Our new piano book for older beginners is no ordinary resource. This book is different. This book is “wunderfully” different!
With its unique approach to older beginner piano education, it is a game-changer.
Before WunderKeys Pop Staff Piano Library For Older Beginners, students had to choose between a chording method book or a traditional method book.
With this book, teens and adults don’t have to choose. Using our innovative Pop Staff, students play significantly more rewarding music than repertoire found in traditional older beginner books, while still learning everything (including bass staff note reading) that those traditional methods teach.
We assume you have lots of questions about this exciting new resource, so we’re going to answer them here in today’s post.
The WunderKeys Pop Staff Piano Library For Older Beginners
A new approach to repertoire doesn’t come around often in the piano world, so when it does, there are bound to be some questions. Today, we’re going to answer what we think are your most pressing inquiries.
But first, let’s take a look at the cover…
Piano Music For Older Beginners: Your Questions Answered…
1. Is This A Method Book?
In a traditional sense, this is not a method book. This book is a hybrid teaching tool that contains pedagogically appropriate and logically sequenced piano pieces, technical exercises, supplementary activities, and repertoire.
Older beginners don’t want to get bogged down in pages of theory. We believe the best way for teens and adults to learn to play music is to actually PLAY music.
But this is not a “Teach Yourself To Play Piano” book. Teachers are essential to learning to play the piano and that is why this book prioritizes repertoire, allowing you to explain simple concepts as they arise naturally in the music. This approach also makes this series work well with the wide variety of older beginners you typically encounter.
2. What’s With The Whole “Pop Staff” Business?
The Pop Staff is the secret sauce that makes this book different from every other older beginner book ever released.
Most of the repertoire in this book is composed on our creation that we call the Pop Staff.
The Pop Staff is a grand staff that includes a traditional treble staff and a modified bass staff (called the Pop Staff). Symbols placed on the Pop Staff enable older beginners to play simple, left-hand pop chords, creating significantly more rewarding music than the repertoire found in traditional beginning method books. Music on the Pop Staff also enables teachers to provide older beginners with aurally satisfying music without abandoning note-reading or relying on only lead sheet format music. The Pop Staff is clean and uncluttered and allows for a seamless experience.
Your older beginners MUST learn to play pop chords using the Quick Start Guide found at the beginning of the book before moving on to the repertoire and activities.
3. What About Bass Staff Note Reading?
While this older beginner book is not a traditional method book, it is not a chording method book either.
Your students WILL learn to read bass notes in the C 5-Finger Scale too.
Through a carefully structured approach, students begin by reading the right-hand C 5-Finger Scale only, accompanied by simple pop chords in the left hand. As they progress through the book, notes in the bass staff are introduced and then incorporated into the Pop Staff songs during intros and outros.
By the end of the book, students have the opportunity to play piano pieces composed on the Pop Staff AND on the traditional grand staff.
4. What Is “Classical Pop” Repertoire?
If you are a WunderKeys Superfan, then you know that classical pop piano repertoire is at the heart of many of our books.
This one is no different.
We have combined the modern sounds of today’s pop hits with some of classical music’s most recognizable pieces to create repertoire that honors the past and looks to the future.
5. At What Age Should Students Begin This Book?
Because this book begins with piano pieces composed on the Pop Staff, students must be able to play pop chords (chords played as fifths).
Also, kids must have the coordination to be able to move between pop chords. This is different from primer books where kids’ hands stay in position.
Through our piloting of the program, brand new piano students around the age of 10 or 11 have the hand size and coordination to play moving pop chords.
6. What Should Students Use After This Book?
This book is the first in a series of four. As the students progress through the series they will learn to play piano pieces that use different right-hand pentascales and their accompanying chords. By the end of the series, students will feel prepared to move into WunderKeys Elementary Piano Lesson Book 2A.
How Do I Get Your Piano Books For Older Beginners?
Which of your other books will provide supplementary music for these two books? Do you have a single chart somewhere on your website that lists all the books and the ones that go well together?
Our bookstore on WunderKeys.com lists all of our books. These books work well with the WunderKeys Rock Repertoire for Teen Beginners Book 1 but there is so much music (especially in Book 2) that you don’t really need to supplement 🙂