The Piano Improvisation Handbook

Seller takes great care in packaging and sending a quality product. The book is fantastic!

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If you are already familiar with this author's work, then there is no need to read this review other than to know that the material found here is representative. His  The Piano Handbook: A Complete Guide for Mastering Piano  takes a more classical-repertoire approach to keyboard instruction, and includes more information on the history of keyboard instruments. This book is fantastic for the late elementary/intermediate (I'm not advanced, so I won't stumble into conjecture) pianist who is looking for a non-classical-repertoire approach to developing keyboard technique and musical vocabulary. The fourth chapter in section two on chord progressions ALONE is worth the cost of this book. If you are interested at all, buy it!

I had Humphries' The Piano Handbook and loved it. When I saw the ad for The Piano Improvisation Handbook, I knew that I had to have it too! I was not disappointed;It is a great book. Starts off very basic and continues to build. I feel that most piano students should be right a home building on their skills no matter where they are at the present time.

Fantastic and thorough guide to improvising. Carl Humphries has become an amazing resource for a self teaching student like me.

I am a 4th year adult piano student and wanted to enhance the little improv Ive been taught. It seems to be well written and thorough but it is far to advanced for me. I bought it to help me play lead sheets better but it is just far too technical.

A lot of great insights in this book, definitely not a bad purchase to grow as a musician.

You definitely need some basis in musical theory but he goes through everything you really need to know before you start improvising. I am enjoying it thoroughly.

Tons of rote exercisesNot helpful for improvWorked through the book for awhileLooking for another improv book nowThis one’s in the trashI wouldn’t want another person to waste their time

Very detailed.

Way more advanced than expected from the description. Good for an accomplished pianist who wants to learn to improvise.

Honestly the best book on piano improvisation I have ever obtained, covering classical and jazz concepts. Very comprehensive and, unlike many other books, explains the concepts it introduces very very well before just giving you some exercises to do without much context. It's almost like having a personal tutor explaining things to you.The book, although technical, gives very thorough and detailed explanations of the accompanying concepts and music, introducing concepts in a step wise fashion. It starts off with basic beginner concepts but soon gets into intermediate concepts about a third way through the book.I would suggest being comfortable with scales, chords and music notation either before getting this book, or working through the concepts with enough time and thoroughness before moving to the next section.It is a long book and the spiral binding means you can easily read it while at the piano and turn back and forth.

Yes this book is very technical but also freeing at the same time. I've only just received it so have not started to work through it yet, but have read a good deal of it. If you are an advanced classical musician (although it starts off with some elementary stuff like naming the notes of the keyboard I would not recommend this to beginners at all) who wants to get away from the printed page and get creative then this book is definitely for you. What I like about it is that it is not style-specific and incorporates both classical and jazz elements. I am also learning jazz piano separately, however I just wanted to be able to play cocktail style piano and don't necessarily like hard jazz all that much. This is where this book fills that gap, if you don't want to get seriously into jazz but want to improvise in your own style. It is nearly 500 pages long and will therefore take a while to get through. But it is very thorough and I'm looking forward to working my way through it.