Learn and Master Piano Review

Course Rating

Overall: 5/5 Features: 5/5 Quality: 5/5 Ease of Use: 5/5 Support: 5/5 Price: 4/5

Publisher: Legacy Learning Systems (Nashville TN, USA) Course Website: www.LearnandMaster.com/Piano Best Price: $149.00 ($100 off Winter Sale) Best For: Beginners, Intermediates and Kids

It’s been more then 3 years since Learn & Master Piano first found it’s way to the market as one of the first DVD self study piano programs of it’s kind.

While I’ve seen and used a lot of different piano courses none of them have been able to over take Learn and Master Piano as the most professional and in depth choice for learning to play the piano from home.

With their high quality video lessons, huge list of topics and styles covered, on screen graphics and real-time animated keyboard Learn & Master Piano has re-created the experience of taking private lessons right from your own home.

Video Review

My Experience

As I mentioned what makes this course most enjoyable for me is the step-by-step explanation and instruction by course instructor Will Barrow combined with the animated onscreen keyboard that lights up at the top of the screen with every key that Will plays.

The animated keyboard is always on the screen when ever there is something be demonstrated on the piano. The video screen also shifts to a top down view during demonstrations so that you can see the instructors hands and how they’re moving on the actual piano keys. This makes learning new chords, scales and other techniques easy to follow.

Screen shots

Screen Shots for Learn and Master Piano – Click to Enlarge

The Course Works Like This

You watch a session (which can be done in one or multiple sittings). You then refer to the workshop section that corresponds to the session you just watched. The Session and Workshop sections are one right after the other on the same DVDs so there’s no need to switch discs.

The workshops are a practice area with Will, the instructor, where he gives a brief overview of what you’ve just learned, provides practice exercises which can be found in the accompanying workbook and gives you a guideline of when you should be able to move on to the next session.

Lesson Book

While Learn & Master Piano is primarily a DVD instruction course the lesson book plays a big role in your practicing. The book is divided into 28 sections, one for each session on the 14 DVDs. Each exercise you see on screen during the video lessons can be found in the lesson book. So when you refer to the book while practicing everything will be familiar from when you watched the videos.

I’d suggest having your lesson book handy while watching each session so you can follow along. You may also wish to make some notes along the way in the margin of the lesson book while watching the videos.

Jam Along Discs

There are 5 jam along discs included with the course. These are just plain fun. Playing the a boring two line song over and over while practicing can get monotonous. The jam discs provide a way for you to break out of the same old practice routine and play along with other instruments in complete songs.

Through out each section of the lesson book there are small boxes which let you know that the a particular song is available on one of the Jam Along discs. It will give you the CD number and track number to access the song.

Click here to listen to some sample jam tracks.

Instructor

Course instructor, Will Barrow (read his full bio), is a professional pianist, song writer and instructor in Nashvile TN. Will has spent the majority of his adult life either performing or teaching piano professionally. From the very first session on disc one Will’s experience comes through.

Will has a very soft spoken way about him and he takes his time explaining each topic. He has a step-by-step method to explain each new topic before he begins to demonstrating it. I find the explanation before the demonstration helps me better grasp each new concept.

Watch the sample lesson clips to the right of this text to get an idea of Will’s teaching style and also what you can expect from the Learn and Master Piano course.

There are lots of other online and DVD learn piano courses, how ever there is only one Will Barrow, and he is a big reason why this piano course is superior to all the others.

Support

You might not think of needing support with a DVD piano course, after all it’s pretty straight forward right? Put the DVD in my player and watch. How ever it’s not that type of support I’m talking about. I’m talking about the kind of support you may need while learning in case you feel stuck or have a question.

Included with the purchase of every Learn and Master Piano course is unlimited access to their private membership support website. Will Barrow frequents this website to answer questions and provide feedback and encouragement to students. The site is hopping with activity and there are new posts weekly. It’s a real asset to have as a self study piano student.

So some of you might be wondering what are the downside to Learn and Master Piano?

It’s tough to pick at the course topics and styles covered, instruction quality and materials supplied, so I won’t. However one thing that might be a downside to Learn and Master Piano is the size and scope of the course.

With 28 sessions of lesson content it can be easy to feel overwhelmed. In fact, I doubt every student that purchases Learn & Master Piano actually makes it through all 14 discs. Not because of a lack of trying, but because they reach a point in their learning where their satisfied with the skill level they’ve achieved.

This isn’t to say that you can’t go back and pick up where you left off in a few days, weeks or months, or possibly you don’t complete the course. Either way you will still get your money’s worth because you’ll learn to do something you couldn’t do before that brings yourself and others enjoyment.

Who’s this Course Best For?

Beginner piano players, those who have taught themselves a little or have no prior experience will benefit the most from this course. How ever intermediate piano players who have under a years worth of private instruction or have been trying to teach themselves for the past several months/years and feel they’ve reached a plateau in their playing will also get a lot out of the course content.

Learn and Master Piano offers a 60 day money back guarantee (to which they will provide a full refund of your purchase price no restocking fees) and also offers a 3 month payment plan for the course (3 payments of $53 each).