Piano Lesson Book Recomendations

My son picks popular songs he likes and then we find the music online. Or his teacher helps him pick out the melody. So far he has been LOVING piano. (he hated the traditional way of teaching which we started with) Right now he is into playing Demons by Imagine Dragon. This is a very alternative way of learning piano but it really keeps my son's interest and love of music. And he is really excelling and playing complicated songs...he is age 12. I just do google searches for the different songs. My daughter is doing traditional piano lessons because she likes it that way. She is 7. She is using the pink A Dozen a Day exercise book and Piano Pronto Keyboard Kickoff by Eklund. She also has a theory book she does a couple pages in a week...Piano Pronto Theory Workbook by Eklund.

The books by Robert Pace. It teaches the foundations of music, so kids can compose their own songs, as well as learn music in a more traditional way.

I used the Alfred d'Auberge books when I was a kid - they started you out very simply, using Middle C as the foundation point, & built up to more complex pieces in the later books. You learn to read music, & understand the differences in the notes. There's also hand placement, etc. You can Google images of the books to see examples of songs & lessons, & the books are available on Amazon. T. :)

Thing is that piano lessons are boring. You want to just belt out music and play awesome stuff. But in fact you have to do the boring stuff to learn how to get to the awesome stuff.

Doing scales and arpeggios teach you how to play and play well. Learning to play chords and read both clefs is important. Learning theory is the most important part of it. If you can't read the music and know what all the symbols are then you are just making it up as you go and not reading the music.

I like the Bastien series. Take a look at that.

Whatever you do, don't use Suzuki piano. It's fine for strings, but not piano. Kids don't really learn how to read the music with Suzuki piano's method. They end up just memorizing.