This is Sphinx adaptation of Chaun C. Chang’s excellent book, Fundamentals of Piano Practice. Why bother? Well there are a quite few formatting improvements from the original PDF, including inter-document links, clean bulleted lists, and improved font/line spacing. By virtue of being a Sphinx project, this book is also available in HTML, PDF, ePub, and LaTeX. As a GitHub project, anyone can contribute to this project by adding in content from the book and fixing any discrepancies in formatting.
You can read the book online through ReadTheDocs, where you can also download the PDF and ePub versions. If you notice any issues with the text, please send a merge request!
This is the best book ever written on how to practice at the piano! Most books list what skills are needed (scales, arpeggios, trills, etc.), but not how to acquire them. This book teaches how to solve technical problems, step by step. Learn practice methods, how to acquire technique and memorize hours of repertoire, sight reading, musical playing, relaxation, etc., and, most importantly, Mental Play in which you learn to play the piano in your mind. Mental play touches every aspect of piano playing, from memorizing, controlling nervousness, developing performance skills, playing musically, etc., to acquiring absolute pitch, composing and improvisation. It is almost unbelievable that such an essential skill has been mostly neglected by piano teachers. All great musicians used it, yet even they often failed to teach it. We learn why the traditional methods of teaching piano widely used today are the reasons why students give up piano.