James Bastien (1934–2005)

I used to like this book when I was younger (9 years old). There are many pieces that I loved and would play over and over again like The Entertainer, Down by the Station, Moonlight Mist. There are many original pieces and many classical pieces too.
The only problem for me was that is was American, which isn't really the books fault, but my piano teacher changed all the half tones to semitones and eighth notes to quavers etc.
However, the main problem with the book was the theory. It was too advanced for this level. I just ignored it and played the pieces. It has a good music dictionary at the beginning, but the contents page is confusing. It talks about harmonic intervals and melodic intervals without explaining the difference and a child would not work it out. Then on page 12, it starts talking about transposing a piece which is quite advanced for a beginner, when a major scale was only introduced 5 pages ealier! And even that was only C Major. Then only a couple of pages after mentioning the concepts of intervals, we begin naming them and giving them Roman numerals! Things like triads and inversions do not need to be explained at this stage, they can simply be played in a piece. Inversions of dominant sevenths certainly do not even need to be touched upon at this stage!!! Then after that theory which is around grade 3, simple time signatures are introduced. It is just so out of order. However, I wouldn't say this was a bad book as the theory can just be ignored, which I did. I liked many of the pieces as a child and I loved the certificate at the end which I gave myself!! :)… (more)