Pianist/composer Dan Kennedy’s Best of Solo Piano, 2007-2018 songbook is a collection of seventeen favorites from Dan’s previous four albums (Lantern 2007, Intuition 2012, Bloom Road 2015, and Mountains Made of Shadow, Anthems Made of Light - the Enlightened Piano Radio “Album of the Year” for 2018!). There is also a newly-remastered recording by the same name (containing the same seventeen pieces) and an “easy piano” version of the songbook (reviews of those are here on MainlyPiano.com, too), making this release quite a special event!

Dan’s first songbook is even more special because he transcribed all of the music himself, ensuring that the sheet music is as close to the recordings as possible. Be aware, however, that Dan Kennedy is a very accomplished conservatory-trained pianist and this sheet music collection is for more advanced pianists (I would suggest early-advanced and beyond, although a few of the pieces are easier and upper-intermediate players can probably master those and then “grow into” the more complicated pieces.) The selections are all expressive, very beautiful and well worth the effort to master them. I had a lot of fun playing through each piece a couple of times, but commented more than once that Dan has really big hands and likes lots of sharps and flats in the key signatures (see below)!

The printed books are spiral-bound and printed on an elegant cream-colored paper. The notation is spacious and very easy to read. All of the pieces have metronome settings and plenty of dynamics. A few passages have fingering, but not many. It’s an excellent book for pianists of any age. If your playing skills are still growing, you might want to check out the “Easy Piano” version of the songbook, which was also transcribed and arranged by Dan.

The songbooks (both versions) are available as spiral-bound printed books and PDF downloads from Dan’s site, and as spiral-bound books and Kindle versions on Amazon.com.

The titles of the pieces, the keys they are in, and the number of pages of each are:

Heaven - Key of Cm (3 flats) / C#m (4 sharps) - 5 pages
Falling - Key of Dm (1 flat) - 7 1/2 pages
Moving On - Key of Am (0 sharps or flats) - 3 1/2 pages
Beautiful Day (With You) - Key of Ebm (6 flats)/ Eb (3 flats) - 3 1/2 pages
Cycle - Key of D (2 sharps) - 3 1/2 pages
Jade - Key of F# (6 sharps) - 4 pages
Wintergreen - Key of Fm (4 flats)/ Bbm (5 flats)/ Ebm (6 flats)/ C (0 sharps or flats) - 5 pages
Souvenirs - Key of Ab (4 flats) - 7 pages
Story Within a Story - Key of Dm (1 flat) - 5 pages
Dear Girl - Key of Eb (3 flats)/ F# (6 sharps) - 6 pages
Backstory - Key of Fm (4 flats) / Abm (7 flats)/ C#m (4 sharps) - 7 pages
A Moment - Key of F (1 flat)/ F# (6 sharps) - 4 1/2 pages
California - Key of E (4 sharps) - 7 pages
Ballad - jet if Dm (1 flat) - 3 1/2 pages
Wildflower - Key of E (4 sharps) - 7 1/2 pages
Allelu - Key of F (1 flat)/ F# (6 sharps) - 3 pages
Clear as the Coast - Key of C (0 sharps or flats) - 2 pages