Stronger is the companion sheet music book for Doug Hammer's amazing 2025 solo piano album by the same name. All seven of the pieces from the album are included and were transcribed by Doug himself, and then proofed by me. Borne of an especially difficult period in his life, Doug took the experiences and emotions of that time and set them to music in the hopes of helping others cope with their own challenges. The emotions expressed in the music are powerful and yet are often very fragile, allowing pianists plenty of room to express their own emotions while playing the music.

Because the music is slower than much of Doug's other sheet music, it is easier to play than some of his other work, but adding your own emotional expression is what will truly bring the music to life. From a teaching standpoint (sorry, I can't help it!), I would expect that the emotional content of the music would be the most effective with teens and adult students. There are quite a few four-note chords in a few of the pieces, but only a couple of stretches of more than an octave. Pianists at an intermediate to upper-intermediate playing level shouldn't have a problem with any of these pieces. Doug did use some reverb and a few subtle effects on the recording, but playing the music on "regular" piano doesn't sound dramatically different.

Currently, the Stronger songbook is available as a download of the complete book as well as individual pieces from Doug's website. A printed songbook will be available later on. It's a very beautiful collection and I highly recommend it!

The titles of the pieces, the key(s) they are in and the number of pages are:

Broken - Key of F minor (4 flats) - 2 pages
Uncertain - Key of F minor (4 flats) - 3 pages
Losing - Key of A minor (0 sharps or flats) - 3 pages
Acceptance - Key of F minor/ Ab major (4 flats) - 4 pages
Healing - Key of B minor (2 sharps) - 4 pages
Perspective - Key of F# (6 sharps) - 2 pages
Stronger - Key of B minor/ D major (2 sharps) - 3 pages