The ‘Why’ Behind My Current Choice of Piano Methods
Very few non-musicians realize just how much a musician has to know and coordinate in order to play the piano. It’s definitely an instrument and skill that is accessible to a wide-range of people, but it’s not simply easy or everyone who has ever tried it would be playing at a high level. As someone who started playing the piano at seven, and later became a professional musician (with a shift to the flute being my primary instrument towards the end of high school), I grew up learning the piano with teachers who used standard method and technique books. As both a student and now as a teacher who has a fairly wide range of musical experiences professionally, I know that methods and technique books are an effective approach to learning an instrument - any instrument - not just the piano. Just about everyone on any instrument who has achieved even an intermediate level of playing has learned at least in part through method and technique books. And just about every teacher uses some method and technique books as a foundation for their teaching. However, while method books are valuable in helping a student acquire important and necessary skills, they definitely aren’t all created equal and it does require some real insight and expertise to select good books and then to use them well in lessons.
My early days of teaching private piano lessons to children in grades kindergarten through fourth grade happened at an elite private school for K-8 students in Northwest Arkansas (NWA is home to the headquarters of more than one major global company and has some excellent schools). Students at this school could take a one-to-one piano lesson during their school day - lucky them! This piano lesson program had been established by a friend of mine who I had met through church and who was an experienced teacher. I was excited for the opportunity to teach alongside of her.
The core piano method that was used for the curriculum at the school was the Piano Adventures series by Faber. Many students in lessons made a lot of progress through this method. However, I also saw that ‘most’ students of a certain age were likely to run up against the same obstacles as they progressed through the method. With a long-standing interest in flute and piano pedagogy, I had to ask ‘why’ these students were running into these issues. At the time, since the Faber Piano Adventures method is so well established in the piano teaching world, I had just assumed that it was the best approach for every area of playing; from rhythm and notation to technique and musicality. However, as I have learned and grown as a teacher in areas such as child development and literacy, and applied that understanding to learning to play the piano, I’ve found that even the well-established methods have some significant gaps in their curriculum with the sequencing of skills. I believe that more than likely very few piano teachers even realize that those gaps exist in the method, so they are not equipped to instruct through those gaps. Some of my realization of these gaps came through training and added knowledge in areas outside of music, but that overlapped with other aspects of education and child development.
Some of the piano methods that I have chosen to use in my current studio didn’t exist back when I taught at this private school. My colleague and friend who had established the program at the school with the Faber method is an excellent teacher. I know that she has also continued to search for new approaches and that she has also independently made the decision to shift to some of the same methods that I am now using, as have many of my colleagues in the field. Piano pedagogy is still moving forward. There are some methods now that are nearer to filling in some of the gaps that I found to exist in the Faber method, but there is no perfect and complete piano method book that I am aware of on the market. I choose methods because they have enough of what is needed to form the backbone of a thorough educational approach, and then continue to fill those in from my own knowledge and experience as I teach through them.
Pedagogy is defined as the following: “the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept.” https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/ In the end, good teachers need to understand their subject, continue to learn effective ways to teach that subject, but, they also know that teaching is really an art that requires far more from them that is quite subtle and nuanced. Good teaching is not merely about imparting factual information and seeing the student replicate those skills. It involves understanding when and why a student might be struggling and creatively working to overcome those obstacles. It involves encouragement and motivation and coaching through student’s bad days and good days which are just part of our human experience. It involves ongoing research, learning and experimentation.
There is a core set of four select piano method and technique books that I use as the piano curriculum in my studio today. The core set of books that I have chosen to use help students gain the foundational skills that underlie all good piano playing across nearly all genres of music. I certainly do supplement outside of these books, but because to learn to play an instrument really is far more complex than just to learn to ‘play a song,’ there absolutely needs to be structure and order, with sequential steps to what is learned. (To understand what is involved with just learning to ‘play a song’, try handing a kindergartner a pencil and ask them to write a one page report with good structure, topical sentences, correct spelling and to be creative about it!) My students almost always start in one or more of these four books based on a few things: 1) The current age of the student, because a piano book needs to be developmentally appropriate 2) What skills the student may have already developed in their piano playing 3) Where the student is at in the bigger picture of their musical development, that is, what their current needs are both from the standpoint of making progress with foundational skills as well as with an eye to their current level of motivation.
While the reasons ‘why’ I use a particular book could literally fill books (since people do earn PhDs in music), I want to give you some of the big picture reasons why I currently use these four particular book series. I hope to write in a way where at least some of it is understandable for non-musician parents who want to know whether their student is learning something in lessons and what that is. For parents of beginner students, it is really going to take some real time before your child (and this is the same for adult beginners) is just whizzing through songs of any genre, especially with any level of independence and retention of skills! However, with patience, those beginners will gain competency and they will be able to play a wide-variety of music and sound good while they play, because they have learned to correctly execute all of the component skills. Competency in these skills underlie the foundation of all professional musician’s playing and are necessary and cannot be skipped. If they are taught well and students are given the chance to secure them, they may not become professional musicians, but they will have the ability to play at least at an intermediate level and they will understand a lot about music - it can be a skill that they keep and enjoy for life.
My bullet points under each book/method title (listed below) are a list of ten reasons why I’m using each of these method and technique books. The bullet points are not listed in any particular order. The books are listed in the usual order in which I would use them in lessons, but that does vary from student to student based on their age and readiness.
*Please note that I am not a seller of or affiliate with any of the books, methods, or their creators listed below and that I am writing solely from my own experience with them as a musician and teacher for the benefit of students and parents.*
My First Piano Adventure for the Young Beginner (Book A) by Faber
(*Note that while I use Faber Book A, I do not go on to Book B. There are several reasons for my not continuing through this method, based on my experience teaching with it. Rather, I shift students to the Piano Safari method, usually part-way through their time in Book A. I bring the Piano Safari method alongside of this book once I find that the student has developed the ability to memorize short melodies and patterns - something they typically gain partway through this Faber book. We then simultaneously finish Faber Book A and work on Piano Safari Level One for Children, because I have found that there are skills that these books develop better alongside of each other than alone. These are skills which need to be secured before going on or the student will struggle at every piece and every level. I also have created my own materials to fill in gaps in the Faber Book A - but it has many strengths which are why I am using it).
1) Approach takes into consideration the development of fine motor skills. Beginners of all ages come to lessons with their fine motor skills having been more or less developed in a way that will lead to success at playing the piano. All students, no matter where their fine motor skills are at, will still need to fine tune these skills and gain increasing body awareness. The development of these fine motor skills are necessary in order to play even simple songs and definitely are required to possibly someday play at a higher level. The skills include the use of the hand, fingers, parts of the fingers from the knuckle to the finger tip, wrist, and arm. The movements and positions that are needed aren’t really like anything else that we do in life. Exercises in the Faber method like “Cookie Dough,” “Mitsy’s Cat Back,” “Rainbows,” allow students of all ages to start learning these necessary movements and the quality of the movement that we need (for example, firm finger tips in “Cookie Dough”). The playful approach is fun and relaxed and we are often laughing while trying to coordinate new movements, which takes away some of the possible frustration of trying to make fingers do something they aren’t used to and also makes for memorable learning! I haven’t yet found a student who doesn’t need some work to form their hand position for playing the piano.
2) Overlap with children’s prior experiences with literacy increases accessibility to the piano for younger beginners. Colorful pages (with ethnically diverse characters Millie, Marta, Carlos, Dallas and Katie) mimic the children’s books that your child is already familiar with. Kids love to turn the pages of these books and they have already established through their experiences with children’s literature the enjoyable habit of reading along with you and on their own. The pictures and characters in Piano Adventures create an immediate point of engagement and curiosity – an ideal setting for learning and beginning exploration of something brand new. I find this book is perfectly fine as a starter book for kindergarten through third grade students (after that it will probably feel too ‘kiddish’ for fourth and fifth grade students.) https://pianoadventures.com/blog/2016/02/04/the-young-beginner-keys-for-connecting/
3) Backing tracks are motivating. The backing tracks allow students to feel like they are playing ‘real music’ while their current skill level doesn’t yet allow them to play complex songs. This helps with motivation and engagement. https://pianoadventures.com/online-audio-for-my-first-piano-adventure-book-a/
4) Backing tracks help develop a steady beat. The backing tracks have a strong underlying steady beat (the rhythmic pulse that makes you want to clap along or dance). Developing a steady beat is absolutely the most important foundational skill for all great musicianship! Playing with a backing track helps students start to develop a sense of a steady pulse from the very beginning. Listening is generally emphasized as important and beneficial in all approaches to music study (including in Piano Safari and in methods like Suzuki Piano).
5) Backing tracks provide listening experiences. The backing tracks provide an immersive listening experience with a variety of sounds and styles (not specifically classical). All great musicians have listened to a lot of music and in more than one style.
6) Foundational skills are developed. Students gain a degree of competency with foundational skills to playing the piano and they apply those basic skills in different songs. By the end of the book, students will have a solid start on securing skills that must be retained solidly in long-term memory in order to go on to harder music and to begin to have some level of independence when they sit down to play (I hope that my students are not always going to be dependent on a teacher to learn new music!) These foundational skills include among others not listed here, using the correct finger number, finding the correct keys to set your hands up on (that’s no small feat when you have 88 keys and ten fingers to choose from!), basic rhythmic notation and correctly performing those rhythms while keeping a steady beat, learning other important musical vocabulary, and recognizing important musical symbols and their meaning and following those musical directions while playing. These are just some of the skills that students need to gain in the first few months of study in order to have a foundation for further piano playing!
7) Experiences with composition. Hands-on experience with composing their own music. Accessible composing exercises also lead to greater understanding of music. For most students these activities are also highly engaging and therefore are highly motivating.
8) Non-musical parents can help with practice. Non-musical parents can easily help facilitate practice with this method. With backing tracks and pictures on the pages of where a child’s hands should be placed, even a non-musical parent can help a child engage with this method at home. It is especially important with young beginners that parents are able to help some at home, but a method has to then be accessible to non-musically trained parents! The backing tracks can be listened to in a convenient app or online at https://pianoadventures.com/online-audio-for-my-first-piano-adventure-book-a/
9) Improvisation. The book includes experiences with improvisation (creating your own music within given parameters).
10) Familiar kids songs. Familiar songs that most children know are included in the method.
Piano Safari Method by Katherine Fisher and Julie Knerr
1) Thoughtful and well-researched. This method arose out of an award-winning Ph.D. dissertation by the authors and in my opinion it is pure gold. There is a reason for every single component of the book and a reason for the order in which each skill is presented. I definitely do not expect non-musician parents or students to dig deeply into the ‘why’ aspect of the method, but if you want to get a taste of just how thoroughly thought-out the method is, take a look at this teacher resource page for Level One and click on even just ‘Unit One’. There are literally dozens of pages that support and explain the reasons for each decision that the method’s creators made when they wrote the method. https://pianosafari.com/teacher-resources/teacher-resources-level-1/ I can use it with just about any age of student once they are able to remember short melodies and patterns.
2) Fun songs! The songs are just plain fun! I have had students of all ages enjoy the music in this method.(I even teach the rote songs and techniques to adult beginners!) They are physically fun and challenging, and are also aurally satisfying to play.
3) Diversity of musical styles. A range of musical styles from traditional children’s and folk songs to classical music like Beethoven’s Ode to Joy are included in the method. While pop songs can’t really be included in a method from both a copyright standpoint, as well as that pop music is frequently not appropriate for the skill-level of a beginner level have (pop does not equal easy, something most non-musicians don’t realize), many of the accompaniments that the teacher plays with the student in this method are wide-ranging and contemporary in their style. The sounds vary from boogie-woogie, to a variety of jazz styles, from classical and contemporary piano, to Latin-flavored genres like the tango. Hearing and engaging with a wide-variety of musical styles is important to the development of the ear for future artistry and for playing a variety of musical styles with appropriate style.
4) Development of technique and tone quality. Attention is paid to the quality of movement at the piano and not simply to plunking down the right keys with no regard to technique (or tone/sound production). The method’s creators distilled down the basic movements that a high level pianist makes so that beginner students start to develop a wide-ranging artistic ‘palette’ of sounds to creatively ‘paint’ musical landscapes with. https://pianosafari.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mini-Essay-5.pdf
5) Play harder songs earlier on. Rote songs are included along with written notation! One of the best things the authors of this method realized is that beginners can physically play harder music than what they can accurately read and interpret from music notation. This means that students can enjoy a full range of movement and sound on the piano without waiting years before they can actually read that music – which also means they are developing a range of other necessary skills sooner and faster than with most other methods. https://pianosafari.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mini-Essay-6.pdf
6) Using the full range of the 88-key piano. The method avoids locking students into one position on the piano (‘locked’ meaning the student uses only about ten keys while they learn to read music, when the piano has 88 keys!) Advanced level pianists move around the whole keyboard and it takes time to learn to visually spot those positions, to make the appropriate movements and then to land on those keys at exactly the right time. (In that way, piano is more like high level athletics, just with our fingers and arms.) Students absolutely can do this and there is no reason to wait. The only reason I can discern for other methods failing to make use of the full keyboard is that the focus is exclusively on learning to note read. There are good pedagogical reasons backed by research to develop other skills concurrent or even preceding note reading skills.
7) The way the Grand Staff is initially introduced. Students learn to recognize direction and intervals and gain comfort with following that on the Grand Staff before trying to memorize the position of every key on the piano and its corresponding spot on the staff. The way the Grand Staff is introduced also avoids getting students locked into one position on the piano, which avoids the student having to face a real barrier when they are later asked to move out of that now familiar and comfortable position. https://pianosafari.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mini-Essay-9.pdf and https://pianosafari.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mini-Essay-19.pdf
8) Quantity of material. Sight Reading Cards help provide the quantity of reading time that is needed to gain fluency with reading music notation. This has a lot of correlation to science-backed understanding of how literacy develops.
Mini Essay 23: Super Awesome Sight Readers Part 1: It Takes a Long Time!
Mini Essay 24: Super Awesome Sight Readers Part 2: False Assumptions
Mini Essay 25: Super Awesome Sight Readers Part 3: The Four Ingredients for Confident Music Reading
Mini Essay 26: Super Awesome Sight Readers Part 4: Ingredient #1 – Patterns and Theory
Mini Essay 27: Super Awesome Sight Readers Part 5: Ingredient #2 – Contours and Intervals
Mini Essay 28: Super Awesome Sight Readers Part 6: Ingredient #3 – Rhythm
Mini Essay 29: Super Awesome Sight Readers Part 7: Ingredient #4 – Note Names
9) How rhythm is taught. Rhythm is introduced at first using the Kodaly approach, which is more appropriate for beginners than metric counting – but the shift to metric counting, which is what the pros do, is also built into the method and occurs later on. Because rhythm is initially introduced using Kodaly – students start playing with eighth notes early on, while as the majority of other methods will require a student to finish several books before encountering this fun rhythm. https://pianosafari.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mini-Essay-8.pdf
10) Approach to memorization. Students are encouraged and expected to memorize. This develops the ear which is important for musicians. It also means the student has something to play when they are out and about, or if a friend or family member asks them to play a song. The way the rote pieces start off with simple patterns and gradually build into longer songs (that are still pattern based) means that almost every student can actually learn to memorize music, whether or not this is something they are more naturally wired for. The videos that are part of the method mean that students can check their progress towards memorization at home during the week. https://pianosafari.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mini-Essay-17.pdf
Dozen a Day by Edna-Mae Burnam Since this book does involve reading notation, I don’t start students in it, but bring it alongside of other methods at a later date. Both kids and adults can benefit from this method and it is neither too ‘mature’ nor too ‘kiddish’ to be appreciated by this wide range of ages.
1) Realistic approach to technique for beginners. This time-tested piano technique method has bite-sized technical exercises that allow beginners to grow their physical technique and their ability to read the corresponding notation in ‘realistic ways’. Four to eight measures of technical work is realistic and manageable for beginners, when pages of it with walls of notes in a book like Hanon or Czerny might not be! I am a believer that there is an age-appropriate way to approach the ‘discipline’ of practice and that beginners don’t need to take on that sort of work in the early parts of their study when they don’t yet have the motivation to do something that admittedly has a strong potential to be dull in their practice. Beginners can’t understand the value of doing that sort of repetitive and somewhat monotonous type of practice - kind of like lifting weights in sets day in and day out. Neither is that kind of work really a requirement of the beginning level music that they are able to play at this point in their development - and attempting to do such work at the start won’t really advance their level any sooner, but may burn them out.
2) Fun and helpful illustrations. The silly stick figure illustrations are great descriptors of either what the music sounds like or what our bodies are doing when we play that music, which means that the drawings definitely help to engage a beginner with the correct execution of the exercise and provide some fun motivation to try the exercises!
3) Introduce new skills sooner. The technique exercises and the notation stretch a student past their current level in their method book. Since the exercises are bite-sized, a student can be introduced to new techniques and notational components before they encounter them in a piece or method book.
4) Motivation - New kills and new aspects of notation that are not in their other books. Trying something brand new and challenging is often very motivating to curious students. This also means that students are gaining a greater musical vocabulary earlier on.
5) Practical value in every exercise. There is a reason for every type of movement and notation that is included in these books. All of these fingerings and notations eventually do show up in piano playing at some level (even if it is much later in advanced repertoire), so getting some familiarity with these now will facilitate ease of playing and confidence in tackling new pieces when those techniques and forms of notation show up later.
6) Motivation (again) - Books that aren’t too long. Leveled books that aren’t too long mean that students get the satisfaction and sense of progress of finishing a book.
7) Opportunities for introducing music theory. Music theory is not really just reading notes and rhythms – it’s actually more about understanding the structures of music, and about knowing chords and harmonies and their function. Music theory is baked into the exercises in this book so that an astute teacher can begin to introduce basic theory concepts early on – from interval and chord quality recognition, to basic progressions between the tonic and dominant chords built on scale degrees one and five – we can start finding out how music theory is part of what we play.
8) Successful building of skills and accessible challenges. The sequencing of skills means that even a very early beginner can start in this series and then that we can work through the series at an appropriate pace for the student. As students grow in skill, they are able to continue to find new challenges at each step forward.
9) Variety of articulation leading to greater artistic expression and higher-level interpretive skills. A wide-variety of articulation styles and their notation is included (articulation in piano is the quality of how we actually touch the key whether a short touch, a longer touch, a sharp hard touch, or a gentle soft touch, and more, which produces a variety of sounds necessary for a full-range of artistic expression).
10) Growing confidence with reading music. As students progress through the method they gain confidence in their ability to approach a complex score of a piece of music and to know that with patience they can decipher that score to play the music. This requires confidence and discipline and those are qualities that are built up over time with experience of successfully tackling new challenges and finding that one can meet them.
Wunderkeys by Andrea and Trevor Dow
1) Appealing design. Fun characters and illustrations with silly jokes are appealing to many children.
2) Games. Games are built into the book and help with learning. With kids who don’t yet have the ability to focus on playing the piano and reading music for thirty minutes straight during a lesson, this book provides a variety of activities that are still focused on educational and music-related goals.
3) Repetition. Students get more repetition with note reading skills.
4) Pacing of note reading skills. Students learn and memorize the place of more notes on the Grand Staff gradually.
5) Leveled books and motivation. Students gain a sense of confidence as they complete levels.
6) Method authors with experience teaching today’s kids. The Dow’s are a younger couple who ran a piano studio themselves where they taught both classical and pop music, which is what led them to start writing methods and music that are appealing to children today.
7) Method authors who aren’t just stuck in a classical box. The Dow’s compositions include intermediate level music that absolutely contains the sounds and rhythms of much pop and film music today – therefore their overall approach to the piano is not ultimately aimed solely at developing classical musicians, but rather is useful for anyone wanting to play in any genre.
8) A method with a book for everyone. There is a book and level for pretty much everyone and that includes books specifically written to remediate skills that a student needs more time and work on. There’s a series for preschool piano students and there’s beautiful and challenging music through to the early advanced level. A student can aim their studies towards a more classical route or start gaining the skills to play pop/rock/worship and other genres from lead sheets.
9) Supplemental material. There is a wealth of corresponding supplemental worksheets and games to support the skills and ideas learned in the method books. This also allows for diverse learning styles. https://wunderkeys.com/growing-with-wunderkeys-toolkit/ and https://www.teachpianotoday.com/
10) Developmentally appropriate. The Dow’s have an awareness of child development and aim to write their books in ways that are developmentally appropriate.
I hope this post has been helpful to you as a piano student parent or as a piano student!
Best wishes for your musical flourishing!
Sincerely,
Christine, FFMS Owner/Teacher
