I am thinking about buying a decent electronic piano and learning to play. I am an ex-professional bass player (Berklee) and French Horn for many years, though I’m retired and haven’t played anything in a very long time.
My bass rig is set up in the room I am in right now and glowering at me, but not having played for so long, my muscle memory is gone and I guess I burned myself out on bass. I don’t really want to do that now. Maybe later.
I can read both bass and treble clefs (not at the same time) and have lots of theory, harmony, composition and arranging training.
What I would need to proceed are method books that focus on the mechanical and techical aspects of playing piano - scale exercises, reading both clefs at the same time, independent hand usage, etc.
Lessons are pretty much right out as I live in a pretty rural location and I won’t have much choice.
Are there courses like that, either in book form or electronic, that may get me started?
Not a piano player, nor even inclined towards lessons. But, as a guitarist who hangs out online, I can say with certainty that YouTube should be a first stop for you. Search on beginning piano lessons and review the offerings. The good ones will have a structured series.
You can also look for websites dedicated to online lessons. There has to be the equivalent to Justin Sandercoe’s justinguitar site.
I ordered her lesson books too. Karen is an older teacher. The videos on YouTube were filmed at her classes several years ago. The books are handouts she gave to students.
The OP’s music background will be very helpful. He already knows how to keep time and play rhythm. Read music. Knows some theory.
Learning to read chords on sheet music will take some effort. It mostly memorization. Pianists love their chord inversions. You have to learn those. 1st inversion the third is the bass note, 2nd inversion the 5th is the bass. I bought a flash card set from Amazon that helped me memorize what the chords look like on the staff.
Books and videos will be helpful. It doesn’t replace a real teacher, but you can still learn a lot on your own.
Here’s the chord flashcards. Covers the root chords and 1st, 2nd inversions. I made a game out of memorizing these on the staff.
I also bought this laminated mat with the keyboard layout and music theory. Lot of useful information that I keep on my music stand. Much more convenient than a bulky book.
I highly recommend the Hanon book you mentioned. I used that myself as a beginner and found it highly effective.
When you feel you are ready to advance to something more melodic that is still constructed as an exercise, you might enjoy the Kabalevski Preludes. There is one for each key and all are based on folksongs. They are elementary in difficulty, but do offer a bit of a challenge and variety.
If you are looking for a live teacher, but can’t find any good ones locally (I don’t know where you are), I can recommend one who works exclusively over the Internet, so you can be anywhere on planet Earth. PM me if you are interested.