John Thompson's Easiest Piano Course Part 1 is a really fun beginner piano book - you will be taught how to play the piano by colourful little monsters, and be playing really fun pieces before you know it!

A fun way to learn the piano

Part 1 of John Thompson's Easiest Piano Course starts right from the beginning, introducing the piano keyboard and basic music notation before you start playing. You are then introduced to an array of 26 short fun pieces like ‘March of the Gnomes’, ‘Rag-Time Raggles’, ‘The Banjo Picker’, and ‘Princess Waltz’. There are accompanying funny cartoons of 8 little monsters - A, B, C, D, E, F and G - each monster points out their notes in the pieces as they are introduced, accompanied with clear fingering diagrams/illustrations.

Theory and musicianship

Before each piece, the little monsters progressively teach you the new rhythms, notes, rests, and ties, used in that piece, so you practise using all your new theory knowledge as you go along. Lots of the pieces in John Thompson's Easiest Piano Course Part 1 have accompaniment parts so your teacher can play along with you and make the music even more fun!

Interactive learning

There arehas 4 worksheets where you can fill in note names and values and practise writing notes and bar lines on the stave, and a keyboard chart where you can fill in the names of all the keys. John Thompson's Easiest Piano Course Part 1 also gets you to practise reading notes of the pieces aloud, and gives you preparatory exercises and finger drills to do before playing each piece. There is even a Certificate of Merit for your teacher to fill when you have completed the book!

Contents (A-Z)

• Blow the Man Down
• Bugles
• Carry Me Back to Old Virginny - J.A. Bland
• Dance of the Gnomes
• Funny Faces
• Grandfather’s Clock
• In a Rickshaw
• Let’s Play
• March of the Gnomes
• Marching Up and Down
• Mary Had a Little Lamb
• Moccasin Dance
• Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen - Spiritual
• Old MacDonald Had a Farm
• Princess Waltz
• Rag-Time Raggles
• Row, Row
• The Banjo Picker - adapted from S. Foster
• The Chimes
• The Church Organ
• The Old Cotton Picker
• The Paratrooper
• The Seabees
• The Train
• Theme (The New World Symphony) - A. Dvořák
• Yankee Doodle