The Pop Piano Book Paperback – May 1, 1998

This is a fabulous book for anyone who's interested in how contemporary music works-it's basically a fun, practical, and in-depth primer on popular harmonic and rhythmic styles; it is invaluable for anyone wanting to learn sophisticated and stylistically appropriate comping techniques. As someone who has spent a lot of time composing, improvising, and exploring music on my own, I find it tremendously empowering to be learning the conventional tricks and the conceptual framework behind those tricks.My only caveat would be that it may not be the best resource for people who are true beginners or who are scared off by memorization (effective comping, it turns out, requires a tremendous amount of memorization, and the first half of the book is devoted to getting you to memorize various scales and chords in as fun and interesting a way as possible). This isn't a book for people who just want to read music, and it has little to say about technique. But if you want to understand music, and you're willing to work for it, this book gives you a tremendous number of tools. Every musician who's interested in popular styles should have a copy!

This is a book that's full of concepts and piano styles. It's quite well organized, except some people would find it a bit boring.As a contemporary piano teacher, I would highly recommend this book for piano lovers, as it covers a lot of area here. The book actually presents more than what the title suggests.This is definitely not a book for complete beginner, use the Alfred's Adult book. It is completely notated, and thus not for those who don't read music.Gospel piano is very much detailed in this book. Binding isn't that great. Tends to come off easily. This is a good book detailing some pop piano concepts that you seldom see that. The practicality of the book is excellent.

This book is very helpful.Mark Harrison takes you through several styles of piano playing.In each style he starts with a sample song. It starts simply and then builds in complexity. Then he adds variations.This book fills a void in the market for people who need to know how to approach different styles and then gives them enough material to become proficient in each of them; not just knowing a few generic licks for each one.I can't give this book 5 stars because it doesn't include a CD. There is a CD available that you can buy from the author's website but these days it's very common to include a CD with the book- especially an expensive one. Plus there's a lot of references to the CD which makes you feel like you're missing out if you don't have it. I think the author should make the files available online for free. But that's just me.I have another gripe that is really my own dilemma and I wouldn't hold it against this book: The author offers very little in the way of insight. While you have a systematic breakdown of each style there's no simple overall view of each style. He never shows you any tips or tricks to understand the style you're working on.In short, the book is like a text book.Also you should know that without the CD and spending a long time on each style you should be a pretty decent player and reader to get results from this book.I'm OK and I felt like because my chops a so so the samples became tedious.This is due to my limitations and shouldn't reflect on the author but this is not a book for beginners.

This piano method is extremely thorough, and if you desire to learn how to play spontaneously and improvise or even compose music, then this is the book for you. I bought it because I am an aspiring music producer, and I felt there was a void within my piano lessons that I was taking with my original piano instructor. Classical playing doesn't really transfer well to the pop piano world, in my opinion. This book fills in the gaps by providing the necessary guidance and explanation as to how each musical style can be interpreted and executed; if you are willing to dedicate yourself to practicing through this book, your contemporary piano playing skills will sharpen quickly. I actually look forward to practicing daily, because I know my playing skills will benefit from m practice, and I am sounding better and better daily. Buy this book!

I just started learning to play piano when I bought this book used and after trying to wade through it for about 3 wks. had to set it down as it got to frustrating for me. Many of the examples given involve the playing of many flat or sharp keys (the black keys) and long stretches of the fingers. If more of the examples were in the key of C I probably would had faired better. I'm determined to get through this book. I recently picked it back up again. I would say that if you are at least an intermediate player it should go well for you. It also gets into quite a lot of theory. I will probably end up transposing the written material in the key of C and maybe G so that I will be able to play the examples at an acceptable tempo.