'Tall Stories for Short Pianists' is an album of a dozen approachable piano solos, along with 5 duets (for pupil and teacher), pitched at the younger pianist. Each piece connects with a tale or story (some will be more immediately familiar than others), while the level of difficulty starts at ABRSM Prep Test/Trinity College Initial, with a couple nudging Grade 3. While in some cases the technical and reading difficulties have been kept to a minimum, other pieces include hand-positon changes, hand-crossing, isolated high/low notes or brief chromatic features, in order to widen the interest. The intrepid pianist is warmly invited to take up a commanding presence at the piano (or keyboard) and perform with authority!

Mark Tanner's compositions encompass an impressively wide range of attractive styles. A number of his pieces, written or adapted for a variety of instruments, feature in current ABRSM, TCL and LCM exam syllabuses, drawing from a growing oeuvre (60 volumes) of music published by Spartan Press. You will find a few of his pieces within an appealing new ABRSM series due to appear later in 2016: 'Piano Star'. Mark's 'Scapes' series was shortlisted for the 'Best Print Resource' Award at the 2015 Music Teacher Awards, and he is co-author of ABRSM's Teaching Notes, an informative book to support the latest piano syllabus. His thought-provoking book, The Mindful Pianist, was published by Faber Music in 2016.