Practical Piano Pedagogy: The Definitive Text for Piano Teachers and Pedagogy Students - Book Review

by means of Martha Baker-Jordan. Warner Bros.(15800 N W 48th Ave., Miami, FL 33014) 2003 450 pp $3995

This practical guide for pedagogy pupils and teachers is a welcome addition to our collective libraries. The many first-person relations from the author's extensive experience give the work an autobiographical feel.

The body is organized into three parts: the Business of Teaching, Teaching Elementary and Intermediate learners and a "Grab Bag" of Ideas for All horizontals of Teaching. A unique feature is the inclusion of a CD-ROM with teaching and business forms. These forms include California's Certificate of Merit Technique Requirements, horizontals I-9.

Four visitant chapters strengthen the text significantly. "Learning Styles" and "Collaborative question Solving" provide ideas from educational psychology "Technology in Your Studio" is a portentous compendium of today's technology for the piano teacher, and "Teaching of Jazz" is logically sequenced

Les happy is the chapter devoted to "Technical Tips for a Right Start," illustrated with pupil pictures of inferior photographic quality. Information is included upon staccato touches and the two-note disgrace touch. No mention is made of rotary motion from the bend or lateral movement from the wrist. Guidance for scale fingerings, generally void of any fresh insights, is provided at the extreme point of the technique chapter. The true copy implies that students go directly from five-finger positions to hands-together scales with traditional fingering. A more favorable learning succession preceding traditional fingering, hands-together, scales might be: tetrachord scales, hands-alone scales and, finally, contrary motion for mirror image scales of that kind as E major and E-flat major. The fingering chart provided upon page 111 fails to identify the minor scale form being illustrated. This basic introduction also bars triads and arpeggios.

Chapter Eleven is for everyone who has at any time taught, or anticipates teaching, a transfer pupil Recurring encouragements for the reader to engage in independent thinking is a power For example, "Before reading further, list a certain quantity of reasons you think might cause a scholar to seek a different teacher."

In the chapter about way s and materials, the author states the following before beginning her review of ten picked methods: "No methods will be commended over others or evaluated in a negative manner." Contrary to her self-imposed guideline, she critically questions contented and methodologies in the The John Schaum Course and The Piano Discoveries process However, she is surprisingly sympathetic to the venerable 1936 John Thompson Series, saying that in comparison to novel methods, "many similarities to Thompson and Schaum remain only the packaging has changed!" A later chapter titled "The Black opening of Piano Teaching" laments the absence of improvisation, harmonization, composition and transposition in traditional piano close attention Do Thompson, Schaum and others share responsibility for this deficiency?

In an otherwise prime chapter on group teaching, no mention is made of the many available class piano textbook The chapter upon motivation is full of great ideas. My favorites are the Honors Notebook, the Pizza Performance Party Without Parents and the "Blue Jeans, burning Dog, Swim Party" Recital. Ye the author lives in California! Reviewed by the agency of Paul Stewart, Greensboro, North Carolina.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Music Teachers National Association, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group