It’s been eighteen years since Nancy and Randall Faber first published their Piano Adventure Piano Method books.  No wonder they are testing the waters with a 2nd edition of the Primer and Level 1 books!

There are 6 new features:

• The lessons taught in the theory books are more closely tied into the material in the lesson books.
• There are now improvisation exercises in the theory books, based on the 5-finger scales.
• The Primer has an enhanced “reading strategy” for learning bass notes;  Level 1 starts with a review of notes from “My First Piano Adventures”, effectively bridging the gap between these two books.
• The Lesson books now start with a progress chart, which helps teachers develop a lesson plan, and details the corelations between the 4 core books:  Lesson, Theory, Technique & Ear-Training and Performance.
• The Lesson books feature new pieces, and incorporate new “musical twists” which help students apply “technique secrets” to their piano playing.
• At the end of the Level 1 Lesson Book, there is now a “challenge section”, which previews more 5-finger scale patterns.  This offers the teacher (and student!) opportunities in transposition with pieces already learned.

There is also a newly released Sight Reading Book in the Primer Level!  (Get ‘em while they’re young!)

Also new to the Piano Adventures Series, is the Primer Level Teacher Guide.  This hard-cover book is a great pedagogical aid, and tackles each piece in the Lesson Book with organizational headings such as

• what’s new (introducing what the piece is teaching)
• what’s important (what the focus of the lesson should be)
• let’s get started (basic preparations)
• explore & create (exercises both at the keyboard and away from the keyboard, exploring tricky aspects of each piece)
• partner pages (parallel exercises in the other primer level books)
• pedagogy pointers (suggestions for the teacher)
• see it in action (Watch Nancy Faber with her students on the DVD!)

There are also some helpful tools in the Appendix pages of the book:

• Teacher Duets for each piece in the Lesson Book
• A concise “Cross-Reference Chart” which allows the teacher to see at a glance, unit by unit,  how the Lesson, Theory, Techcnique, Performance and Sightreading books work together.
• An index of the songs by theme – action songs, animal songs, dances & marches, silly songs, etc.

Piano Teachers, have you worked with the 2nd Edition books?  Would you like to give feedback directly to the Fabers?  You can do so here!

If you haven’t yet seen these new editions, The Leading Note now stocks the 2nd Edition.

The original editions will still be available from our distributor, and can be special ordered from us.