Description

14 DVDs | High Quality Video Course | 5 CDs | 104 Page Lesson BookLearn & 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 Learn & Master Guitar course.Learn & Master Piano is by far the best course for learning 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 FirstSession 2. Major ProgressSession 3. Scaling The IvoriesSession 4. Left Hand and Right FootSession 5. Minor AdjustmentsSession 6. Upside Down ChordsSession 7. The Piano as SingerSession 8. Black is BeautifulSession 9. Black MagicSession 10. Making The ConnectionSession 11. Let it BeSession 12. Breaking Up’s Not Hard to DoSession 13. Rockin’ the PianoSession 14. A Bit of BeethovenSession 15. Pretty ChordsSession 16. The Dominant SoundSession 17. Getting The BluesSession 18. Boogie-Woogie and BendingSession 19. Minor DetailsSession 20. The Left Hand as BassSession 21. The Art of OstinatoSession 22. HarmonizingSession 23. Modern Pop PianoSession 24. Walkin’ the Blues & Key Shakin’Session 25. Ragtime, Stride and DiminishedSession 26. Jazz PianoSession 27. Hot and Cool PianoSession 28. Building BridgesThe 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.Click the image to open in full size.Play Along Cd’sThis 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.SummaryThe 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.Click the image to open in full size.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!