Free Online Piano Lessons - learn, teach piano:

Fundamentals of Piano Practice

includes Chromatic Scale & Piano Tuning instructions

Chuan C. Chang's Home Page, Jan. 1 , 2020

for Free Download of Complete Book



This book provides free online piano lessons to learn and teach piano, including explanations of the Chromatic Scale and how to Tune Your Piano. This is the only "Fundamentals of Piano Practice" site that is always up to date.

  1. Download the Third Edition (two-column) or Single Column format of this book free (PDF only), or purchase the paperback ($25.25) or kindle ebook ($8.00). If you find typos or have suggestions, please email me. This is a living book where I am assembling all known best practice methods; therefore, if anyone knows of any such method that is not in this book, please let me know. I update this book from time to time; the latest update is July 28, 2016, see P. 1. If you find it difficult to read the book online using your browser, download the book, save it, and re-open it using Adobe Reader which has many useful features; download the free Adobe PDF reader here.

    1a. Addendum to Third Edition (new book reviews, Why do we enjoy music?, etc.); important new research results.

    1b. Solfege Teaching Guide written by our daughter Eileen; a must read for serious piano students and every piano/music teacher.

    1c. Podcasts of Second Edition.

  1. Sheet music for the compositions discussed in the book, contributed by David Baptista.

    Fur Elise, long format, contributed by Sam Wang.

    For a larger library of free sheet music, go to IMSLP; you may find better editions there, especially for Bach. For hard-to-find sheet music, try Plainfield Music Store in Plainfield, NJ.

  2. Thumb-Over/Thumb-Under videos on Youtube.

  3. For reader reviews, see Testimonials (very informative; comments from professors, established piano teachers and students of all ages; i.e., why do you need this book?).

  4. Other recommended books, videos, lessons, & sheetmusic; note on Amazon: If you have Amazon Prime, you can invite 4 people who do not have Amazon Prime, and they will get Amazon Prime for free (free 2-day shipping, but not all Prime features).

  5. List of classical music for listening (work in progress).

  6. Translations of the Third Edition into: French (white background or Black background), Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt); there are two translations for: Chinese (Simplified), 中文 Forum format, and Chinese (Simplified), 中文 Gitbook format.

  7. The Second Edition book in PDF format, 266 pages is still available for download.

    It has been translated into the following languages: Two translations for: Chinese (Simplified), 中文, new Forum format, Chinese (Simplified) , 中文 older Forum format, and Chinese (Traditional) 中文, Dutch, Nederlands,-- French, Français,-- German, Deutsch,-- Hungarian, Magyar (incomplete),-- Italian, Italiano,-- Japanese, 日本語,-- Korean, 한국어 (incomplete),-- Polish, Polski, Russian Русский,-- Slovak, Slovenčina, and Spanish, español (complete book). The Polish translation may not be available temporarily due to technical problems.

  8. Palm stretch photo of section 54 (Third edition), III.7.e, P. 137 (Second edition).

  9. Addendum (PDF) to the second edition book (important new research results, corrections, changes). All important material in this addendum has been incorporated into the Third Edition.

  10. You can purchase the second edition book at Amazon ($25.25) , or as ebooks at Amazon Kindle, or the Apple iBookstore, or Nook (Barnes & Noble), $8.00.

  1. Go to General Information for instructions for translators, teachers, and students, and 55% discounts for teachers.

  1. Here is a good list of Piano Teachers; however, I have not been able to compile a list of teachers using the methods of this book.

  1. Link to French School of Music, where Mlle Yvonne Combe taught, FaceBook page.

  1. French School Recital Programs, 1978-86 (PDF format), or Recital Programs, 1978-86 (.odt format).

  1. List of Teaching Pieces used by Combe, grouped as Easy, Intermediate, or Advanced. Combe wrote these down from memory for her student recitals. For each recital, someone typed them to be “memeographed”; I made this list from those recital programs. Therefore, there may be errors; if you can't find sheet music for a particular piece of music, your only choice is to use a different one because some are difficult to find or are out of print – there are lots of others to choose from. If you find errors, please email me. You should be able to find most of them on YouTube to see what they sound like. For sheet music, try (2) above.

  2. Recordings of performances by Combe's students, starting with an incredible performance by Mayo Tsuzuki of Saint Saens' second piano concerto (work in progress for more recordings).

  3. Compositions of our daughters:



Please email me with any comments, suggestions, questions, etc., or write to:
C. C. Chang, 5705 Fayetteville Rd Apt. 2107, Durham, NC 27713, USA.

See my WisdomWorld web page, where I discuss non-piano topics: the philosophy of life, cooking recipes, investing, horticulture, religion, etc.; here is a partial list of my scientific publications.