Dear　New Student,

Congratulations on down loading some of the free lessons from our web site. You have taken a life changing step!
Welcome to the World-Wide Family of Klavar Players☺

How are you getting on with the lessons ? Are you ready to obtain the complete course ? I am writing to let you know that you are not embarking on this learning adventure alone. I am here to answer any queries you may have and later our music agent Gordon will contact you regarding supplies of music. My main interest is in the learning process . I am a trained teacher and recommend a number of learning aids that you may find useful. You can obtain these from me, using the order form at the bottom of this letter or send me an email if you have any comments or queries..

1. The Video Discs (VCD) set of 2 “Piano Technique” featuring Barbara Lister-Sink, professor of Piano at Winston Salem teaching the use of arm weight, at the Klavar Music Foundation’s Summer School
2. The book Learning The Intervals by Peter Jackson

Unless you are taking lessons from a teacher it is not easy to develop the correct playing technique. Use of arm weight is essential if you are to experience effortless playing .It is best if you work from the start on the correct principles. Please get the VCDs (₤12) which we offer that shows this in great detail with excellent explanation and musical illustrations. You can play them on a DVD player or on your computer .Alternatively you can purchase the Video Cassette “Freeing the Caged Bird” that Barbara made some years ago , an award winner. You may also visit www.freeingthecagedbird.com where the introduction is shown as a clip. It is now also available as a DVD. I also recommend the DVD The Craft of Piano Playing by Alan Fraser available from Amazon.com.

Hard copies of the lessons
If for any reason you prefer hard copies of the lessons, instead of printing them yourself, then we advise you to take the printed version of the standard course of 78 lessons. You can obtain these lessons by going directly to the Head Office of the Klavarskribo Institute website in Holland by following this link www.klavarskribo.nl/en . As they have to be printed and posted etc I am afraid they are not free. The lessons are sold in six sets of 13 lessons per set at a cost of about ₤25 per set. Please contact Gordon by email at kmfagency@iinet.net.au or by post at Klavar Music Foundation Agency at 16A Northcote Road, Hornsby NSW 2077 Australia, I am sorry this seems rather a round about way of doing things but this is the price we have to pay for globalization ! I can assure you that Holland and Gordon provide an excellent, prompt and efficient service. The lessons will be posted to you directly from Holland. People are encouraged to pay by VISA card when buying directly from The Klavarskribo Institute (Stichting Klavarskribo) in Holland.

Learning The Intervals describes all the intervals up to one octave, and presents them in mirror images together with small cartoon-type illustrations and musical examples that make them easy to remember. I find it a tremendous help . However, some people distain to use it and manage quite well without it ! People are different. This book is now available as a free download from our website, you can download it page by page and learn one or two pages at a sitting.

3. We have recently produced a Klavar version of the Hal Leonard Student Piano Library, a series of ten books graded from complete beginner up to intermediate level that come with 10 CDs produced by the USA music publishers Hal Leonard. These are excellent and the music in the books is fresh and fun to play. You can play along with the second track of each piece, where the piano part is deliberately left out so you can play-along with the band. Great fun and a good challenge to keep up to tempo. This series is supplementary; it does not replace the regular lessons of the standard course which contain a wealth of information as well as more than 200 pieces of music and notes on how to learn and play them. The Hal Leonard books contain music and a small amount of music theory. The notes are printed larger than in the standard course; helpful for the elderly.

4. Another book I feel I should mention is the Melody Workbook and How to Remember Scales. This is for those who like to compose . If you are the sort of person who is always humming your own tunes perhaps you should consider getting this aid to composition of melodies based on scales. This is a wire spirally bound book of 130 pages. Each scale has a famous teacher.

5. The book I most highly recommend for general reading, which is not specific to the Klavar notation but applicable to all pianists, is Passionate Practice by Margret Elson . Also, The Perfect Wrong Note by William Westney available from www.amazon.com or why not ask your local library to get it for you ?　It is inspiring and of great practical help. The book by Kenny Werner (Effortless Mastery +CD) is also recommended as is The Art of Practicing a guide to making music from the heart, by Madeline Bruser.

6. We can also supply 2 audioCDs with long extracts, actually nearly all the pieces, in the standard Klavar piano course. You can use the order form at the bottom of this letter if you wish to order these. It is helpful to hear how the pieces should sound before you play them yourself.

7. The Dutch Klavar Club publishes a monthly magazine for Klavar players called Toon en Teken. This contains several pages of newly transcribed music. You may like to subscribe to this. Although the text is in Dutch a summary in English is available, free on line. You can request this from the Secretary Fons Dooman at fonsdoomentbg@tele2.nl A sample summary is on our web site www.klavarmusic.org on the Forum page. This link should take you directly there http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=177311;article=103;title=Klavar%20music%20Forum

Gordon, our Music Supply Agent, will contact you regarding supplies of music for the future. We have over 25,000 pieces available catering for every taste. If there is a special piece of music you would like us to transcribe for you, you may send me the original score and I will transcribe it on computer for you for a modest fee plus postage. You may also like to consider taking up transcribing as a hobby . .Many people transcribe their own music . It is easy if you have some idea of how to read traditional notation. I recommend the book New Notes For Old which gives detailed instructions on how to transcribe. The only danger here is that it soon becomes addictive ! Do not hesitate to contact me on any Klavar matter. Please sign up to receive updates from our Web site. www.klavarmusic.org You can also use the chat room there to meet other Klavar Players. Do let me know if you download Klavarwriter and I will send you the full instructions for using it. It works on WindowsXP and on Vista. If you have problems downloading it perhaps you may need to turn off your security settings briefly, to allow the file to enter your computer. A playback device must be installed before it will work (CBX Driver is part of the package, This should be activated. You should attach the electronic keyboard to the computer before it will work, (You may need to reverse the midi leads). If you still have problems contact me.

A handy order form is below on a separate sheet.




Best wishes ,

Yours Sincerely,

Peter Jackson,

Director, Klavar Music Foundation of GB
[Version 10.June.2010]







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Order form for KMF Learning aids:

ORDER FORM

Please send me the following piano learning materials:(post free)

1. VCD ( Set of 2) showing Piano Technique ₤ 12
2. Melody workbook ₤ 6
(scales; examples of melody, and manuscript for you to write your own melody using the scale just learnt)
3. New Notes for Old ₤ 6
4. CD s of Extracts (set of 2 CDs) ₤ 6
5. CD –Rom of our Standard course of 78 Lessons
( print from the CD-rom yourself ) ₤ 25
6. KlavarwriterXP CD-rom of 1,500 pieces of music and a printing program; for those with WindowsXP Free □Tick here.

Hal Leonard Student Piano Library, books (HL) and CDs as detailed below
7.HL Lesson Books ₤5 each___________________________________________________
8.HL Solo Books ₤5 each__________________________________________________
9.HL CDs / Sorry, I no longer supply these as you can get them cheaper from Amazon.com or from your local music shop

10.VCD set of 2 ₤ 12 per set____________(Piano Technique)__________
11.Video Cassette or CD see below no.12.. (please specify) ₤ 22_________________(Freeing the Caged Bird)__
12.This is also available on DVD for the same price ₤ 22________________
You can get the Hal Leonard CD’s (or the same music without the second track on a floppy disk ) from your local music shop.
Please insert your Name and postal address:



Send to: Peter Jackson, Klavar House, 50 Po Wah Yuen, Lamma Island, Hong Kong. (email: director@klavarmusic.org)
Please pay by any UK bank sterling cheque; or if you are outside UK please pay by bank draft made payable to Klavar Music Foundation of GB ( if payment is a problem please email me and we can discuss options ( for example you can pay me by using Pay Pal to director@klavarmusic.org )

. The Foundation is Registered in UK and has its physical base there. However I live and work in Hong Kong, and handle correspondence etc from here. With the Internet, fortunately, physical location is of little significance.