Malaysian born American piano teacher Yoke Wong has developed and released several piano courses, including the Definitive Piano Improvisation Home Study Course.
Her latest offering is Play Piano With Fake Book, released in May 2009. It comes with three DVDs and Your First Fake Book, published by Hal Leonard and featuring 101 songs arranged in C major by Alexander Citron. This fake book includes popular classics, traditional songs, and showtunes. Play Piano With Fake Book costs US$125.
Fake books, or lead sheets, are a form of music notation that includes only the melody line, chord symbols and lyrics if applicable. The musician uses this information to come up with their own arrangement, often on the spot.
Play Piano With Fake Book DVDs
The DVDs take nine songs from the fake book to demonstrate various techniques that can be used to make up interesting arrangements when confronted with only a basic melody and chords.
Disc One:
- “Can’t Help Falling In Love”, by Elvis Presley
- “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”, from the operetta Roberta and covered by The Platters among others
Disc Two:
- “Never On Sunday”, from the Greek film of the same name
- “Chariots of Fire”, composed by Vangelis
- “Edelweiss”, from The Sound of Music
Disc Three:
- “Somewhere Out There”, from the animated film An American Tail
- “Hey Jude”, by the Beatles
- “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head”, from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
- “My Favourite Things”, from The Sound of Music
Play Piano With Fake Book Method
Each DVD provides a step-by-step tutorial guide to playing from a fake book or lead sheet, using the songs above as examples. Wong breaks the songs into parts; the right hand melody, the left hand chords, and the different improvisation and accompaniment techniques one can use to arrange the song.
Wong starts with simple arrangements for each song and gradually builds up them up using more and more complex techniques. More advanced arrangements are introduced in successive songs as the student's understanding presumably increases. By doing this, Wong caters for different levels and allows students to gradually develop their own playing proficiency.
Finally, Wong plays the songs using a combination of different techniques, explaining and demonstrating how one can go from a sparse lead sheet to a full sounding arrangement. From there, it is up to the student to apply these techniques to other pieces, experiment further and learn to express themselves on the piano.
Along the way, Wong also offers playing tips and explanations designed to help students with their overall musicianship and technique, such as fingering, rhythm, inversions, and chord substitution.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Play Piano With Fake Book
The course requires students to be able to read treble clef and ideally to be able to identify chords on the piano, although Wong does show how to find the individual chords in the first DVD.
Play Piano With Fake Book is aimed at late beginners and intermediate piano players. However, many traditionally taught pianists even at a relatively advanced level struggle to play without complete sheet music and may also find this course helpful.
In addition to learning to play from lead sheets, Play Piano With Fake Book is a good starting point for improvisation novices. Individual creativity, which is developed through practice, is required to get the full benefit of this course.
The course is not nearly as sleekly packaged or produced as many other piano courses. It seems to have been filmed in one take and at times looks a bit amateur, but this is not a reflection of the quality of the information.
The accompanying Your First Fake Book is a good resource for beginners and intermediate pianists and those learning to “fake”. However, just as the songs have been arranged to be played in the easiest key, some chords have also been simplified, producing a few harmonies that may irritate more advanced or experienced pianists.
See Also
An Overview of Pattern Piano and Keyboard
An Overview of The Piano System
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