This page describes and shows links to our four series of basic learning materials for playing the piano or other keyboard instruments.
The learning materials and sheet music available as downloads from this site are "packaged" in what we refer to as "units." (Like chapters in a book.) The learning units are grouped together into four larger "learning series" that include instructions on how to play, exercises for developing your physical skills and collections of pieces which together, provide a well rounded foundation for playing the keyboard.
About These Basic Learning Series
These series are available for viewing or download using the links to each of them described below. They provide basic instruction for playing the keyboard. Beyond these materials, this site provides hundreds of pages of sheet music for you to enjoy, once you begin learning how to play the keyboard. The learning materials are not intended to take the place of an instructor, teacher, or coach. If you are a beginner, you will surely need some help along the way. That being said, many people are able to learn a good deal from textbooks without an instructor. Maybe you are one of them. Just be aware.
The Focus of Each Series
Click on a link below (or a drop-down link in the navigation bar above) to go to your selected series.)
Focus on Songs - SK Singing Keyboard Units. This series is for beginning students. No previous knowledge of the keyboard is required. It is based on keyboard diagram notation. It can be used by young and old alike. The series focuses mainly on children's songs and folk songs. Many students continue their studies with PK Units that provide instruction that is more advanced.
Keyboard Basic Instruction - This is our main instructional series. No previous knowledge of the keyboard is required. It is based on key diagram and key map notation. Key maps provide the main keyboard notation for this site. They provide an excellent, low stress beginning for students of the keyboard and provide the basis for the Focus on Chords series that follows. They also provide a sound basis for advancing to traditional notation when a student is ready wishes to advance to this widely used but very difficult to learn notation.
Focus on Chords - PC Chord Prep Units - based on Key Map notation. Students learn how to play from notated chord diagrams and from standard chord symbols. Most pieces are notated with the melody in the right hand and the chords in the left hand. The series can be supplemented with pieces from our Level C pieces and collections.
Focus on the Grand Staff - PG and GT Grand Staff Units. This series is primarily for students who have completed the "Focus on Chords" series. Students are introduced to the grand staff, which is the traditional notation used by most of the people in the world. If you want to buy music, this is the notation that you will get if you go to a music store or download sheet music from the internet. The series can be supplemented with pieces in our RT Series. It can, of course, be supplemented with sheet music from almost any source.
This grand staff series continues to use the timeline format for rhythm used in the previous two series. After completing this introduction to the grand staff, students are ready to continue their studies using the traditional learning materials available everywhere. At this point, students already are fairly well skilled at playing the keyboard. We recommend that they continue their studies using one of the excellent piano methods available.
The nature of the study using a traditional piano method at this point amounts to converting it into a reading course. The student still has much to learn about reading the traditional notation, but because of the student has already acquired intermediate playing skills, learning to read this notation is much less stressful than it is for those who don't already know how to play the keyboard.