As a musician, it is important to have access to tools and resources that will help you progress. Here are my favorite tools and resources for pianists (and all other musicians).
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Tools and Resources for Pianists (And All Other Musicians)
- Resources For Piano Teachers
- Tools for Learning Piano on Your Own
- Music Theory Books
- Composition Tools
- Music History Books
1. Resources For Piano Teachers
There are so many great resources for piano teachers online, so here are some of my favorite books and tools:
My Favorite Books
I personally love teaching out of the Piano Adventures series. They have so many method book options that it is easy to find the right music for every student, and the music is fun!
Fourth Finger on B-Flat is one of my favorite piano pedagogy books. It outlines many creative and fun ways to teach concepts to your piano students. If you’re looking for ways to improve your teaching, this book is for you!
I also love the book Professional Piano Teaching, which is similar to Fourth Finger on B-Flat.
A New Approach to Sight Singing is such a great way to teach your students rhythm and sight reading in their lessons. I use it all the time because it helps break down sight reading into easy, doable parts.
Bonus: If you are an accompanist as well as a piano teacher (or you want to get better at accompanying), check out this book here. It has lots of valuable information on being the best collaborative pianist you can be.
Note Learning Tools
I love using these flashcards with my students. This tool turns
This awesome note reading app also turns note learning into a game! And it’s free!
Tools For $5 or Less
Sticky notes and post-it flags help me and my students keep track of pieces to be practiced during the week, favorite pieces to revisit, note names on the keyboard, and so much more.
Students learn their music better when the music is marked, and I have found that using color is a great way to differentiate between concepts. Check out these erasable highlighters! You will get the color in the music that can later be erased if necessary.
And of course what student doesn’t love stickers? They are a great way to help motivate students to learn and practice. You can find them pretty much anywhere for less than $5.
Check out my top 5 piano teaching tools for more ideas:
2. Tools for Learning Piano on Your Own
Finding a guided self-learning book is key to successfully learning how to play the piano on your own. Check out some of my favorite ones:
Alfred Adult All-In-One: This is one book that takes you through, step by step, the note reading and music theory needed to learn how to play the piano. They explain everything and give you examples to try and problems to solve (as well as fun pieces to learn).
Faber and Faber Adult Piano Adventures All-in-One is very similar to the Alfred book above.
The other thing you need in order to learn how to play the piano on your own is a good keyboard. If you can’t get an in-tune acoustic piano, it is possible to find a good and cheap keyboard to play on at home. I have the Casio Privia PX850 and love it! Check out this article here for more budget recommendations.
3. Music Theory Books
These are some of the best music theory books/workbooks for anyone who wishes to strengthen their knowledge of music’s building blocks:
Alfred’s Essentials of Music Theory is a completely self-run music theory course that includes exercises in reading and writing music, practicing theory concepts, and ear training (with its two included CDs). It’s perfect for anyone who wants to get better at music theory.
How to Read Music in 30 Days: Music Theory for Beginners includes over 150 music examples, over 100 written exercises, 10 listening challenges, expert tips, concept summaries, a final test, online access to audio examples, and a 20-page bonus of music reading training. If that’s not comprehensive, then I don’t know what is!
Music Theory: From Beginner to Expert explores the basics of music theory, and whether you’re a beginner or professional, this book has useful information for everyone. You can get a paperback version of the book, or download it for free with your Kindle Unlimited or Audible subscriptions.
And for those of you wanting to study jazz music theory, check out The Jazz Music Theory Book and The Jazz Piano Book by Mark Levine. These are some of the best-made and most comprehensive jazz studies out there!
4. Composition Tools
Notation Software and Computer Tools
I use (and love) Sibelius for crafting my scores. It’s user-friendly, and it has many different ways you can customize your music. Plus you can hook it up to a midi keyboard and notate directly into the software. The company has a discounted student version if you attend a school; check out their website for all of the options!
If you want a free option that gets the job done quickly, I highly recommend MuseScore. It doesn’t have as many customization options as Sibelius, but it is easy to use, and it has a built-in community where you can share your sheet music with others who use the program.
And if you’re looking for software that can help you transcribe music, check out Transcribe!.
Notebooks and Staff Paper
My go-to manuscript paper book is this one made by Archives. The pages
And if you want something a little more fun, check out these manuscript notebooks:
Orchestration Books
There are tons of great resources out there for composers who want to learn orchestration.
The Study of Orchestration provides a concise, in-depth discussion on the basics of orchestration. I love using it as a resource when I am writing a piece with multiple instruments.
I also absolutely love the book Creative Orchestration. Not only does it outline the strengths and weaknesses of each instrument, but it goes into detail about how you can use this information to write engaging music. And the author provides exercises for you to do to reinforce the concepts.
And we can’t forget the book Principles of Orchestration by composer Rimsky-Korsakov. It has 330 pages of musical excerpts with discussions on resonance, texture, color, special effects, and more. (You can also get it for free here!)
5. Music History Books
For anyone who loves learning about music history, check out my favorite books:
I love Five Centuries of Keyboard Music because it succinctly outlines the development of keyboard instruments combined with a discussion on many different keyboard composers throughout time and across the world. If you’re a pianist, you should get this book.
The Story of Music: From Babylon to the Beatles: How Music Has Shaped Civilization is a good brief history of western music. It covers all major musical eras from the Prehistoric era to now (listen to it for free on Audible!).
For more music history books, check out this awesome list here.
Of course, this is just a brief list of all the wonderful tools and resources for pianists and all other musicians.
Do you have a favorite musical resource?
