**The winner is Cynde Fail**

The Progressive Pianist is a complete piano program that allows your child learn to masterfully play the piano, whether you know anything about music or not! Much like trying to teach your child a foreign language when you have no prior skill, teaching an instrument with no prior skill is a formidable task and it is hard to find study materials that will allow you to accomplish this in a way that you can feel comfortable with. I felt completely comfortable with using this program with all four of my children, especially my special needs son whose thoughts altered weekly between whether his last teacher was moving too fast or too slow. He can safely pick up music lessons again and it will be at his pace and that helps keep his stress level down… awesome for HIM… awesome for Me!

There are three books available with this program: Book One, Book Two, and Book Three. Each book is basically the equivalent of one year of lessons. It is recommended that you start with the first book, even if you have had lessons before. This made complete sense to me as our daughter has had three different piano teachers who used three different types of books. You may move as fast, or as slow, as you need through the book. Remember, though, that you need to master playing each piece without hesitation before moving on. Our last teacher pounded our daughter on this and I was pleased to see it in the notes of this program as well.

The books are all relatively inexpensive and range in price from $35 for a downloadable book to $53 for a print book. We typically spent $50 per month on lessons in previous years and our newest estimate for a teacher here in North Carolina, where we just moved to, was $12 per lesson. The book can easily pay for itself in about a months time if you use it exclusively, especially considering you won’t be spending money on gas, or your time away from home, to go out for lessons. There are also extra books for purchase that include Christmas songs and Hymns.

Each lesson contains a theory and finger exercises. That is impressive to me because I have seen many children taking lessons in recent years where theory is no longer taught but rather the focus is just on playing the notes, or even worse, only chords. You truly can not know piano well if you do not learn theory, in my opinion!

You will find digital recordings at the website to go along with the lessons and this is truly an added benefit worth having. This is useful to both you and your child(ren) that you are teaching. It is especially useful if you have no prior music background.  One great tip that was offered to me when I took the challenge of reviewing this product was that many children like to put the digital recordings on their ipod’s or mp3′s to listen to. This was such a great idea and proved very helpful!

I also appreciate the fact that they have a fully staffed support team that offers online support. It is nice to know that if an issue arises, then help is only an email away!

Overall, I really liked this program!! I did previously have one year of lessons (a gift for my 30th birthday so I was a late start at learning and am still on the lower end of the scale as far as knowledge goes) and my daughter has had approximately 4 years of lessons. The books were very easy to maneuver through in a .pdf format and all were easily read. If I had to find a con to give with the review it could only be that I did find one smudged note on one page… truly not bad when you consider there are more than 450 pages in the three books I looked at.. but it did nothing to take away from the lesson and was still completely readable. Wait, does that even count as a con?!

Anyway, I think you really can’t go wrong with this program! It was easy to understand and follow. I feel like children who try this program will still get the satisfaction of learning to play quickly while still getting the theory and facts they need to know as well. It truly is a well rounded program!!

Please feel free to go look around more at The Progressive Pianist Website.

We are very please to give you the opportunity to win a Level One package which includes the bonus Christmas Favorites!! To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment.  Comments will be closed Friday, November 7th at 10pm EST and the winner will be announced on Sunday in our weekly newsletter. You can sign up by entering your email address in over in the right sidebar. As always please make sure you leave your email address or that it is clearly listed on your profile or blog. If we can’t email you, you can’t win.

Sallie is an off-again, on-again homeschooling mom to her 4 children, ranging from elementary to high school. In her writings, she discusses the challenges of homeschooling a child with disabilities and offers insight to those who sometimes feel all alone in a round hole world. Please visit her at Seaside Tales.