Learn & Master Piano Review - One Teachers Full Review of The New Course on DVD

Overall Rating: 5/5 Stars

Learn and Master Piano with Will Barrow Review:

High Quality Video Course

Most In-Depth Course: 14 DVDs, 5 CDs

Includes 104 Page Lesson Book

Pricey, But Worth The Extra Money

Learn & Master Piano with Will Barrow was recently released in November of 2007. This is another great music course from Legacy Learning Systems. This is the company that created and developed the highly successful guitar lesson course Learn & Master Guitar course.

Learn & Master Piano is by far the best course we have reviewed for learning to play the piano we have seen. Learn & Master Piano is a very thorough course and is suitable for beginner to advanced students. The course contains fourteen DVDs, five play-along CDs and a 104 page book.

The instructor Legacy Learning System has hired for this course is grammy award winning piano player Will Barrow. Will Barrow is a highly skilled pianist who's resume includes singing, composing and piano instruction.

The 14 DVD'S are broken down into 28 sessions:

Session 1. First Things First

Session 2. Major Progress

Session 3. Scaling The Ivories

Session 4. Left Hand and Right Foot

Session 5. Minor Adjustments

Session 6. Upside Down Chords

Session 7. The Piano as Singer

Session 8. Black is Beautiful

Session 9. Black Magic

Session 10. Making The Connection

Session 11. Let it Be

Session 12. Breaking Up's Not Hard to Do

Session 13. Rockin' the Piano

Session 14. A Bit of Beethoven

Session 15. Pretty Chords

Session 16. The Dominant Sound

Session 17. Getting The Blues

Session 18. Boogie-Woogie and Bending

Session 19. Minor Details

Session 20. The Left Hand as Bass

Session 21. The Art of Ostinato

Session 22. Harmonizing

Session 23. Modern Pop Piano

Session 24. Walkin' the Blues & Key Shakin'

Session 25. Ragtime, Stride and Diminished

Session 26. Jazz Piano

Session 27. Hot and Cool Piano

Session 28. Building Bridges

The DVD's also contain workshop portions of each session that are meant to be used during the students daily practice time. Generally, the workshop times are around 20 minutes in length and help students to practice the main points of each session.

Another great feature of this course is the addition of "Nuggets". These are small bits of important information that from time to time will appear on the screen as you are going through the lessons. As you go through the course Mr. Barrow will often refer back to these "Nuggets". This is a great feature of the course as it really helps to reinforce certain important point of the course.

Play Along Cd's

This is the fun part of the Learn & Master Piano course. The play along cd's contain 120+ tracks of all the songs students learn while going through the course. Each song on the play along cd's contains one version with the reference piano part and vocal cues and another version without the piano and vocal cues. Students also have the option of playing along at different tempos. Each track allows you to play at slow, medium and fast so that students can gradually pick up the pace as they improve.

Summary

The entire course was obviously very well thought out and must have taken quite a long time to develop. The filming quality and camera angles are excellent and it's always very easy to see what Mr. Barrow is playing on the keyboard. The way the virtual keyboard shows up on screen above the actual keyboard is very helpful. This makes it really easy to see exactly what notes or chords Mr. Barrow is playing as students follow along.

The course is suitable for beginners, intermediate players and even advanced players. It's recommended that you go through the course from the beginning to end but if a student is already familiar with the basics, the first few sessions could probably be skipped.

Learn & Master Piano is by far the most thorough course we have seen for learning to play the piano. There is also a members forum where students can discuss the course and the instructor Will Barrow is often posting his thoughts or answering questions from students. This is a great addition to the course. You can't ask a DVD a question if you have one but you can post your questions to the Learn & Master Piano forum and have it answered.

The only real downside to the Learn & Master Piano Course is that it's expensive. The course usually sells for $249 but you can sometimes find it on sale for $199. If you buy the course please visit reviewpianolessons.com and let us know your thoughts!

Click Here to Visit Learn & Master Piano

One of the first things people want to know is "what style of piano will I learn to play?" We all have our favorite styles of music, so it's only natural that you'd be most interested in playing what you like. Unlike most piano courses, Learn & Master Piano is complete enough to offer training in all of the most popular styles. You can study them all or just the ones that interest you most.

You'll learn...

Rock: From early Rock classics like "Blueberry Hill," to Van Morrison's legendary "Moondance," rock piano with its rockin' Jerry Lee Lewis style eighth notes and syncopation is covered in detail.

Classical: Many of piano's most recognizable melodies, like Beethoven's "Fur Elise" or the hauntingly beautiful Erik Satie "Gymnopedie," as well as many others, are covered in an easy-to-understand way.

Ragtime: From Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" to Fats Waller, the infectious upbeat fun of ragtime piano is covered in great detail.

Country Piano: Learn the secrets of country piano from an artist who plays at the Grand Ole Opry regularly. Learn how to take any melody and harmonize it to make the slides and embellishments that make country piano legendary.

Modern Pop Piano: Learn to create the characteristic sounds of the latest contemporary songs you hear on the radio every day.

Boogie-Woogie: No course on piano would be complete without the rollicking rhythms of Boogie-Woogie. You will learn them well.

Blues Piano: Learn the 12 bar blues and blues riffs that you can incorporate into your own playing. You'll cover the full blues landscape from New Orleans to Memphis to St. Louis.

Jazz Piano: Straight from playing with some of the world's finest musicians in the New York jazz scene, Will offers valuable insight to the voicings, chord accompanying, and improvising that are the heart of jazz piano.

Latin Piano: Learn how to play a fiery montuno rhythm or a cool bossa groove to give your playing some Latin spice.