Customer Reviews:
 Excellent mid-level arranagements for the budding musician, but an odd selection December 27, 2009
Montgomery Scott (Philadelphia, PA USA)
I am just re-learning piano, and I wanted a good book of Jewish songs that would allow me to impress friends and family with my new found skills. The problem was that the Jewish Fake Books I found were way above my head, and the Jewish children's books were too simple to sound "impressive". I wanted some chords, some challenging 2-hand work, but nothing I couldn't play reasonably with a bit of practice. This book fit the bill quite well. The arrangement of Hatikvah is quite nice---it may sound silly to a practiced pianist, but some of the two-hand work and black keys has taken some practice to get right. However, I have been able to play it again and again, and it is finally sounding quite professional. There are good arrangements of Chanukah, Dayeinu, Have a Little Draydl, Chag Purim, Oh Chanukah, Maoz Tzur and Hava Nagila. Best of all---it is by Alfred. Since I am learning piano with the Alfred All-in-One Adult course, the style and notation are familiar (incidentally, I am about 3/4 of the way through Volume 1 of the 3 volume course).
That being said,there are a ton of Yiddish songs that frankly, I have never heard. I would have rather had some more modern songs like Eli Eli, Erev Shel Shoshanim, or some wedding songs (none of these were included).
I give the book 4 stars---for $8.50, I feel like I got some nice arrangements, so I definitely got my money's worth. About half of the book I will likely never play, but that is likely the case with any piano book. This will encourage me to practice more, and hopefully I can "graduate" to a Fake Book with a more complete lineup of songs in the future.
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