I have  recently checked out and reviewed many home study piano courses. Here is a list of the absolute best of the best.

Visit Rocket Piano	Rocket Piano - Best Course For Beginners Average User Rating: * (Click Here for our special IN DEPTH VIDEO REVIEW) This package contains 7 books with associated video and audio files. Apart from the basic teaching manuals there is Jazz for beginners and Gospel for beginners as well as a couple of general technique books. You get access to a bundle of software (PC and MAC) including a metronome and several music learning games. This is the leader as far as popularity goes and is an extremely good course containing over a years worth of lessons. Good for absolute beginners and intermediate level players. Click Here For Rocket Piano Site
	Piano For All - Best Course For Beginners and Intermediate Average User Rating: *(Click here for our special IN DEPTH VIDEO REVIEW) This extremely full package has 10 books with embedded video and audio. It teaches you how to play by ear and how to read music. Right from the start you will be playing authentic sounding pieces. Innovative teaching method keeps your interest and has you playing good sounding music in a very short time. The overall presentation of this product is not quite so slick as others but the content is without a doubt superior. Check Out Piano For All
Instrument Master	Instrument Master Average User Rating: This well presented course comes with tons of audio and video files. It also has a very good selection of software available. It is suitable for learning piano and keyboards in any style from classical through to Jazz and pop. You also get over 100 Jam tracks that you can play along to.  The makers of this product however also specialize in music production and so there are a few bonuses including the Music Producer Multimedia Program and an online beat maker. Get More Information on Instrument Master
Piano Coach Pro	Piano Coach Pro Average User Rating: Another fine product, this one comes with a vast library of video and audio lessons. It is split up into styles with separate lessons for blues, Jazz, classical, bluegrass, rock etc. This also comes with quite a few jam tracks to you to play along to. It is suitable for absolute beginners and has a quick start section which will have you playing music from the first day. Click Here For More About Piano Coach Pro
Play Piano Tonight	Play Piano Tonight Average User Rating: If you want to learn several modern styles then this is the course for you. It is centered around electronic keyboard playing though can be used with a normal piano if needed. You will learn rhythms and chords and are set practice sessions with rhythm with both left and right hands to help discipline your playing. The course comes with a short introductory video and a few jam tracks to play along with. The bulk of the course however is the book itself. Check Out The Sample Lesson On Their Web Site

For more information see the Teach Yourself Piano Page. All of the products listed here are geared to teaching you how to play the piano or the keyboards and will take you from beginners level up to intermediate or advanced level. Each product come with a money back guarantee should you not be completely satisfied.

How to Teach Yourself Piano

Every beginner can use advice on how to Teach Yourself Piano. There are many different methods of teaching yourself how to play the piano. Some people use an instructor and others teach themselves. No matter how you learn to play the piano, some things will be the same. The basics of playing the piano are never going to change. With that in mind here are some tips and great advice to help you as you learn to play the piano.

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Start with the Basics
No matter how you decide to learn, you will always start with the basics. You will learn about the piano, the keys and where the notes are on the piano. You will also learn some basic music theory, including how to read music. These basics are where everyone starts. It can sometimes be easy to think that you don’t need to go over the basics, but even if you already know how to read music and you already know about the piano keyboard, going over the basics is always a nice refresher and should be where you start.


Choose Easy and Short Pieces to Start
Your first pieces should be introductory pieces that test you ability to read music and play that music on the piano. These pieces should be short and easy enough for you to memorize. You should aim to perfect them, which should not take too long.
Also do one or two pieces that you play by ear. This means that you hear them and then try to play them on the piano. You can learn a lot by just trying to duplicate what you hear on the piano. This is great ear training that will come in handy as you advance through your piano lessons.


Understand It Will Get Harder
Too often the beginner student feels like things get too hard and they quit. However, advancing to harder pieces is the only way that you will learn and improve. You have to accept that there will come a time when you will really struggle with a piece and you will have to practice over and over to perfect it. This is just you becoming a better piano player and every player goes through this. If you never play pieces that challenge you then you will never get better.

Make It Your Own
Have you ever heard the same song sang by two different singers? Did it sound exactly the same? Probably not. The reason is that each singer made the song their own. That is what you need to do with the music you play. One of the secrets to becoming a good piano player is learning to make music your own. Start playing from the heart. Be adventurous and willing to try new things. It will only help you grow as a piano player.

When you first begin to seek how to learn the piano you will probably feel it is very structured. You will have set lessons and you will be learning the basic things that you need to know to become a good piano player. Do not let yourself give up in these early stages. They really do progress quickly and soon you will be moving on to playing harder pieces that sound beautiful. The key is to just follow the advice above and to stick with it.

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There is a list of home study courses to help you teach yourself piano on the piano for beginners page

The Basics of How to Read Piano Sheet Music

When you are learning to play piano you must learn how to read piano sheet music. Many people learn to read music in elementary school, however, if you are not in the band or choir, you can easily dismiss all that you learned. It can help to get familiar with at least the basics of sheet music before you get into your piano lessons.

The Staff
When you look at a piece of music there are different parts or elements that make up that sheet music. The first of those elements is the staff. This is the five line, fours space area where the actual notes sit. It is basically what the music is written on. It is the lines and spaces of the staff that tell you what note to play. At the beginning of the staff you will see a clef sign, either a treble or bass. There is a key signature and then a time signature. Each of these things help you to know how to play the music.

Clefs
The treble and bass clefs tell you the octave you are playing in. Generally in piano the treble clef is the right hand and the bass clef is the left hand. The clef sign will also tell you what notes each line and space of the staff represent.
In the treble clef staff the lines, from bottom to top, represent the notes E-G-B-D-F and the spaces are F-A-C-E. In the bass clef staff the lines, from bottom to top, represent the notes G-B-D-F-A and the spaces are A-C-E-G.

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Key Signature
The key signature tells what notes, if any, are flat or sharp. The marking for flat is an odd “b” and the marking for sharp is “#”. In the key signature the marking will be on the line or space of the note that is to be played flat or sharp.

Time Signature
The time signature tells you the number of notes in each measure. Measures are marked by a straight vertical line and they are used to break up the music. It looks like a fraction.

Notes
The last part of the sheet music are the actual notes. There are many different types of notes and each note has a specific length of time in which it is played. Here are some examples of notes you will see:
Whole note: Looks like an “o” Played for 4 beats.
Half note: Looks like a backwards “b”. Played for 2 beats.
Quarter note: Looks like the half notes but is filled in to make the “o” solid black. Played for one beat.
Where the notes are placed on the staff tell you what note to play. For example a whole note on the first line up from the bottom would be a G played for 4 beats. See the Piano Lessons For Beginners page for more info.
There are many more complexities that go into sheet music, but these basics should get you started with learning how to read sheet music proficiently. Once you know these basics you can then begin to learn the more complex aspects of reading sheet music.

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Reviewer:  Barry Bushnel
Rating:
Website Reviewed: Professional Piano Chords

This is a product aimed at those who are already playing the piano at a basic or intermediate level. It is a guide on how to make the chords you play sound more luscious.

This is a single book in pdf printable format. It has been put together by professional pianist and teacher Bill Romer. The whole idea of this product is that when you are learning to play the piano, especially if you are self taught, you learn some basic chords. These chords just don’t give you that professional pianist sound. This is where this book comes in. It will teach you loads of rich sounding chords and chord progressions you can use to make your playing sound better.

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In order to use this course you need to be able to read a simple melody in the treble clef. The lessons border on teaching you improvisation and they show how to put wonderful rich sounding chord progressions on top of the simple melodies. After you get the hang of how this works, which will be very quick, you can start to use the chords and progressions you have learned in many different types of music. For more information check out the Piano Basics page.
The majority of the chords are thick jazz chords including sevenths, ninths, thirteenths etc. They all use their many inversions, Sometimes when playing one chord in a certain inversion you can then play another totally different chord with an added seventh or ninth in a different inversion and of maybe four notes played you might only have to change one. This technique serves to keep the harmony moving and appropriate by the piano will continue to sound full and mysterious.

The guide is very compact having 60 pages but the content is thick and there is a lot to get through. It comes with a separate chord chart which shows you by way of diagrams how to play the chords (no need to know how to read music)
The best thing about this product is that it only costs $27. There is also a 60 day money back guarantee.

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