Editor’s Choice 2013
Learn and Master Piano is a home learning kit aimed at beginner-intermediate piano students, as the course will help you understand basic, as well as more advanced details of playing the piano. It was released in December of 2007, and is produced by Legacy Learning, a renowed name in music teaching (also makes Learn and Master Guitar). Will Barrow, a Grammy-winning composer, vocalist, and songwriter is the instructor during the course.
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Right at the offset our review of the Learn and Master Piano course, we immediately saw that the backbone and soul of the curriculum are the professionally produced DVDs. There are 14 DVD-s in total, each disc containing 2 lesson sessions. The course starts with the basics and ends with much more complicated lessons. One of the coolest features of the DVD piano lessons is that they show a virtual keyboard, while demonstrating songs and techniques, which makes it very easy to see and understand what is being played.
(Updated on Nov/20/2024)
The price of Learn and Master Piano is currently discounted from $249 to $149!
The pace of the lessons was great, neither too slow or too fast. The instructor keeps things interesting, and the material is engaging as well. Music theory is built into the lessons in an intuitive and timely way, allowing you learn theory by applying it. This is a very big plus, as some other courses don’t deal with music theory, or deal with it way too much.
Each lesson session contains workshops, which are meant to be allow the student to practice the material independently. Each workshop is around 20 minutes in length and really help in reviewing the main points of the Learn and Master guitar sessions. Another nice feature of the DVD material was the “Lesson Nuggets”, which are short messages pointing out the most important concepts of what you are learning.
The workbook shipped with the course is a supplement to the DVDs, and provides an opportunity to focus more on music music theory.
There are also 5 CDs, containing 120 baking tracks to the songs you’ll be learning on the DVDs. The backing tracks were recorded by a live band, and are prodeced to the highest of quality. You can also choose the tempo for the beginning songs (slow, medium, fast).
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What you’ll learn with Learn and Master Piano
Learn and Master Piano will teach you to become an able piano player, even if you have no prior experience at all. During our Learn and Master Piano review, we noticed that this all-in-one piano course covers many genres people may be interested in playing, such as jazz, blues, classical, rock, country, modern pop, ragtime, and others. The course teaches you both to play by ear and to read music effectively, both of which are important skills to have.
The course covers the following topics in an interactive way, as everything is taught through learning songs and playing with backing tracks:
- Layout of the Keyboard
- Good Practice Habits
- Playing Chords and Melodies Within the First Two Sessions
- Major & Minor Chords
- Reading Music & Chord Charts
- Major, Minor, Pentatonic & Blues Scales
- Tips to Piano Accompanying
- Learning Chords by Numbers & Chord Shapes
- Learning Chord Progressions & Melodies by Ear
- Chord Inversions
- Reading Rhythms & Syncopation
- Keys & Key Signatures
- Playing on the Black Keys
- Reading Sharps & Flats
- Connecting Chords in Chord Progressions
- Left Hand Accompaniment
- Alternate Bass Chords
- Arpeggios
- Chord Cadences
- Rhythmic Rockin’ Piano Playing
- Melodic Phrasing & Flow
- Seventh Chords
- Creative Chord Voicings
- The Sound of the Blues
- Blues Licks
- Boogie-Woogie Piano
- Transposing
- Vital Musical Concepts
- Tips of the Pros
- Harmonizing a Melody with Chords
- Advanced Chords
- Country Piano Playing
- Modern Pop Piano Playing
- Walking Bass Lines
- Ragtime
- Jazz Piano Voicings
- Improvising
- Latin Piano
- Classical Piano Concepts
Ease of Use
One of the most impressive aspects we quickly notices during our review of Learn and Master piano, is its systematic, thorough approach to learning the piano. It is very easy to use, since each lesson build onto the next. The workshop sessions and the play-along CDslet you practice the things you’ve learned, and the workbook is an easy to use reference to the material.
What You Get with Learn and Master Piano
During our review of the Learn and Master Piano program, we were pleased to see that it is made up of several components as stated previously – The DVDs, the play-along CDs, the workbook and the online support forum.
- 14 DVDs – containing 28 practice sessions
- 5 CDs – containing 120 professionally recorded, full band practice songs that you’ll be learning on the DVDs.
- 104 page Workbook – designed to parallel the DVD lessons, is richly illustrated and offers detailed explanation of technical and theoretical concepts.
- Access to the online support forum
Pros:
- Virtual keyboard
- The workshop section accompanying each lesson, really helps you focus and practice what you’ve learned
- The instuctor, Will Barrow gives the impression that you are actually taking private lessons
- The course itself will guide you from a beginner to intermediate-advances level, through a well though out, step-by-step process
- The course is heavily reliant on playing popular songs
Cons:
- No downloadable version, only available via shipping
Support Services of Learn and Master Piano
Phone, email customer service, community site and forum, where you can interact with others and ask questions pertaining to the different sessions. We received answers from the forum staff, and other piano students as well.
Setup/Compatibility
DVDs, which can be accessed on a standalone DVD player, MAC or PC with a DVD drive
Warranty
60 day money back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the course.
Price
- $149 – Sale alert! Presently on discount from $249!
- Payment plan – $49 per month
Conclusion
Summing up our review of Learn and Master piano, we have to say that it is a very well thought out home-study course (and must have taken quite a long time to develop with all of the features of the DVDs, filming, animated piano, etc.). This piano course contains much more information than other, cheaper courses. A feature that further elevates this course is the inclusion of music theory and ear training.
After conducting the full review, our opinion is that this is a very good choice both for enthusiasts who have never touched a piano before, and for mildly experiences pianists alike. The course relies on teaching techniques by applying them in songs, which is a very fun and intuitive way of learning musical instruments. Overall, the course has a rather steep learning curve, but if you want to start playing real music right away, you won’t mind the deep water.
If you’re the type of person who will stick with the lessons and practice as can be expected, you will be off to a good start with Learn and Master Piano. The price tag is somewhat steep, but you get a VERY high quality course (which by the way, is still much cheaper than learning from a music teacher personally). However, if you don’t feel like spending this amount of money on your piano lessons, have a look at our Rocket Piano course review as well.
Learn and Master Piano is a very high quality DVD home-study course for beginner-intermediate piano students. It offers a structured, and enjoyable method of teaching the piano.
Hello, I’m 23 and want to start learning piano, but I don’t know whether to start with personal lessons, or through dvd lessons like this one. Which would you recommend?
Hey there Jill,
Many people choose dvd lessons over personal teachers, due to several circumstances:
– Private piano teachers cost around $50 per hour, which can add up very quickly. In contrast, for example the L&M Piano course you see above, costs the amount of 3 hours of private lessons, but will be with you and teach you as much as a private teacher could over the span of 1 year.
– Time is an important factor as well, many people find fitting private teachers into their schedule regularly difficult. With DVD courses, you can study whenever you like, which is huge plus.
So it’s always best to decide for yourself, take the above into consideration.
I’m 56 and have been wanting to learn all my life, will this course be able to teach me???
Hello G,
Yes, definitely. This is truly a remarkable course suitable for basically any age group, so I’d give it a go if I were you. If you don’t like it, you can ask for your money back, so nothing lost 🙂
Thanks for your answer, will give it a go!
I bought it 2 months ago, and just wanted to return and say WOW, my boyfriend tells me I’m headed to Carnegy Hall soon 😀 Ok, he may be a bit biased, but I have learned so much, its unbelievable. Thanks for the tip!!