This was suggested in another thread.

Me:

Piano (from about 1973-4 onwards)

A First and Second Piano Book for Little Jacks and Jills
Schaum Piano Course
A book called "Sugar and Spice", and one called "The Big Note Book", I think.


I may think of others in due course.

Late 80s....I remember Technitunes, and definitely at least some of the Young Violinist's Repertoire. I'm pretty sure I played the Steibelt Divertimento for Grade 3. What was in between, I have no idea!

Jibbidy F and ACE

Me and My Piano 1 & 2, then Piano Time 2

Eta Cohen violin tutors 1,2 &3 for violin (1978!!)

John Thompson piano course in 1983

Oh yes, I used Eta Cohen for violin too.

John Thompson's Teaching Little Fingers to Play

About a 3rd of the John Thompson Grade 1 book

Then it was straight into AMEB preliminary exam material!

Little Jacks and Jills for me on piano too.
Violin was Neil Mackay violin tutor and Rowsby Woof preliminary exercises.

Walter Carroll...'Scenes from a Farm'...was that the title? It's a long time ago .

I'm sure I had two or three Walter Carroll books.

Learnt from 1985 ish and used a mixture of Fanny Waterman Piano Lessons and John Schaum's Piano Course but I can't remember how they fit together! Plus Microjazz.

Had a break after G4 and restarted in 1992 with a smattering of repertoire including Microjazz and Fanny Waterman's Recital Repertoire

People on these forums are always talking about having good or bad technique. Until I started teaching I didn't realise there was such a thing and have no idea if mine is good or bad! How is one to know?

A Tune a Term Day for Clarinet, Book One. I still have my copy, but it looks a bit sorry for itself now.

I don't remember having a book for piano, which probably explains an awful lot.

A Tune A Day for flute.
The New Recorder Tutor by Stephen F Goodyear (books 1, 2 and treble).

As I started piano aged 17 with a Grade 8 in flute already under my belt, my teacher gave me Bartok's First Term at the Piano, with the immortal line, "I think Bartok's pupils must have been better than mine".

And finally, Play the Viol by Alison Crum.

At the moment I can't remember the title of my first book - well it was way back in 1950 when I started. I have often wondered which book it was and perhaps someone will recognise it if I say I can picture on a right hand page several little tunes -probably 8 bars in length and one of them, which turned around middle C position and was in three four time was called "On the Lake". I must have driven everyone mad by repeatedly playing it.

I was taught by the then young music teacher of the local (boys only) grammar school who rejoiced in the name of Mr Britten - but I'm afraid it wasn't Benjamin. He was a lovely young man and although I can't even remember his face I can remember what I owe him. He must have been very modern for the time as I had real visual aids - a box of home made letter name cards which I had to place on the correct keys.(When I wasn't poking holes in the green silky cloth behind the fret work front of the tinny old piano) I remember doing the cards one day when I was supposed to be practising and my mother coming in to see what the silence was about and saying "I thought you had got past that stage!"

I don't remember what I went on to next. In fact the next thing I remember is moving to London and going to the teacher round the corner who gave me a dreadful piece several pages long called "Tarantella". she was a very poor teacher and after two years of getting nowhere fast I changed teachers and progressed to the Clementi sonatinas which I loved - very grown up blue book. Then I started exam stuff and also bashed my way through the Methodist Hymnbook and a couple of red cloth covered chorus books.

After that I changed teachers again and got onto the real stuff!

Me too! In about 1979/80 I think (I know I took Grade 1 in 1981 because my certificate says so but no idea how long I had been learning before that! )

I think I also did some stuff from a John Thompson tutor book that my sister had used before me.

Piano - no idea!

Cello - my teacher's own method plus Piatti

Flute - A Tune a Day

Also a Joan Last book, the name of which I couldn't recall late last night, but which I think was Facts and Fancies.
Had some things in I really liked.

Piano - Musical Gateway! (70s)

And the schaum B the Blue book etc.

For piano I grew up on a diet of Joan Last and Walter Carroll judging by the collection of books I still have! Alongside this, an AB book of preparatory exercises. I also have "The Hundred book of Czerny exercises" - book 1 which probably came in a bit later since it's full of semiquavers! I definitely remember doing some Bartok Mikrokosmos 1, thinking it sounded rather weird! Still have this book too although it has seen better days.

For Piano Jibbidy F and ACE, and The Joy of First Year Piano

For Violin, All for Strings I think?

Both early 90's

The Alfred E. Roland Pianoforte Tutor. Blue cover. I can still remember every note of the first piece, which took up a whole page, including the very tricky left-hand minims in bars 9 and 10 (the rest of the left hand was semibreves).

Tune a Day for clarinet

School recorder book for recorder.

Early 1960s - I was VERY small - Mr Very First Step, followed by My Next Step!

Then history mists over, but I still have a collection of my piano books, and I think I went on to series which had a red cover - there were 3 of them. Looking back, I must have been a very assiduous practiser because I have a lot of material and the pieces all have dates and ticks on them.

I started piano in 1976 and was taught by my strict pre school teacher, she had striking orange hair. She used Chesters piano Course (I still have a fondness for frogs), then Hours with the Masters. (An excellent selection of baroque and classical piano music.)

Early books I remember as I still have them in my library:

Two At The Piano
8 Duets (Jessie Blake)
Dozen a Day
Ministeps

And for cello, Tetratunes!

Tune a Day for clarinet.

Can't remember the name for the piano tutor book but it was old-fashioned, soft-covered (and so got tatty very quickly) and whizzed you through in about 20 pages from learning 3 notes to playing grade 1 pieces and then finished up at about grade 2. I loved it!!!!

My mum used to buy tons of jumble sale piano music books (I owe my pretty good sight-reading skills to these books and my mother).
I remember Eleanor Franklin Pike being my favourite - the Easiest tune book of waltzes and of national airs got a lot of playing, and the easiest tune book of incidental music was a real favourite.

I started with this, too; in about 1966. I seem to recollect it was very good and I was using it for years (interspersed with other material, of course.)

I think it was still available relatively recently but admit I haven't seen it for a while - probably a bit old fashioned now.

Can't remember if it had a blue cover because my teacher got me to cover it with wallpaper - something that happened to most of my school books, too.



I think I had these, too but was never sure what 'incidental music' was.

I think I used this as I remember the title but I don't remember anything about it. The other book was Invitation to the Piano (a modern tutor) by Anthony Howard, which I still have. I started in the mid 60s.

I used the Howard one as well, this was 1973. Loved it and still have it.

Recorder: Abracadabra Recorder - only odd numbered books for some reason, 1, 3 and 5.

Violin: Eta Cohen books 1 & 2 then changed to Stringsongs with grade pieces and Neil McKay's third position book. Then changed to viola where I picked up with the Suzuki book 4 as I was sharing a lesson with someone who came from Suzuki. I also owned Violin Star and Right from the Start, but then I'm a sheet music junkie even from childhood, so I owned everything - and I still have it all. My copy of Eta Cohen is coverless and curled, but I still use it for teaching today.

Piano: Everything my mum could haul home from a charity shop. In fact most of my stuff was for home organ so it had the tune and guitar tab on it, so I learned from early on to harmonise to a tune. Also had all the Eleanor Franklin Pike stuff.

The first 3 Schaum books (green, red, blue!) in the early 80s. Then a gap without lessons, and me going back through them by myself, and working through the next 2 until I went to hight school and started lessons again at about 12.

Several different ones way back in the mid-50s.

Certainly one which I now know to be J.W.Schaum pre-grade 1, though we used to call it Bone Sweet Bone because I think it had lost its cover and that was what was now on the front.

Plus a blue one whose name I forget but which said on the front that it was the Easy Way to Learn Piano, for Little Boys and Girls who Cannot Practise for More than Half an Hour a Day. I remember thinking "half an hour? HALF AN HOUR?" I thought ten minutes was hard work in those days!

I forget the rest, but certainly a couple of Melodyway books - Songs of Britain, all of which I can still remember, and carols, and Gilbert and Sullivan which I loved.

Gave up lessons when I was ten, though not learning music in general; my first exam at age 10, taught by my dad, was LCM general musicianship grade 4, which I thought at the time everyone did, and I got 96%. My piano playing was at about grade 1 level.

Didn't start proper lessons until age 15 and went straight into grade 6

From 1974 until giving up piano in 1975, my teacher used the John Thompson Easy Piano Course.

Fast forward to 2002 when I started piano again, my teacher walks in with..yep...the John Thompson Easy Piano Course.

That rings a bell, I also started learning in the 50s and I think I might have had the same one -- wasn't it a small landscape format book and the first tune was " middle C is on this line..." ?

I also had Walter Carrol's "Scenes from a Farm" I think you can still get that one !

Carl Hemann - First six months at the piano. English fingering. 1945!

I had this book too, handed down from my dad, 1947 copy, still have it to this day. I also had Walter Carroll the lonely shepherd duet book. My first tutor book though was John Thompson.

I started (unsuccessfully) with violin and although i can't remember the name of the book, it had a photograph of a small boy holding his violin wearing shorts (the boy was wearing shorts, not the violin). Gave that up as i was hopeless and began piano. I used John Schaum books, Fanny Waterman and something i think called "Mrs Curwen's pianoforte method" - would i be right with that?? An ancient book! I don't think i was on that long as my teacher left and i got someone else who gave me a book of technical studies that i can't remember the name of but thought i'd never get through, and an equally big book of Clementi pieces which i quite liked. My clarinet tutor book was some sort of Oxford Clarinet Method i think, the cover was tan and it was an excellent book which i believe has unfortunately gone out of print now.

No, I don't remember it being small landscape format. My book was definitely portrait and the pages were a little bigger than A4 - like they used to be before A4 standardisation. I'd really love to know what it was - I simply can't remember and certainly no longer have it.

First time round (age 7???) John Thompson Easy Piano Course (this being despite the fact I was actually learning keyboard...)

Second time round (age 14 and now learning piano) Carol Barratt Classic Adult Course (which my mum then borrowed when she started!!)

I'm another Jibbidy F and ACE learner!
My mum taught me to 'use all my fingers' with that and another WONDERFUL book called The Music People by Carter & Carter - Chappell. I looked for it recently because it was so good, but, alas, I couldn't find it anywhere on the net. I'd love to know if someone else used it.
It followed a cartoon note called crotchet and his home was the grand stave, with a cat for the treble clef and a snail for the bass clef. I get it out when I introduce sharps and flats - I just love the pictures of a sharp sign pricking poor crotchet in the bottom, making him jump high(er) and the flat sign using a mallet to flatten the poor little note. And then there was Scottish uncle semibreve...

When I started 'proper' lessons at 6, I used Scenes at a Farm, but the teacher didn't continue past the 6 week trial - said I was too young (otherwise known as fidgety!) - she was very old and formal, and gave up teaching children soon after.

A couple of years later, I started with a new teacher, who I stayed with past grade 8. She started me on the Suzuki books and tapes (made by my teacher )and I loved them. We only went up to book 3 with those though - I understand it continues for a few more books after that.

That was all piano. I can picture the clarinet book, but couldn't tell you what it was called, though it was a very popular one so maybe the tune a day series. I have absolutely NO idea about saxophone, recorder was a book with a tape that was pink(!), flute was probably a tune a day (self-taught) and Organ started at Grade 5, so no tutor book there.

Omg The Music People sounds familiar!

Before I had lessons I was teaching myself from a cartoon book. When I had my kids I tried to find it but couldn't. I wonder if the music people is the book. Did it show the thumbs sharing middle C by putting little arms around each other?

I think it was a white cover hard back book with colorful cartoons.

Me too

This is C. Middle C. Left hand, right hand, middle C!

For violin, Twenty Tunes for Beginners....

....back in the days when you could buy a music book for 25p!

This one? http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Music-People-L...r/dp/0241104580

I found quite a few copies online, but all second hand. I've never heard of it, but like the sound of it!

As for me:

Violin - A Tune a Day.

Piano - Roland pre-lessons; don't think I ever used a tutor book with my teacher. First pieces I remember learning in lessons were from a Diller and Quaile book. Anyone else come across them?

I think I had Diller-Quaile, and I also seem to remember the artwork of the Little Jacks and Jills book as well. AND Jibbidy-F whose cover I still show to children as a way of seeing the repeating patterns in lines and spaces.

This is as well as Schaum green book, which I definitely got to the end of. I couldn't possibly haver learned from all of them, as it would just have been repeating the same material, but I have an idea that my dad spread out a selection of them in front of me and asked what I fancied. I would have been about six. I must have grabbed the lot!

My teacher also gave me a book of duets which we were to work through. I can remember saying I was looking forward to doing them as I would only need to play one hand

I started with The "Wright Pianoforte Tutor". I've no idea what it was like, but I think it was pretty old-fashioned even when I started learning (about 1956).

Sounds more like the Wrong Pianoforte Tutor in that case

This brings back memories! I had a copy of this book throughout my childhood although I never actually used it to learn the piano. I've still got the book now...

Can't remember what book I did use to start off on the piano (so it must have made a great impression ) but when I started violin lessons I used String Builder.

At my first formal piano lesson my teacher gave me Smallwood's Piano Tutor, but at the second lesson, a week later, I could play everything in it (I had been playing "by ear" for a few years before getting any formal tuition) so we just started to learn selected compositions (Baroque/Classical/Romantic) from previous years' grade exams.

Mrs Curwen's Pianoforte Method - not exactly inspiring visually, but some good duets. I remember being enormously impressed by my teacher's ability to play all those very small notes in her part. ( I think I also thought she was sight-reading them )

Yes, I also had a bit of Diller-Quaile on the side - 'Fun, fun, oh what fun. Music lessons have begun' 'Ann, Ann, sister Ann, always plays the best she can' 'Up in the sky, ever so high, skylarks are singing as homeward they fly' 'Sing, sing, what shall I sing? The cat's run away with the pudding bag string'. I thought this was all one song.

Several decades from now, will all our PA 5-6 year olds fondly remember Little Kitty, and Snack Time, and all those? It's clear that one remembers one's first piano book for ever.

They'll never forget Monster Bus Driver