Pianist/composer Dan Kennedy has released two versions of his first solo piano songbook, Best of Solo Piano, 2007-2018. The first one contains his own transcriptions which match the original recordings, and several of those pieces are quite difficult. He has also released an “easy piano” version with simplified arrangements of the same seventeen compositions that are in the more difficult book as well as on the newly-remastered recording of Dan’s Best of Solo Piano, 2007-2018. The more advanced book is 98 pages and the easier one is 57, so many of the pieces have been shortened as well as simplified.

The beauty of the composer doing the arrangements is that he has captured what he feels is the essence of each piece rather than relying on the judgement of a different arranger. The pieces are still very recognizable, but are in easier keys, have less complicated rhythms, have fewer chords and fewer reaches of more than an octave, while retaining the spirit of each piece. All of the pieces have metronome settings and some of the trickier passages have fingering. The printed book is on an elegant cream-colored paper and the layout of the music is spacious and very easy to read. It is a really nice book to play and is suitable for pianists at an intermediate level.

Both versions of the songbook are available as spiral-bound books and as PDF downloads from Dan’s site. They are also available from Amazon in a Kindle version or the spiral-bound book.

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

Heaven - Key of Cm (3 flats) - 2 pages
Falling - Key of Dm (1 flat) - 3 pages
Moving On - Key of Am (0 sharps or flats) - 2 pages
Beautiful Day (With You) - Key of Dm (1 flat)/ D (2 sharps) - 2 pages
Cycle - Key of D (2 sharps) - 3 pages
Jade - Key of G (1 sharp) - 3 pages
Wintergreen - Key of Gm (2 flats)/ Cbm (3 flats)/ C (0 sharps or flats) - 3 pages
Souvenirs - Key of A (3 sharps) - 3 pages
Story Within a Story - Key of Dm (1 flat) - 3 pages
Dear Girl - Key of D (2 sharps)/ F (1 flat) - 3 pages
Backstory - Key of Em (1 sharp) / Gm (2 flats)/ Dm (1 flat) - 4 pages
A Moment - Key of F (1 flat) - 3 pages
California - Key of E (4 sharps) - 4 pages
Ballad - Key of Dm (1 flat) - 3 pages
Wildflower - Key of E (4 sharps) - 4 pages
Allelu - Key of F (1 flat) - 2 pages
Clear as the Coast - Key of C (0 sharps or flats) - 2 pages