A First Book of Blues: For The Beginning Pianist (Dover Classical Piano Music For Beginners)

I haven't written a review in ages but since this little six dollar book is getting a mixed reception and I just started using it this weekend I thought I might be able to help someone out.First of all, it's six bucks. So, buy it already.Second of all, it's for beginners. Now, I'm not a 100% beginner, but I wanted some easy transcriptions that would help me learn the rhythms and get used to playing those flats. So, as with most beginner transcriptions, the left hand is very very simple. Works for me at this level. If that sounds like you, please, spend the six bucks. That's, what, one and a half lattes.I only knock off a star for the lack of lyrics, as someone else also mentioned. Lyrics are not only fun but, at least for this student, useful. Still, in the ratings system here four stars means "I like it." And I like it.After getting the book you might do as I did: I downlaoded a version of each song to iTunes and made a playlist just for this book. I don't know old blues tunes very well, so the combination of my iTunes playlist and this little book has been both fun and educational--I really like to hear songs before I learn to play them (it certainly inspires me). My little playlist has versions by Fats Waller, Nat King Cole, and, believe it or not, Eartha Kitt (the best Catwoman!), among others.I can guarantee that you will be adding your own little embellishments here and there to these transcriptions. It is the blues, after all, and this is a fun way to approach the form lightly and have fun with it.I mean, six bucks.

I was hoping this had the mp3s like most of the books in this series. Disappointed that it doesn’t. But the book looks good.

I'm a beginning to intermediate piano student and I thought this book was a good introduction to the blues. The individual songs, traditional basic blues material, were kept intentionally simple and are only 1-2 pgs in length. Good material to practice the syncopation and phrasing of blues, at a beginner level.

"A First Book of Blues" would not be a good choice if you are looking for your first book to start playing blues piano. In fact, I can't figure out who would find this book useful. You would never want to play these arrangements for anyone else to hear. You probably wouldn't get much pleasure or value out of playing them as exercises. If you are just starting with blues piano, you aren't going to learn how to get the blues sound from this book. At best, someone who knows quite a lot about playing blues piano could use this as a kind of fake book to provide a starting point for building a interesting arrangement, but there probably are a lot of better choices for that.I've posted images so you can see what the music in this book looks like. These are from the Kindle edition but I wouldn't expect the paper edition to look appreciably different.My complaint is that the "arrangements" are so simplified that almost all the flavor of these songs has been boiled out of them. To illustrate I have posted an image that shows the first four bars of "Down Home Blues" as presented in this book compared to a transcription from a piano roll by James P. Johnson. Admittedly Johnson's performance is probably the gold standard for a solo piano performance of this song and about as far from an easy arrangement for beginners as you can get. I posted the comparison so you can get a sense of how much the arrangements in this book have been simplified.The biggest shortcomings in my view are the static left hand parts. I have been playing blues piano for a year. What I have been learning is that a rhythmic left hand is the foundation on which blues piano is built and what propels the music forward. The left hand does almost nothing of interest in any of the arrangements in this book.If you want some idea of what I think this book should have been, you can find audio from the arrangement of "Down Home Blues" included in Alfred's "Premier Piano Course" Lesson Book 3 on their website or a student performance on YouTube. The left hand is still rather leaden but at least it provides a steady beat against which the right hand syncopation can work.I understand that writing an arrangement suitable for beginners that still sounds good and has the flavor of a more advanced arrangement is a real challenge. Unfortunately, this book fails to rise to the challenge.Since the Amazon guidelines require disclosure of whether you received a free copy to review, I'll disclose that I am going to return this book so I guess you could consider this a review of a copy I didn't pay for.

This arrived quickly and arrived in perfect shape. My son loves the music in it. I would recommend.

just what I expected. easy to play Therefore,I can add my own improvisation

In ce collection of blues arrangements!

Books are fine. A bit too elementary otherwise is what I ordered.

The first copy of the book had some missing and some repeated pages but Amazon replaced this promptly. I'm very happy with this book. As a self-teaching beginner pianist and blues fan, these tunes are at the right level for me and (in some cases) are familiar (St James Infirmary, St Louis Blues) so it's a good start for playing the blues. I know there's much further to go but this is a very positive and encouraging start and I'm finding it very useful and enjoyable.I would recommend it to the beginner pianist and blues fan.

Great for beginners and more advanced players.

You will have to love Blues to really appreciate this music, it is Blues for the piano or keyboard. I'm going to try and learn some of the pieces and play them in the church, when it's empty. Yeh this is Blues man. Spread the word, keep the faith, love the Music, spread the love. I'm going to get into this stuff man.

Definitely for beginners!!!!!

Books like this are helping me get into cocktail or jazz playing.