
How to Play Piano Despite Years of Lessons: What Music Is and How to Make It at Home. A great book for adults, especially for the self-taught players.
The book teaches how to simplify things, how to play chords in various ways, use substitutions, and so on. Can be used by students of other musical instruments as well. Read full review
Piano For Dummies
Piano For Dummies – For those of you who are fan of the Dummies series. This is another good piano book for adults, written in a humorous manner with plenty of examples. It starts with the basics and takes you through the advanced stuff, also teaches you how to play in different styles and suggests several patterns for your left hand.
The book touches several different topics, but doesn’t go a lot deep into it. It’s a great book to become aware about a lot of things; it also gives you a good overview on Piano/Keyboards. Recommended for adults.
Alfred’s Adult All-in-One Course
Alfred’s Adult All-in-One Course (Book) (Teach Yourself Series) for the beginning adult (and older children). Alfred series are quite popular among music students. They follow a structured approach and have decent coverage of the various topics.
How to Play Popular Piano in 10 Easy Lessons
How to Play Popular Piano in 10 Easy Lessons: The Fastest, Easiest Way to Learn to Play from Sheet Music or by Ear
Another good book for beginners and for those who are trying to get back to playing after a long break. Quickly takes you through the basics so that you can play some song at the earliest. Easy explanations about the music theory basics, including sight-reading.
Repertoire
The Piano Bench of Classical Music
The Piano Bench of Classical Music: Piano Solo (Piano Collections). Over 125 great masterpieces from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern eras. Great for learning new pieces and building your repertoire.
Scott The Piano Guy’s Favorite Piano Fake Book
Scott The Piano Guy’s Favorite Piano Fake Book
This fake book includes 74 popular song arrangements from Scott Houston. Great for advanced beginners/intermediate pianists and keyboardists alike. starts of with simple songs/arrangements and moves on to the challenging ones.
Finger Exercises
Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist
Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist in Sixty Exercises for the Piano for the Acquirement of Agility, Independence, Strength, and Perfect Evenness: Complete.
This is one of the most popular books for finger exercises. Sooner or later your piano teacher is going to ask you to practice exercises suggested in this book.
Czerny: Art of Finger Dexterity for the Piano
Czerny: Art of Finger Dexterity for the Piano
Need something more challenging than Hanon? Get hold of Czerny. Includes several elaborate/lengthy finger exercises.
The Complete Book of Scales, Chords, Arpeggios and Cadences
The Complete Book of Scales, Chords, Arpeggios and Cadences: Includes All the Major, Minor (Natural, Harmonic, Melodic) & Chromatic Scales – Plus Additional Instructions on Music Fundamentals.
This is more of a reference book, in case you wish to brush up on something.
Music Theory
Alfred’s Essentials of Music Theory: Alfred’s Essentials of Music Theory: A Complete Self-Study Course for All Musicians. Click here to see price.
Edly’s Music Theory for Practical People: For anyone desiring a deeper appreciation of music.
Click here to see price
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Music Theory: Teaches budding musician how to read music
Sight Reading
Super Sight-Reading Secrets
Super Sight-Reading Secrets: An Innovative, Step-By-Step Program for Musical Keyboard Players of All Levels by Howard B. Richman
Music Reading For Keyboard
Music Reading For Keyboard: The Complete Method (Musicians Institute Essential Concepts) by Larry Steelman.
Piano Riffs
Complete Piano Rags – Scott Joplin
Learn to play 38 piano rags, performed by the acknowledged master of the form. Click here to see price.
Ultimate Latin Piano/Keyboard Riffs
Ultimate Latin Piano/Keyboard Riffs Book/audio CD. Click here to see price.
Tons of Runs: For the Contemporary Pianist. Click here to see price.
Jazz Riffs for Piano – Mitch Kerper
Learn to play riffs and phrases in the styles of Bud Powell, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and many other major jazz pianists.
Piano Technique
Here are some good books on improving your piano technique.
The Piano Handbook
The Piano Handbook: A Complete Guide for Mastering Piano
The Piano Handbook
The Piano Improvisation Handbook – Carl Humphries
Learn the practical skills and theoretical issues involved in mastering all forms of piano improvisation, including classical, jazz, rock and blues.
Buy on Amazon
Here are a few more books that piano players have found to be useful for improving piano techniques:
- The art of piano playing (Heinrich Neuhaus)
- Rational Principles of Pianoforte Technique (Alfred Cortot)
- Craft of Piano Playing (Alan Fraser’s Book and DVD)
- Pianism as an Art (S Feĭnberg)
Inside Your Piano
The Piano Book
The Piano Book: Buying & Owning a New or Used Piano
The Piano Book
Best Piano Magazines
Find a list of the Best Piano magazines.
Check out the hottest piano music & artists, besides enjoying the master piano classes.
Books for Beginners
Teaching Little Fingers to Play
Teaching Little Fingers to Play: A Book for the Earliest Beginner (John Thompsons Modern Course for The Piano).
As the name suggests, its for little kids, and a great book for the young beginners. Wonderful first piano book for kids!
Buy on Amazon
Good Electronic Keyboard books
A key difference between an electronic keyboard and a Piano is that the keyboard has hundreds of built-in musical styles and all these styles have the ability to recognize the chords that you play.
It is these built-in rhythms that excite lot of players, especially the kids when they hear this instrument for the first time. Almost everybody loves listening to these musical styles and enjoys fiddling with the various fill-in buttons.
But that’s as far you can go if you don’t know how to play the keyboard. To actually appreciate the beauty of this instrument, you should be able to play a melody.
It is only then that you can make use of the several features available on any modern electronic keyboard. It is only then that you will realize that the keyboard is actually a complete orchestra rolled in one instrument.
Easy to Start Learning
You will be happy to hear that it is comparatively easy to start playing the keyboards from a keyboard book.
You will need to focus only on the melody cleff so you can quickly learn a few easy songs; you will then need to learn a few chords and then you are ready to roll.
Once you are comfortable playing the melody and the chords, it is very easy to impress others with your playing, as you play along the various musical styles.
Recommended Electronic Keyboard Books
Listed below are some of the popular keyboard music books. If possible, visit a music store and try to see there contents. Almost all of them come with a CD to help you learn faster.
- Fasttrack Series by Gary Meisner and Blake Neely
- The Complete Keyboard Player: by Kenneth Baker
- Pop/Rock: Note-for-Note Keyboard Transcriptions: by Hal Leonard Corp
- Rock Keyboard: Hal Leonard Keyboard Style Series: by Scott Miller
There are many more books besides the ones listed above but I think these are good enough to get started. I will be updating this page regularly with more keyboard music books so do comeback and check out this page.
Books for Intermediate to Advanced Players
- Advanced Piano Solos Christmas Encyclopedia by Tom Roed
Very good collection of solo piano Christmas music! This book is more for intermediate level players (difficulty wise) than for very advanced players. - The Piano Handbook: A Complete Guide for Mastering Piano by Carl Humphries
Another great book for advanced players! Comes with a CD! It contains information on all aspects of piano – history, brands, theory, styles, etc. It also gives you hundreds of songs to play. - Dan Coates Complete / Advanced Piano Solos by Dan Coates
Most satisfying Piano music book for advanced players. The songs are challenging and contain some beautiful arrangements.
Style based Books
- The Pop Piano Book – by Mark Harrison
- The Jazz Piano Book: by Mark Levine (Author)
- Funk Piano Method BK/CD: Beginner to Intermediate: – by Peter Gelling
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Final Thoughts
Piano music can now be played by players of all ages and skills, and in various styles. The number of books available has grown manifold in the last couple of decades. The piano books listed here are high-quality teaching resources from well-known music publications. This is by no means the final-list of piano music books but it does cover a range of topics, and its perfect for any new music teacher, or self-taught pianist, or just a piano-player looking for some practice material.
Note: We’ve reviewed about 25 books over the years but by no means have reviewed every piano book. If we’ve missed one of your favorites feel free to suggest it in the comments below.
KeytarHQ editorial team includes musicians who write and review products for pianists, keyboardists, guitarists & other musicians. KeytarHQ is the best online resource for information on keyboards, pianos, synths, keytars, guitars and music gear for musicians of all abilities, ages and interests.
The best piano book is called a piano teacher. And if at all you buy a book make sure you take the time to read it, and understand what’s written.