Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
Find out more: About Pianodao Reviews
Hal Leonard’s Gradebusters series has been one of the highlights of recent years, and the publications have proven popular with learners and players of all ages.
Reviewing the series, I described the five graded books of pop song arrangements for solo piano as offering,
“A hugely inviting and immediate mix of famous songs… this is top stuff!”
Offering “25 Awesome Solos from Taylor Swift to Einaudi”, the Gradebusters Piano Mixtape is the latest addition to the series, delivering a compendium of highlights from the five graded books, with six exclusive new pieces thrown in as an added bonus.
For those who want to dip into these quality arrangements without necessarily wanting to take the deep dive offered by the whole set of books, the Piano Mixtape collection represents great value, so let’s take a quick look…
25 Awesome Solos
Here is the full list of the songs included in this collection, and those which are new and exclusive to the Piano Mixtape are highlighted:
Grade ONE
• Your Song (Elton John)
• I See The Light (from Tangled)
• A Whole New World (Aladdin)
• Beauty and the Beast
• Dancing Queen (ABBA)
Grade TWO
• Moon River (Breakfast at Tiffany’s)
• A Million Dreams (The Greatest Showman)
• Love Story (Taylor Swift)
• How Far I’ll Go (Moana)
• Time Lapse (Ludovico Einaudi)
Grade THREE
• Candle in the Wind (Elton John)
• Hakuna Matata (The Lion King)
• Defying Gravity (Wicked)
• Break Free (Ariana Grande)
• Easy on Me (Adele)
Grade FOUR
• Yesterday (The Beatles)
• Autumn Leaves (Joseph Kosma)
• How You Like That (BLACKPINK)
• Part of Your World (The Little Mermaid)
• This is Halloween (The Nightmare Before Christmas)
Grade FIVE
• A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (Manning Sherwin)
• For Good (Wicked)
• Love Yourself (Justin Bieber)
• Over the Rainbow (The Wizard of Oz)
• Pure Imagination (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)
While this selection scratches the surface of the great material in the full five-book graded series, it nevertheless succeeds in giving a colourful sense of the impressive breadth of those books: classic songs from yesteryear rubbing shoulders with up-to-the-minute hit songs from some of today’s most successful recording artists and popular movies.
Whether or not the six exclusive bonus pieces are leftovers from the original books, I cannot tell. The new material certainly matches the quality of the five graded collections, Christopher Hussey again proving his mettle as an arranger par excellence. Some of the songs will inevitably appeal more than others, but even those most obviously simplified titles will likely still have appeal to fans of the originals.
The Publication
The Gradebusters Piano Mixtape is a 64-page book printed on off-white paper, with a glossy cover to match the rest of the series, and staples holding it all together. The pieces within are sensibly organised by grade, in ascending difficulty.
In common with the previous books in the series, each piece is preceded by a short practice tip, and these consistently add to the educational and musical value of the purchase.
Helpful fingering is provided throughout, and in the Grade 4-5 pieces pedalling also makes an appearance. Expression markings throughout encourage engagement and are well considered.
Hal Leonard have also included full audio access to the 25 pieces via their superb Playback+ system. I have praised this before, but for those unfamiliar with how it works, a 16-digit code inside the book unlocks access to audio recordings of all the pieces, which can either be downloaded or streamed on the Hal Leonard global site.
In the case of the latter, the hosted Playback+ app allows for speeding up and slowing down the audio, looping sections to encourage practising passages in chunks, and even changing the key. When tweaking these parameters, within reason, the playback quality remains top notch. In short, this is a genuinely worthwhile bonus, and is excellently executed.
Closing Thoughts
For those looking for a graded anthology of well-known contemporary and classic pop song arrangements, ranging from elementary to intermediate level (UK Grades 1-5), this collection is as good as it gets, and is an easy recommendation.
Hussey is on top form here, again delivering musical piano versions that work well as solo pieces, include plenty of details to bring the best out of developing players, and quietly contribute to that educational and musical development in the process.
Those looking for a wider range, or different selection of songs suitable for their specific grade, the original series remains the obvious and top choice, and you can find out more (including full song lists for each book) in my comprehensive review here.
So if you are ready to “bust” out and play some great pop song arrangements, who are you going to call again? You got it…
Pianodao Music Club members receive 15% discount from Sheet Music Plus.
Musicroom is joining forces with Sheet Music Plus.
Most Pianodao retail links will redirect you to the new product pages.
Any which don’t will be updated in the coming weeks. Thank you for your patience.
Pianodao includes 700+ free articles and reviews.
If you value this resource, please support the site:
