Best Piano Technique Books – Following in the Footsteps of Greatness

No matter what age you’re starting out at, the piano is an elegant instrument that can contribute immensely towards enhancing your personality. From learning how to read music sheets to the posture, notes, sharps or flats, or simply polishing your technique, a little help can go a long way.

Many would argue on what technique you should use to play the piano, but all agree on the fact that there is a thing known as the wrong piano technique. There are many ways to learn the right technique, and today, we shall lay out some of the best piano technique books out there for you.

With the right technique, learning to play the piano can just be a matter of time, reducing how much effort you put in. Remember how Tom from Tom and Jerry played the Cat Concerto? Extending that pinky finger to play the String E key like it was nothing? Here’s a screenshot to help you remember.

Now, that is a piano technique that even the legends couldn’t master. Tom either read a very good book or had a great teacher who taught him that.

Before delving into our book collection, though, we would like to point out that it’s one thing to learn from a book, learning from a teacher first-hand is entirely different. You get to see what you’re learning, and implement it even quicker than with a book!

So, let’s begin!

Best Piano Technique Books

1. Liszt Technical Exercises for the Piano

 Franz Liszt was a Hungarian composer, pianist, teacher, arranger and organist, focusing mostly on the romantic side of piano. He was considered a genius pianist and composer, dedicated to his cause much like the famous Beethoven and Mozart.

During his time as a teacher, he used to make his students do different exercises just to fix their technique first – the rest came later. With a total of 86 exercises to master, his students naturally got frustrated.

But when push came to shove, his techniques all came in handy as he was renowned for having taught some of the best musicians out there such as Sebastian Bach, Frederic Lamond and Alexander Siloti.

He used to have his students practice these techniques for four straight hours!

While you don’t have to go that hardcore, an hour every day can help you build a strong familiarity with the piano. There are 12 books in the series covering nearly all your bases.

We recommend you go for this book only if you’re moving from the intermediate to expert phase, or building a virtuosic technique. You’ll start seeing marked differences after every session – once you can feel your fingers again.

The book is available for purchase at Amazon.

2. Burgmüller 25 Progressive Pieces Op. 100

 Friedrich Burgmuller was yet another pianist of the 18^th century, and delved deep when it came to studying music. In our experience, Burgmuller’s book for learning piano technique is much easier to understand and implement. It’s no practicing-four-hours-straight, but it’s not a walk in the park either.

The book is suitable for beginner and intermediate players, especially those transitioning from easy tunes to difficult ones.

His other pieces, the 12 etudes of Op 105, and 18 etudes of Op 109 also work well in conjunction with our piano practicing tips.

The book starts off easy, focusing on posture and basic exercises to set intermediate players for the long haul. You can see these easy techniques in the free preview as well. However, as you proceed further, the exercises get, for the lack of a better word, harder. At that point, it’s not just your finger, palm and arm movement that counts, but overall endurance as well.

You will get tired, you will get frustrated, your wrists will hurt. But you will learn.

Many a professional have found themselves on the road to success because of this book. However, that road isn’t one to be travelled alone. The books only serve as a guide on their own; how to follow it is something that cannot be taught without experience.

It is important to have a friend or someone experienced near you when you are practicing. You can get online experts to either oversee you or get full courses from tutors such as Piano for All.

3. Czerny School Of Velocity

 The School of Velocity is among the more ‘fun’ spectrum of our book collection – but that doesn’t mean it’s any easier. Written for intermediate to advanced pianists, the main idea behind the book is to increase your speed and give you the ability to play more complex tunes easily.

Exercises within the book revolve around scales and repetitiveness, letting you practice popular musicals at your own pace.

You’ll find both, fast and slow tempos in this book, while some would be incredibly fast to truly test your limits. You can try these out as you continue to practice to get a better understanding of your learning curve.

This is not a book that you should speed through, rather one that needs to be navigated through slowly and carefully. As you move along, you will notice that a hint of professionalism will start touching each of your strokes, so that you can say goodbye to sloppiness and gain speed.

Another book that we think is a great fit for people looking to enhance their piano techniques is the Dozen a Day series. We explained these in detail in the article “Learning the Ways of Beethoven – Best Piano Books for Intermediate Players”

Learning to play the piano involves a lot of back and forth, but at the end of the day, it’s definitely worth it. Piano for All has been helping people all over the globe learn the ropes, be it beginners, intermediate students or advanced learners. If you are trying to learn the piano, we recommend you give them a try in conjunction with these best piano technique books.

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