Best piano books for beginners

Piano differs from every fretted instrument on this site in one way that decides the whole shelf of books: there is no tablature. A guitarist can play for years from chord boxes and never read a note. A pianist essentially cannot, so the method book is not an optional extra — it is the road.

The good news is that the field is small and stable. Two publishers dominate, the books have been in print for decades, and the differences between them are practical rather than mysterious.

We have not worked through these books. What we compared is what each publisher says the book contains: page count, format, what media is included and how you get it, and the publisher’s own description of the contents. Every figure on the cards below links to that publisher page, and the method is on how we pick.

Two questions pick the book

Everything else is detail.

1. Adult or child? This is not snobbery about repertoire; it is pacing and page design. Children’s methods move slowly, put one idea on a page and use large notation. Adult methods cover the same first six months in roughly half the pages and assume you can read a paragraph of explanation. An adult given a children’s book gets bored; a seven-year-old given an adult book gets lost.

2. Teacher or no teacher? The question most buyers skip. Some books are written as a teacher’s curriculum and say so — Alfred states plainly that its adult course is designed for use with an instructor. Those books can be sparse on explanation because a person is supposed to fill the gaps. A self-teacher wants the opposite: more explanation, and recordings of how it should sound.

What to check on any piano method

Five things, and the publisher’s own page answers all of them.

1. Is audio included, and how do you get it? A beginner cannot tell from the page whether their rhythm is right. On this page the answers vary more than you would expect: Faber includes online video and audio, Wiley hosts streaming and downloadable audio, Alfred’s children’s book offers a CD version, and Alfred’s adult item includes nothing at all.

2. Does it lie flat? Trivial-sounding and genuinely important, because a book that snaps shut on the music desk is a book you fight every session. Faber’s adult book is spiral bound and Alfred’s adult course is Wire-O; both stay open.

3. Is the repertoire published? Alfred lists the complete song list for both of its books here. Faber publishes a partial list, and Wiley publishes none. If the songs matter to you — and for motivation they do — buy from a publisher that shows you the list.

4. All-in-one, or lesson plus theory plus technique? The older model sells three thin books per level. All-in-one volumes fold them together, which is one purchase and one thing to carry.

5. How far does it go? The books here run from 64 pages to 640. More is not better: a 64-page book a child finishes beats a 640-page reference that stays shut.

How we ranked these

Five criteria, in this order, and all of them are our reading of each publisher’s published contents rather than the result of working through the books.

Gets you playing songs first, because a piano beginner who is still doing finger drills in month two usually stops.

Works without a teacher second: how much explanation and recorded reference the book carries, since most people buying a piano book are buying it instead of lessons.

Scope for the money third — how much of the first year one purchase covers.

Audio support fourth: demonstrations, accompaniments and video.

Room to grow last, because a method with a next book in the same series means nothing is wasted when it works.

The picks

Adult Piano Adventures All-in-One Course Book 1#ad is the one we would hand an adult who has nobody to teach them. 184 spiral-bound pages holding lessons, technique and theory together, and — the part that matters — over two hours of instructional video plus accompaniment tracks online. The named repertoire runs from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and The Entertainer to The Lion Sleeps Tonight, so it is not all folk songs.

The honest costs: Hal Leonard listed it on back order at its own store when we checked, the full song list is not published (the list ends in “and more”), and the media lives online rather than on a disc, so it needs an internet connection.

Piano & Keyboard All-in-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition#ad is the reference, and it is a big one: 640 pages combining four separate For Dummies titles, including music theory and piano exercises, with streaming and downloadable audio from the publisher’s own resource center. It is also the only book here that covers the electronic side — choosing a keyboard, caring for it, and connecting it to speakers and computers.

What it is not is a graded course. It is a compilation, so there is no single page-by-page progression to follow, and Wiley publishes no repertoire list. Wiley also notes that the current release refreshed the cover and design rather than the content. Buy it beside a method, not instead of one.

Alfred's Basic Adult All-in-One Course, Book 1#ad is the long-running standard, and the one your teacher most likely owns. 160 Wire-O pages of lesson, theory and technique, with additions the others do not advertise: isometric hand exercises, finger strengthening drills and written assignments. Alfred publishes the complete song list, more than seventy titles, which is genuinely useful before buying.

Two honest limits, both from Alfred’s own page. It is “designed for use with a piano instructor,” so a self-teacher is working against the book’s intent. And this item includes no recordings at all — no CD, no online audio — so nothing tells you how a piece should sound. Alfred sells a separate book and DVD item for that.

Alfred's Basic Piano Library Lesson Book 1A#ad is the children’s starting point: 64 pages that begin with the keyboard’s layout and white-key names against the black-key groups, then teach reading through interval recognition — seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths — rather than parking the hand in a fixed position. The song list is published in full and is unmistakably for children: My Robot, The Zoo, Batter Up!

The limits are the flip side of the same design. It is short, it stops around the interval of a fifth plus sharps and flats, so it is a first half rather than a complete beginner course. The audio option at this level is a physical CD rather than online streaming. And an adult will find the artwork and repertoire hard going.

The book cannot fix the keyboard

One thing worth saying on a page about piano books. A method that asks for a sustain pedal in month two assumes an instrument with a pedal jack, and one that spreads the hands two octaves apart assumes enough keys to do it on.

That is why we treat 61 keys as the floor and touch sensitivity as non-negotiable — the reasoning is in 49 vs 61 keys and what you actually need to start piano. If the instrument is still undecided, start with best beginner keyboards.

How to actually use one

Work in order, and do not skip the technique pages. They are short, they are boring, and they are where hand shape comes from.

Play the audio before you play the page. Hearing the piece first turns a page of dots into a target, which is the difference between practicing and decoding.

Short and daily beats long and weekly. Fifteen minutes a day is the habit that moves a beginner through a method book; the fuller argument is in how to practice piano effectively.

Book one lesson when you are three pages stuck. On piano, being stuck is almost always physical — wrist height, thumb position, a collapsing finger joint — and that is the one thing no book can see.

The same decision for guitar, where the answer is genuinely different because tab exists, is in best guitar books for beginners.