The John Thompson’s Easiest Piano Course is very clearly designed for young children – its bright and colorful. It even has a note or letter for parents and teachers at the front of the book. So clearly the target audience is not retirees who are wanting to learn to play the piano.
If you can get past the very colorful cartoon characters that are found on just about every single page, then this piano course is really straightforward and suitable for any age group.
What I like about this series of books is that everything follows in a logical and sequential manner. Even though I think this would be something that all piano courses would do, you would be surprised at just how many leap around from one new concept to the next, without giving the piano student the opportunity to thoroughly understand and practice the new concept. The John Thompson’s Easiest Piano Course is definitely step by step and allows the piano student to learn something new, practice a little before moving on to another concept that builds onto prior knowledge.
Another aspect that I think is really important is the inclusion of not just learning to play the piano but to teach the theory behind what piano students are learning to play. Scattered throughout are not only very thorough explanations but written theory worksheets as well. I understand that for any piano student, these worksheets would not be exciting, however they are really useful in helping the piano student gain a solid foundation in learning to read music and how it works.
As it is branded to be an easy piano course, it is not surprising that the books takes the learning very slowly. For some piano students, the pace of introducing new notes and new concepts might be a bit too slow for them, but for the very young student, or the adult that doesn’t have a whole lot of confidence and would prefer to take things slowly, the John Thompson’s Easiest Piano Course is excellent.
I really have no criticisms of this piano course, except that when they introduce playing chords towards the end of the second book. The chords of C, G and F are all introduced on the same page and I think it would be better if each chord had a page or two of practice before the next chord was introduced. I think the way around this flaw, is that piano students would need to spend much more time practicing this page than any other in the series. While I think it is a flaw in the design of the John Thompson’s Easiest Piano Course, I still think the overall course and the way it has been designed is really solid.
I would recommend this book for any retiree who wants to learn to play the piano and wants to be able to read the music, especially if they feel daunted by how much they have to learn or, they are not sure if they are going to be successful at learning to play the piano.