Pianoforall
Pianoforall learn piano online is a step-by-step program teaching chords, rhythms, playing by ear and sight reading. Pianoforall is a top online piano course that uses a chord-based, “play first, ask questions later” approach that gets you sounding like a pro right away.
What is the Pianoforall?
Pianoforall is a step-by-step program providing the user with a solid foundation of chords and rhythms while progressing to playing by ear and sight reading. The method uses a combination of keyboard diagrams and musical notation, with media clips to emphasize each point. As you progress, the musical staff is shown for you to see what you have actually been playing. You will be amazed at how difficult it looks printed on paper!
How does Pianoforall Work?
Pianoforall is a course designed to teach you the basics of playing the piano. You can apply these core skills to play many genres, including jazz, pop, rock, blues, and more.
The pace of the course and self-directed learning is best for adults and motivated teens.
The program uses bite-sized lessons. All you have to do is commit 20 to 30 minutes of your time each day, and you’ll keep progressing at a fast pace. The course uses a mix of eBooks, videos, audio lessons, and exercises.
There are a total of nine eBooks with a logical progression. We’ll discuss these books in more detail later in our Pianoforall review. The purpose of these eBooks is to lay out a strong foundation. You can build on this foundation and keep learning once you complete the course.
There are over 500 tunes and exercises. These activities allow you to hear tunes that illustrate the concepts you’re reading about, and they will help you get some daily practice.
The 200 videos show you things like hand placement on a keyboard, and you can play along with the videos. The videos are an interesting feature of the course. Robin Hall recorded these videos, and you can see an experienced piano player demonstrate important concepts and play through rhythms, chords, and melodies.
The pace of the course and self-directed learning is best for adults and motivated teens.
The program uses bite-sized lessons. All you have to do is commit 20 to 30 minutes of your time each day, and you’ll keep progressing at a fast pace. The course uses a mix of eBooks, videos, audio lessons, and exercises.
There are a total of nine eBooks with a logical progression. We’ll discuss these books in more detail later in our Pianoforall review. The purpose of these eBooks is to lay out a strong foundation. You can build on this foundation and keep learning once you complete the course.
There are over 500 tunes and exercises. These activities allow you to hear tunes that illustrate the concepts you’re reading about, and they will help you get some daily practice.
The 200 videos show you things like hand placement on a keyboard, and you can play along with the videos. The videos are an interesting feature of the course. Robin Hall recorded these videos, and you can see an experienced piano player demonstrate important concepts and play through rhythms, chords, and melodies.
What's Included in Pianoforall?
The current price of the course is $49, marked down from $79. For this one-off purchase you’ll receive:
Nine e-books plus one bonus book – These comprehensive e-books take you through various styles of piano music with chords, tunes, and exercises, teaching you just enough theory for each lesson. I’ll go into detail on each book below.
24.5 hours of video lessons – Embedded in the e-book itself, these videos reinforce skills with explained keyboard demonstrations by Robin Hall.
He plays the lesson on a lower keyboard while an animated keyboard above shows you which notes he is playing, making it clear which notes you should play, what your hands should look like, and how it should sound.
Hundreds of audio tunes and exercises – These are beside each exercise to show you quickly what it should sound like. Auditory learners especially will benefit from hearing each exercise before attempting it.
What’s really nice here is that unlike most other piano platforms out there, Pianoforall is a one-time purchase, which is a lot easier on your wallet in the long run compared to a subscription-based model.
THE CURRICULUM
Each e-book covers a different aspect of piano playing and builds on one another so that you are putting the skills you’ve learned into practice. Except for Book Nine, which can be used at any time, you should read the books in order.
Anyone who has previously tried Pianoforall may be interested to know that the material was updated in 2022 based on student feedback – adding more modern songs, extra diagrams and explanations, and higher quality video and audio.
Pianoforall recommends spending 20-30 minutes at a time with the course, so how fast you complete each section will depend on how fast you read, and how fast you grasp the concepts!
The books also feature ‘Student Q&A’ sections, answering common questions students may have, and ‘checkpoints’ – a list of skills and knowledge Robin advises feeling confident on before moving to the next section. This is a handy way to track progress.
BOOK ONE: PARTY TIME – RHYTHM STYLE PIANO
The first book is an introduction to both the program and the keyboard.
It begins by stating the primary principle of Pianoforall – that it’s important to lay a foundation of chords and rhythms before building improv, melody composition, and sight-reading skills beyond that.
It also gives some tips on piano posture, equipment, and stressing the importance of practice and repetition – including some tips on the sustain pedal, which is a nice and oft-overlooked touch.
It introduces you to the notes on the keyboard and then jumps immediately into playing some basic three-note chords, reminding you that, like learning guitar, it’s more important to play than to worry about the theory at this early stage.
Book One also introduces musical notation, including rests and basic rhythm.
While most traditional curriculums spend a while on note-naming and rhythm exercises, this section moves quickly, which will be a problem for some who may need to keep revisiting it.
The rest of the book progresses by teaching you a family of chords and introducing various rhythms associated with popular music, which you can use with the chords to play a song.
All in all, you’ll learn 15 rhythms and 11 basic chords in Book One.
The rhythms also include other time signatures, such as 6/8 and 12/8, more ‘shuffling’ feels. You largely stay in the key of C, though other chords and keys are included too. The song examples are a lot of traditional songs and older 50s/60s/70s standards, which may frustrate younger learners.
The chords are taught with the assumption that you will be reading chord symbols in songbooks, like guitar players do, and shows you what to play when you encounter seventh chord or slash chord symbols.
This is a smart acknowledgement, as even many piano players have ended up on guitar chord sites trying to work out a song!
By the end of the book, you should be able to play the chords and rhythms of several popular songs while you and/or a friend sing the melody, and you may even feel brave enough to improvise a bit!
You should also be able to play the short and lovely “Amazing Broken Chord Ballad.”, introduced as one of the ‘melodic interludes’ to break up the learning.
There’s a huge amount of material in Book 1 which will take some learners up to a year – this could be intimidating for some, but it does provide a comprehensive introduction to chords and rhythm, and hopefully makes the rest of the course much easier for you!
BOOK TWO: BLUES & ROCK N ROLL
Book Two builds on your knowledge by teaching you blues rhythms to use with the chords you already know.
It emphasizes the concept that you should practice left hand rhythms much more than the right hand, until you can play them in your sleep.
This book is brief compared to the first one, but it still teachers seven blues rhythms and how to play a twelve-bar blues in any key.
BOOK THREE: INCREDIBLE INVERSIONS
Book Three is another updated part – after feedback from his students that they were struggling to understand inversions, Hall dedicates a lot of time to it here.
He introduces the concept of chord inversions, then integrates them into previously introduced songs from Books One and Two.
If you get the hang of inversions quickly, you may not need this whole book, but it’s good for those who need the practice.
You’ll also encounter the “cycle of fifths” (commonly called the “circle of fifths”), a concept meant to encourage you to practice all of the keys, teach you the relationship between them, and help you understand the general structure of music.
BOOK FOUR: CHORD MAGIC
Book Four is very heavy on chords, teaching you chord theory and almost every single major and minor chord there is!
It consolidates the lesson via making you play previously covered songs in different keys.
It’s a good lesson for those particularly interested in transposing songs – perhaps guitarists – but many might find this section draining.
BOOK FIVE: ADVANCED CHORDS
This book continues to teach you how to play chords from chord symbols found in songbooks, starting with a “magic formula” for bluffing a few more advanced chords.
A Barry Manilow-inspired piece called “Manilow Mood” will have you learning new musical devices before you attempt to write a Manilow-style composition of your own.
It helps consolidate the learning, though younger students may be thinking, ‘who?’
Diminished chords and cluster chords come next, and the book finishes strong with a lesson on Beatles styling and a long list of Beatles songs, which you can play with the rhythms and chords you know.
BOOK SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT, NINE: STYLES
Books Six through Nine focus on different styles, respectively: Ballad, Jazz, Advanced Blues and Classical Piano. There’s useful tips to be found in each, but you may prefer to focus on your preferred genres.
Book Six approaches ballad-style playing by introducing a step-by-step method for creating your own ballad-style songs.
This book is all about learning how to improvise, giving ideas for the melody, left-hand pattern, and chord progressions.
The book includes sheet music for some beautiful ballads, which you’ll likely enjoy playing – these are the first full-length pieces in the course that can really stand on their own as solo piano pieces.
Book Seven is content-heavy, but you’ll come out with a great jazz and blues foundation. It starts by teaching you how to get a “bluesy” sound using the blues scale, blues chords, and other tricks, before moving on to jazz.
Rather than learn to read complex jazz rhythms, you’re encouraged to learn the rhythms by listening to and copying the audio clips – definitely a more natural approach.
The book gives you lots of tips and tricks for jazz improvisation, and serves up many cool practice progressions.
Book Eight builds on Book Two by adding your advanced chord knowledge and fun new right-hand chord riffs to the blues rhythms that you learned.
The second part of this book teaches you about stride piano — both fake and real, the difference being the length of the “stride” your hand is taking.
You get to apply your knowledge with “the song you’ve been waiting for” – “The Entertainer” ending the section on a high note (pun intended)!
Since Book Nine largely relies on sheet music, it begins with a recap of musical notation and a quick lesson on key signatures, new symbols, and musical language.
Hall teaches you to sight read music “the Pianoforall way,” which means watching out for familiar chords and motifs, and that the notes that are sharp or flat due to the key signature are given in red for easy spotting.
You’ll then get into playing classical piano pieces, including big names like Beethoven, Bach, and Chopin.
If you have a goal of playing more pieces from sheet music after the Pianoforall course, I recommend spending quite a bit of time on this section, practicing your skills in reading music, pedaling, and tone.
BOOK TEN: SPEED LEARNING
Hall was clever with the name of this book, which is all about scales, triads, and arpeggios.
If my piano teacher had referred to this area as “speed learning,” maybe I would have been more eager to practice!
Incorporating these elements into your regular practice is an important way to improve your playing.
The book gives you an example ‘practice routine’ in C major, then reiterates it in many other keys as well.
The routine includes traditional classical scales as well as blues and jazz workouts, which is thoughtful.
Pianoforall Pros
-Audio and visual lessons. Pianoforall is different from traditional ebooks and printed curricula. It offers visual and auditory learning options, which are especially useful for beginners who don't feel comfortable reading music.
-The ebooks include audio and video clips, making it easy to find the needed content.
-You can jump right into the game. From the first session, you will feel like your progress is being made.
Use well-known songs. This will make it easier for you to play by ear and you'll also enjoy playing songs you know.
-Music promotes musicality. Piano methods for beginners often neglect to teach you how to play by ear, improvise, and compose melodies.
-These skills are taught by Pianoforall, which will give you a solid foundation in musicality and ensure that you always have something to do.
-Allows you to use your left hand better than traditional piano programs.
-Like many traditional piano players, I was used to focusing only on my right hand. I found it difficult to focus on the left-hand parts of my pieces as they became more complicated.
-Pianoforall encourages you practice with your left hand more than your right hand, so students will have less chance of having a lazy left hand.
-The information is easy to comprehend and presented clearly. Although e-books may seem a little less detailed than printed curriculum such as Faber's Piano Adventures, they are organized well and visually clear.
Pianoforall Cons
Not enough material on learning to sight read traditional sheet music
The patterns you learn are kind of lame and corny sounding (very oldey timey)
Won’t turn you into a traditional piano virtuoso – but it’s a great starting point for more advanced “classical” piano
No community forum or additional content added to members area
Pianoforall Pricing
To get full access to Pianoforall lessons, you have to purchase the course on the Pianoforall website.
The regular price is $79, but you should keep an eye out for discounts.
What’s great about Pianoforall is that it includes a one-time payment. So, once you purchase the course, you’ll have lifetime access to all the material.
LIMITED TIME OFFER
-Audio and visual lessons. Pianoforall is different from traditional ebooks and printed curricula. It offers visual and auditory learning options, which are especially useful for beginners who don't feel comfortable reading music.
-The ebooks include audio and video clips, making it easy to find the needed content.
-You can jump right into the game. From the first session, you will feel like your progress is being made.
Use well-known songs. This will make it easier for you to play by ear and you'll also enjoy playing songs you know.
-Music promotes musicality. Piano methods for beginners often neglect to teach you how to play by ear, improvise, and compose melodies.
-These skills are taught by Pianoforall, which will give you a solid foundation in musicality and ensure that you always have something to do.
-Allows you to use your left hand better than traditional piano programs.
-Like many traditional piano players, I was used to focusing only on my right hand. I found it difficult to focus on the left-hand parts of my pieces as they became more complicated.
-Pianoforall encourages you practice with your left hand more than your right hand, so students will have less chance of having a lazy left hand.
-The information is easy to comprehend and presented clearly. Although e-books may seem a little less detailed than printed curriculum such as Faber's Piano Adventures, they are organized well and visually clear.
Pianoforall Cons
Not enough material on learning to sight read traditional sheet music
The patterns you learn are kind of lame and corny sounding (very oldey timey)
Won’t turn you into a traditional piano virtuoso – but it’s a great starting point for more advanced “classical” piano
No community forum or additional content added to members area
Pianoforall Pricing
To get full access to Pianoforall lessons, you have to purchase the course on the Pianoforall website.
The regular price is $79, but you should keep an eye out for discounts.
What’s great about Pianoforall is that it includes a one-time payment. So, once you purchase the course, you’ll have lifetime access to all the material.
LIMITED TIME OFFER
