100 Left Hand Patterns Every Piano Player Should Know: Play the Same Song 100 Different Ways (Essential Piano Exercises Every Piano Player Should Know by Jerald Simon)

This book is absolutely Amazing! Every piano player needs this book! There's something in this book for all players of all levels. It's an excellent resource for ideas if you write your own music. It's also packed with the many different styles such as jazz, new age, pop and rock left hand patterns! It's also guaranteed to improve your playing if you accept Jeralds suggestionof taking the patterns through all the 12 keys and to play a song 100 different ways using the patterns he shows you in the book. This is what makes this book amazing in opinion! Most people run a mile when talking about playing in all 12 keys! But jeralds approach is genius because you focus on learning a pattern instead of complex theory you simply take the pattern and move it up the keys a half step at a time. The more patterns you learn the easier it feels taking the patterns through each key! It's brilliant exercise for the hands playing these patterns and is guaranteed to improve your playing especially if your a beginner! before you know it you will be able to play songs in every key with a variety of left hand patterns and different styles. It makes practicing fun instead of boring drills and exercises work through this book! If you want to improvise you will never be stuck again for ideas, simply whip out this book open a page at random and try a left hand pattern to spark something new in your playing and improvising!

I have never been able to play any musical instrument, but I bought a keyboard to help me with hand and finger exercises . I love music and I found I could play simple tunes by ear with my right hand, but needed help with my left hand, which is why I bought this book amd I am so glad I did! It is very easy to follow, even for a beginner, like myself and it has turned the chore of hand and finger exercises into a lot of fun. I will be 80 next birthday and if I can find it easy to follow, anyone can! 10/10

A lot of the book contains advertising for the author's other products. Just lists the 100 left hands. Could do with referencing some of the left hands to some of the tunes included.Tunes included are all old American tunes.

Worst amazon purchase ever definately not what I felt I was led to believe.

Some great ideas. Some of the patterns are extremely effective.

If like me, you can play a lead sheet, melody in the right hand and block chords or arpeggios in the left, this book is really useful especially when used in conjunction with the videos on Jerald Simon's Youtube channel. And what's great that these 100 left hand patterns not only help you with creating your own compositions and using fake books, they also help you identify patterns when you are sight reading any form of music, including classical music!As well as the 100 left hand patterns, there are is also a fun fake book section where you can attempt to use these patterns in 100 compositions arranged in fake book format. A brilliant approach to getting the left hand doing something interesting and having an array of genres from rock, pop, jazz, classical, new age etc. means you can directly dip into whatever genre you would like to, whenever you want to.

This is a very comprehensive guide to lead sheet accompaniment. The progression is logical from very simple patterns to quite complicated jazz arrangements; however even these are explained in a clear way. As a classically trained teacher my understanding of this area is more limited than it should be and this is a helpful resource which I am using to further my own knowledge and begin teaching this technique. The idea of not having a full score is frightening for a lot of pianists and I feel that the concepts covered in this book will come as reassurance for many of us. With a little basic knowledge, this book could be used by anyone to teach themselves to busk with their friends. As a UK teacher the only comment I would make is that there is a large section pertaining to an American readership , many of which will be rather unfamiliar to some international readers. That said, it does no harm to learn to accompany unfamiliar songs. I love that there is a Christmas section though!

Great variety of Lh patterns and good instructions