About My Piano Classes

The Music Moves for Piano curriculum

The introductory Summer 2008 camps went VERY well, so I have continued teaching Marilyn Lowe's curriculum during the rest of the year. Currently these classes are for kids who have little or no experience with the piano, but that will change with time! There are two separate classes - Keyboard Games for Beginners for 4-5 year olds and the Preparatory Level for 6-8 year olds. They use different books and move at a different pace.

The classes

Held once a week for one hour during the Fall, Winter and Spring Semesters.

These fun classes for beginners can lead to further, more advanced smaller group lessons, paired lessons, or private lessons (depending on the age, aptitude & motivation of each student). Please let me know how far you want to go with keyboard instruction so I can plan ahead. Kids over 8 years old may be ready for private lessons.

Texts

Keyboard Games for Beginners: Book A & B; Music Moves for Piano: Preparatory

Created by Marilyn Lowe (who has taught piano for over 40 years and has used this approach for more than 10 years) in cooperation with Edwin E. Gordon (who has made major contributions to the field of music education in such areas as music aptitude, audiation, music learning theory, and rhythm in movement and music.

The curriculum (from the student textbook):

This piano method is designed to develop improvisation, audiation and keyboard performance skills. It builds on the ideas, techniques and theories of Edwin Gordon, Carl Orff, Zoltan Kodaly, Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Shinichi Suzuki, and Dorothy Taubman.

Music Moves for Piano is the first piano method of its kind. It applies Gordon’s Music Learning Theory to the teaching of piano. When music is taught as an aural art, lessons build a foundation for lifelong musical enjoyment and understanding. With guidance, “sound to notation” leads to fluent music performance, reading, and writing.

Some of the major concepts of this approach for students include:

• Rhythm is based on movement: Feel rhythm and chant rhythm patterns. Move in both a continuous fluid way and a pulsing way.
• Sing songs and tonal patterns to develop pitch sensitivity, singing in tune, and a “listening” ear. Singing develops tonal audiation.
• Acquire a listening and performing music pattern vocabulary.
• Understand the various ingredients of music, such as rhythm, meter, tonality, harmony, style, and form.
• Create with different elements of music, such as rhythm, pitch, harmony, and form.
• Improvise using familiar patterns and songs. Transpose, change tonality and meter, and create melodic and rhythmic variations.
• Perform with technical freedom and comfort. Learn how to use the playing apparatus from the beginning of lessons.

Praise for the Music Moves for Piano Series:

The process of native language acquisition is more thoroughly applied here than in any previous piano method. Students learn music as an aural (listening) art and an oral (performing) art.
--Garik Pedersen, DMA, Professor of Piano Pedagogy, Eastern Michigan University

Music Moves for Piano focuses on developing the entire musician – the student’s ability to sing, to move gracefully, to audiate musical substance with understanding, to make a palpable physical connection to music. And it does this in conjunction with a wise, systematic presentation of purely pianistic skills: keyboard knowledge, technique and body awareness, notation, and, initially, attractive folk literature.
--Seymour Fink, Professor Emeritus Binghamton University

Class specifics:

We will engage in music play at the keyboard as well as playing music games away from the keyboard.
This will include singing, chanting, rhythm & tonal pattern acculturation, guided improvisation, and creativity activities.

Activity time includes echoing tonal and rhythm patterns, singing songs, and movement. These activities build a music vocabulary and develop audiation skills (the ability to “think” music with understanding).

Students will experience the fun of ensemble playing (duets with teacher, or another student).

In the beginning we will focus quite a bit on thinking, feeling, and expressing the steady beat, both in duple and triple meter, using rhythm syllables and movement.

The keyboard pieces provide familiarity with the whole keyboard (black and white keys). They were created to help students learn to play with freedom in the joints (shoulder, elbow, wrist, knuckles) and arm balance. There is a variety of articulation, dynamics and tempos with opportunity to describe these sounds, which encourages students to listen for and think about these differences.

Essentials for beginners include: learning rhythm coordination and rhythm patterns; singing in tune and tonal patterns; recognizing same and different; directions of movement; using the “right’ hand-fingers on the “right” keys; how to approach the keyboard physically; remembering “how a piece goes,” along with its playing location; improvisation; and variety.

At home:

Daily home practice should be enjoyable. Kids will probably spend 15-30 minutes playing at home, depending on their age, aptitude and motivation.  A real piano is best, because you can feel the vibrations, not just hear it.

Some keyboards will work. The most important factors are: 88 full size keys (76 will do… but the curriculum uses all 88 right away), full box keys (better than thin keys), hammer action is best (but harder to find than spring action), weighted keys or touch sense (to play soft and loud). 

Suggestions: (if you don’t have a keyboard at home). A real music store such as Hennessey will have top of the line keyboards, often Yamaha brand, starting at $1000. For more affordable local options try Best Buy. They carry Yamahas and Casios for under $500. Online: try Music 123 or Musician’s Friend. Like Best Buy, they have a good warranty program. Try Craig’s List for used keyboards. You can always start with 76 keys and move up from there. Don’t waste your time and money on anything smaller.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. I’m sure that any 4-8 year old who has taken my First Steps classes will do fine in one of the Keyboard classes. If your child has not had any early childhood general music classes, please talk to me about their interest in music.

Looking forward to being part of your child’s musical education,
Margaret Waddell