Join esteemed pianist Karen Walwyn and host Leah Claiborne as they discuss Walwyn’s career as a concert pianist and composer, and her dedication to studying underrepresented composers.
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Exploring the piano through improvisation unlocks endless creativity, and the Autumn issue of Piano Inspires Kids equips young pianists with exciting new tools to ignite their musical imagination. In addition to the print magazine, students can explore additional activities on our website to get their creative juices flowing. Not yet a subscriber? Click here to receive the issue and give the gift of music to the musicians in your life! Keep reading for a sneak peek into the Autumn Issue.
Want to learn more about Piano Inspires Kids? Watch our webinar, “Inside Piano Inspires Kids: A New Publication of the Frances Clark Center” with Co-Editors-in-Chief Sara Ernst and Andrea McAlister: click here.
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To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Tim Topham, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Sara Ernst. Want to learn more about Topham? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Topham on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!
Sara Ernst: What is inspiring to you about the kids today? Especially if you think [about] this holistic form of education, where you’re really trying to build a musician at the piano who’s really learning skills that they can take to a wide variety of contexts. What do you see from the kids that are learning in that way that makes you go, “Ah, yes, this is it”?
Tom Topham: I just like that kids aren’t letting us do boring stuff anymore. And this goes for classrooms as well. A classroom teacher can’t just teach the same curriculum every year like they may have done in the past. Be that good or bad. I mean, obviously it’s a good thing that they can’t do that anymore. The whole move towards more inquiry-based learning and giving students autonomy in what they’re doing—which we know from Self-Determination Theory—is a really powerful aspect of self motivation in education. The more that we can get them involved and help them achieve things that they want to do, the more that they’re going to have agency and power in the decision making and want to do those things.
I like that kids these days want something different, want something more, and aren’t content with just the status quo or just, “Okay, teacher, tell me. I’ll just go through the standards. You know, we’ll start with Burgmüller, and then we’ll go to Clementi, and then we’ll go to some Beethoven.” I know for some teachers, that will be difficult, but I also hope that a lot of teachers will look at that—I won’t call it pushback, because it’s not necessarily pushback—but look at that questioning of students and see that they maybe want something different and more. Rather than go[ing], “I can’t teach you that.” or “what do I do?”, go, “All right, let’s try. Let’s see what we can do.”
Teachers can get so much value from trying new things. For many years, for anything that I put out, I suggest, “Hey, I’ve had a great experience with this. Here’s something you can try, and here’s the reason why I believe it’s powerful in the pedagogical sense. Why don’t you give it a shot?” I just encourage teachers to try these new things because it’s fun, and it’s going to make them better teachers, and students are going to respond to it.
Also these days, actually, students have always wanted to see their teachers as humans, as fallible humans. Back when we were at school, the schoolmaster was up on the raised platform, blackboards, and all that kind of stuff. It’s just not what we need or what students want anymore. And I think that’s good.
If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Tim Topham on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!
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Our next episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast features Tim Topham, Founder of TopMusic!
Listen to the whole story about how he got started with piano, his ideas behind TopMusic, and his passion for music making in this interview led by Sara Ernst.
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Exploring the piano through improvisation unlocks endless creativity, and the Autumn issue of Piano Inspires Kids equips young pianists with exciting new tools to ignite their musical imagination. In addition to the print magazine, students can explore additional activities on our website to get their creative juices flowing. Below are excerpts from our new teacher resource guide designed to spark their students’ excitement for creating and learning at the piano. Not yet a subscriber? Click here to receive the issue and give the gift of music to the musicians in your life! Keep reading for a sneak peek into the Autumn issue.
After reading Now & Then in the Autumn 2024 issue of Piano Inspires Kids, ask your students to choose an improviser found in the magazine to research. Students can present their findings in studio classes, create posters to be displayed in the studio, or create a playlist of their chosen improviser’s recordings on a streaming platform of their choice for others to enjoy.
Using the QR codes provided on page 7 of the Autumn issue, listen to the accompaniment played by Binh Anh. Students can use the improvisation guide in the magazine to determine the notes, style, and rhythm of their improvisation. Once the improvisation has been completed, ask the student to reflect on their performance. Play with the video many times and adjust the speed as needed by clicking on the setting wheel and selecting “speed.”
Using the examples found on page 6, play the first four measures of Minuet in A Minor by Krieger. Analyze the examples below the original music, and ask your students to circle the ways the melody has been altered. Play these examples together, and then come up with a fourth way to improvise with the right hand. Try each idea suggested. Apply these ideas to the entire piece, or ask the student to choose a different piece or phrase to which they can apply these improvisation techniques.
Play the C major, minor, and minor blues scales found on page 14 and discuss the differences between the scales. Choose one to three notes of the scale. Explore the many ways to vary the melodic and rhythmic pattern of these notes. Add more notes of the scale to your previous improvisation, or choose one to three new notes. Improvise with these notes, creating new patterns or repeating patterns you like. Then, watch our new YouTube series Play! with Piano Inspires Kids to improvise with Binh Anh as he plays the 12-bar blues accompaniment. Improvise with the video many times to experiment with melodic and rhythmic patterns.
Students can also play both the melody and accompaniment using the progression outlined on page 14. In group classes, ask one student to play the chord progression and another to improvise a melody. Go to kids.pianoinspires.com/explore/activities to download more accompaniment patterns for the blues.
Listen to Sean Chen’s video about improvisation on the @pianoinspireskids YouTube channel. Pause at 1:21 and discuss the ways in which the pianist enjoys improvisation. Now listen for the two tips Sean gives for creating a unique sounding improvisation. Pause at 2:34 and discuss. Then, listen to his improvisation for the two tips (sevenths and arpeggios). Discuss: Are you drawn to improvisation like Sean? Do you like to spontaneously create your own music?
As outlined above, the studio activities created for each issue include ways to discover, explore, play, and share, expanding on the content of each section of the magazine! These ready-to-use lesson plans, written with a flexible design for group or individual lessons, ensures your studio can get the most out of their subscription to Piano Inspires Kids. Subscribe today! kids.pianoinspires.com/subscribe.
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To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Spencer Myer, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Jennifer Snow. Want to learn more about Myer? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Myer on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!
Jennifer Snow: You’ve gone through all these amazing successes with competitions and started to understand yourself as an artist. That all starts to clue up for yourself. You’ve got a career, you’re performing, you’ve got your management and you’re a Steinway artist, and you’re on your way. Where’s the teaching pull? When does that start to come in, and how does that all come together for you?
Spencer Myer: It was always something I was interested in. I started teaching beginners when I was twelve. I had a paper route from age nine to twelve, and then I thought, “I could at least just advertise on my street for piano lessons and start teaching piano lessons. Why not make money doing music?” That was always something I very much enjoyed. I did that, not as actively, through college, and then it stopped in grad school. I lost all my connections to developing students, and I was more focused on playing through my graduate school.
Then as the performing career started to develop and I would do various engagements, they would often come with a master class. So the bulk of my early higher-level teaching post grad school was master classes, which I always really enjoyed.
I always found myself conducting a masterclass a little bit closer to a lesson than a public display. I just started to see that, certainly in particular, voicing things about developing technique, and refining technique and technical problems—solving things—came quite easily to me because, I think, I was never a prodigy. I had some natural technique, but I had to figure a lot of things out. Certainly, because a lot that I did naturally, I developed a lot of inherent tensions that I had to get rid of, and through repertoire exploration and just a lot of observation.
Another thing I was going to mention about influences at Oberlin was the other piano faculty. I would observe their students playing. I would accompany a lot of their students on concerti, so I saw their teaching [and] so many of these different technical approaches. There’s Bob Shannon and Haewon Song who teach the Taubman technique. We had a couple Russian teachers there who have their own approach as well. I just gained a well-rounded sense of how to solve problems. And so I became, very early on in this masterclass trajectory, very addicted to those light bulb moments. Students, where you solve a technical problem and you make something easier for them, and all they want is to be able to communicate themselves more easily at the piano. It is just the best feeling.
JS: Indeed.
SM: Absolutely the best feeling.
If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Spencer Myer on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!
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Join acclaimed concert pianist Spencer Myer as he shares his musical journey in developing his artistry and a well-rounded career in performing and teaching.
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We would like to thank Connor Chee for this excerpted text from his PEDx presentation at NCKP 2023: The Piano Conference. Chee is a Navajo pianist and composer. His award-winning works, featured globally, showcase his cultural heritage and technical mastery. He is also dedicated to music education and cultural preservation, inspiring the next generation of musicians. Learn more about him and his work in the Autumn 2024 issue of Piano Magazine.
This is my grandmother, Alice Chee, and a friend of mine, Kevin Aspaas, incredibly talented weavers. Often I look at these blankets and rugs that they weave and think how perfect they are. But I can tell you 100% with confidence that these images that you’re looking at right now are not perfect. That’s not to disparage my grandmother or my friend Kevin. That’s because Navajo weavers are taught [that] you have to put a mistake in everything you do. Every weaving they do, there is somewhere in there, an imperfection, because that’s our way of staying humble, of recognizing our place as human beings, and having humility. You’re not supposed to try to be perfect, and these imperfect things can still be beautiful. It’s a different idea of beauty.
And I realized in my own life when I was practicing, and I was, you know, satisfied in the practice room and in my lessons; I would get on stage, and it was just never good enough. I mean, I just didn’t know why. I talked to one of my professors, and she said, “You know, I notice sometimes people, they make this like their entire being. If you miss a note, you’re a bad person.” We had this conversation. I thought, yeah, I’m chasing perfection. Once I took that time to stop trying to be perfect, it freed up my mind. I started playing better, and it was just something that was so transformative for me.
I think for students, it’s important to let them know, yes, we’re trying to learn, we’re trying to do our best, but perfection is not the goal. We’re looking for art. We’re looking for creativity. These things are super important. When you’re chasing this idea of perfection, it really limits you in what you can do as an artist. These lessons from weaving—I’ve learned so many things from a lot of the traditional arts, but that’s one that really stuck with me.
If you enjoyed this excerpt from Connor Chee’s PEDx talk at NCKP 2023: The Piano Conference, listen to our podcast episode with Connor Chee interviewed by Craig Sale on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!
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We are delighted to share this article on The Piano Conference: NCKP by Luis Sanchez. We invite you to submit your proposals to The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 via our proposal submission portal by 11:59pm PDT on Monday, October 21, 2024.
The Piano Conference: NCKP offers you the opportunity to share your research and ideas, mingle with colleagues from all over the world, deepen your passion for teaching, and recharge your spirit before the new teaching year. Whether you submit a proposal for a lecture recital, poster presentation, or one of the many other formats, you will not want to miss the opportunity to be a part of the NCKP 2025 program! Luis Sanchez below shares…
Summer 2021 found the world struggling to regain normalcy as we adapted to a new style of living. In the music profession, we quickly established new ways to learn and teach that continued to change the lives of countless students. The Frances Clark Center faced the challenge of organizing NCKP 2021: The Piano Conference in a virtual modality that had never been explored before. The results far exceeded the expectations anyone could have ever had.
Personally, my relationship with NCKP is quite unique and special. NCKP 2021 saw the introduction of a new track for Spanish and Portuguese speakers. I was honored to lead the committee that planned this event. Together, we curated twenty-nine sessions in Spanish and Portuguese, with English closed captioning, on a large array of topics that added a new perspective to the conference.
I found it stimulating to be involved in discussions, learn from the research presented by hundreds of presenters, and develop new friendships that have greatly enriched my life, both professionally and personally.
Luis Sanchez
As if that was not enough to make NCKP 2021 special for me, it was not only the first time I was able to attend, but also, I was honored to be selected to present both at the main conference and the Spanish track. I found that the conference offered me the opportunity to interact with people in our profession from across the globe. I found it stimulating to be involved in discussions, learn from the research presented by hundreds of presenters, and develop new friendships that have greatly enriched my life, both professionally and personally.
If you are still wondering if submitting a proposal is for you, you can gather more information by visiting our website. You will learn about the different formats, topics, and modalities in which you can share your work. There is a rigorous selection process that ensures a diverse and varied program representing the highest caliber work.
The National Committee of NCKP 2025 promises to curate a program that will invigorate, inspire, and innovate the piano teaching profession. If you are an educator, researcher, performer, or an emerging professional, you do not want to miss the chance to be part of this incomparable event!
Whether in person or virtually, see you at NCKP 2025!!
Do you have research you want to share with the piano pedagogy community? Register for our upcoming webinar, Effective Conference Proposals: Strategies for Success, on Wednesday, October 2nd at 11am ET. Once your materials are polished, submit a proposal to The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025 by clicking here.
Luis Sanchez has maintained an active performing and teaching career and appeared in concerts in the United States, South America, Europe, and Asia. He is currently Professor of Piano and Director of Keyboard Studies at Texas A&M University-Commerce and serves as Director of International Engagement for the Frances Clark Center.
Season 2 of Piano Inspires Podcast kicks off with a special legacy episode featuring Dr. Frances Clark.
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To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Frances Clark, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Christopher Hepp. Want to learn more about Clark? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Clark on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!
Frances Clark: I do believe that music represents life, and if your life is maudlin or if it’s just doing one thing, doing page ten today and page eleven tomorrow, then there’s nothing very exciting about it. But if you have a sense of adventure, your students will have a sense of adventure. If you have a sense of drama, your students will have a sense of drama. I think the main thing really is in the children discovering for themselves that they can play beautifully. Discovering for themselves they can do anything.
Christopher Hepp: So in Time to Begin, for example, in which its units of study are divided into discoveries and using what you’ve discovered, and the emphasis that I know you place on the sense of adventure—that all came out of the situation in the ’30s and ’40s in which you felt the materials were not providing that sense of discovery and adventure. Is that [right]?
FC: Well, I don’t think the materials do yet. I don’t think our materials do it. I think it’s the people who use them that do it. It’s the teachers. I have said many times that if I were on a far Island and the only books I had to teach were some books that I didn’t like at all, I could still teach. I could still use those books in some way. I can maneuver around. It’s the people. It’s what you’re thinking. What is your attitude? How do you feel about it? Is music an adventure for you? It’s the most contagious thing in the world, and to see children learn is the most thrilling thing to do.
CH: Can we call that a definition of teaching, perhaps? Is that who a teacher is—someone that brings a sense of adventure, a sense of discovery to a musical situation? To a piano lesson?
FC: Well, that’s certainly one of the ways. I would say a teacher creates the situation. Now, I don’t mean by the look of a room—or it’d be nice if it were pretty—and I don’t mean equipment. I mean the state of mind of that teacher. Does that teacher have time to teach? Is that student just the very student he wants to see at that moment? Is the new music he’s going to have this week going to be thrilling to both of you? You can’t teach a piece of music you don’t like. You’re undone the moment you do. It takes imagination. A piano lesson should be a happening. Something happens at a piano lesson so that when you walk out of the studio, you feel different from when you walked in.
CH: And one’s life has changed.
FC: Definitely.
If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Frances Clark on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!
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At The Frances Clark Center, we are honoring piano teachers who are working every day to make the world more empathetic, inclusive, and connected through the transformational power of music. We welcome you to celebrate your own teacher by sharing a tribute with us and donating to the Frances Clark Center. Students, parents, and colleagues are honoring piano teachers from their communities as part of the “Power of a Piano Teacher” campaign.
The teachers featured here are making profound contributions to students at all stages, from the youngest beginners to college students, and to those who study later in life. These inspirational, personal stories testify to the timeless impact piano teachers have on their students and their communities.
Join us by honoring your teacher today through the “Power of a Piano Teacher” campaign.
I will be forever grateful to my first piano teacher, Marilyn Slenk, for setting me on a lifetime journey through the world of music. Over the course of nine years, her careful, nurturing guidance built a foundation on which the whole of my life arose. She instilled into my soul a deep love and respect for every aspect of art, while encouraging growth of freedom and my own unique artistic sensibility. Without her I would not be the person, pianist, or artist I am today! – Stephanie Pestana-Konnersman
I began lessons with Dr. Fisher during high school. At the time, I had lost interest in pursuing piano lessons further. Dr. Fisher quickly reignited my love for piano and music again like I had not felt before. After learning and growing under his excellent instruction during my pre-college years, I went on to pursue music during my undergraduate studies and I later pursued piano pedagogy in my master’s program. To this day, Dr. Fisher is one of my greatest inspirations as a teacher and mentor. His passion for music and pedagogy along with his commitment to student success is evident in all that he does! I can truly say that I wouldn’t have pursued music and all the wonderful things that have come along with it without his guidance and patience. – Lydia Sander
I met Mrs. Margie Nelson when I enrolled in beginning piano lessons at six years old at the New School for Music Study (NSMS). She would become my private teacher for the next twelve years and a mentor and inspiration to me for the rest of my life. She laid the foundation of my musical skills and built on it together with me as I grew and eventually aspired to become a piano teacher myself. More than an imparter of knowledge, Mrs. Nelson was my continual guide and compassionate resource. She encouraged me always and believed in my ability, guided me with thoughtful questions, delighted me with her humor, eased my performance nerves with her down-to-earth advice, challenged me with a wonderful variety of piano repertoire, and celebrated every breakthrough with me. I had the blessing of a growing and deepening teacher-student relationship with Mrs. Nelson for my entire precollege study. Flash forward to today and I now have a Bachelor of Music in Performance and Master of Music in Piano Pedagogy, and I am the primary piano instructor at a nonprofit music conservatory for precollege students. Few teaching days go by where I do not think of my own piano teacher and all the teachers I met at NSMS. If I could affect the life of one of my students the way Mrs. Nelson affected mine, my piano teaching career will have been a success. The last time we saw each other was at The Piano Conference: NCKP 2023—I’m so proud to join her in this transformative piano teaching profession! – Maria Mueller
Mrs. Furr was my piano teacher during my high school years and she put me on the path to becoming a music teacher myself! Her love for music and for me, her persistence in pushing me to improve, and her endless encouragement helped me to discover my own love for the piano and the ways in which music allows me to connect with others. As a teenager, I don’t think I recognized how effortlessly Mrs. Furr brought out the best in every one of her students, but I still remember how much I loved my lessons and came away from them feeling better about myself, no matter what else was going on in my life. I hope to encourage, inspire, and motivate my future students the way she did for me! – Lindsay Bastian
We welcome you to celebrate your own teacher by sharing a tribute with us and donating to the Frances Clark Center. Students, parents, and colleagues are honoring piano teachers from their communities as part of the “Power of a Piano Teacher” campaign.
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We are delighted to share top tips from Dr. Sara Ernst on writing successful conference proposals to support you as you draft your session ideas for The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025. Sara is Director of Teacher Engagement for the Frances Clark Center and a member of the Executive Committee for The Piano Conference: NCKP. We invite you to submit your proposals via our proposal submission portal by 11:59pm PDT on Monday, October 21, 2024.
A strong conference proposal will be formed from a topic that is ideal for the specific conference, considering both its audience and specific theme or goals. Your topic certainly should grow from your interests and expertise while being relevant to the community at hand. Remember that the review committee will have hundreds of proposals to read, and often, the way to distinguish yours is by demonstrating the significance, relevance, and need for your presentation. Furthermore, convey that you have thoroughly explored and researched the topic, and that you have developed unique and vital ideas, ready to be shared.
Within the proposal abstract, give the reader a clear understanding of what will be accomplished during the presentation. Questions to address include: What are your specific goals and outcomes? What ideas and resources will be explored? How will the topic be organized? What examples and visuals will facilitate the flow of ideas? The proposal should demonstrate that the presentation will add depth of content to the conference program and will be effective in its delivery.
The various presentation formats and durations each have unique characteristics. For example, a panel presentation has a theme that will benefit from the sharing of multiple, individual perspectives, whereas a keyboard lab has to demonstrate purposeful use of the group keyboard format. The 50-minute presentation has a scope and level of detail that necessitates the longest time frame. Alternatively, the 5-minute lightning talk needs to be narrow in its scope, while remaining of interest to the audience. The proposal can therefore clearly reflect and support the choices of format and time length.
A formal research presentation and an interactive workshop have different styles of communication that are inherent to each format. The proposal can reflect this, ensuring that academic style is utilized where appropriate. A more personal, yet always professional, style can be used in other cases, in alignment with the topic and format. It is recommended that you ask a trusted colleague to review your writing prior to submission. All text—including the title, abstract, short description, and bio—need to be thoroughly edited to facilitate the review and potential programming of your work.
Last, but certainly not least, take time to thoroughly review the requirements of the proposal, before the deadline. Note the formats possible, additional requested items (like CVs and headshots), the word count limits, and any additional materials needed (such as recordings). Read the policies and requirements, noting important details like ensuring that the text is suitable for blind review, and that all co-presenters are in agreement with the proposal. If you are including links, double check that these are viewable by others. To avoid last-minute issues, enter your proposal before the deadline, carefully reviewing each item before clicking the “submit” button. After submitting, verify the email confirmation to ensure that your proposal was correctly received.
Do you have research you want to share with the piano pedagogy community? Submit a proposal to NCKP by clicking here, or submit a manuscript to the Journal of Piano Research by clicking here.
We would like to thank Edwin Gordon for the text from his 2015 keynote address at the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy in Lombard, Illinois. To read the full text, sign up for our course, Foundational Piano Pedagogy. Between August 5 and September 15, The Frances Clark Center is offering 20% off all full-length courses such as Foundational Piano Pedagogy. Check out our other courses here and use this discount code to get 20% of your order: BLOG20B2S.
Dr. Edwin Gordon was one of the most distinguished and influential music educators of the twentieth century. His work on the measurement of music performance, audiation, and Music Learning Theory had far-reaching implications for a wide variety of musical settings. In November of 2015, Dr. Gordon was named a Lowell Mason Fellow by the National Association for Music Education.
Dr. Gordon was invited to be a keynote speaker at the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy in Lombard [July 2015]. While health concerns prevented him from attending in person, his keynote address (read by Scott Price) was a highlight of the conference. […] We reprint his NCKP address here in its entirety.
Good morning to all. I am delighted to be invited to participate in your conference. Although I am not an accomplished pianist, I have been interested in piano pedagogy for many years. As a result, I am lead to believe that piano is taught to many persons by teachers who typically teach the way they were taught, rather than according to an objective learning theory and current research. With no intent of being critical, I am anxious to share concepts I suspect are unfamiliar to many of you. It is my hope that you will be inspired to give serious consideration to your approach to teaching piano, and, perhaps, be encouraged to embrace some new concepts in your pedagogy.
Language acquisition
I will begin by talking briefly about language acquisition. There is a striking similarity between learning a language and learning music. Using language as an analogy should make it easier to grasp what I soon will be explaining about learning music, particularly piano instruction.
There are five language skill vocabularies. In sequential order of development they are listening, speaking, thinking, reading, and writing. Each provides readiness for learning the next. I must emphasize that listening comes first. It is fundamental. Without a firm listening vocabulary, the remaining four vocabularies can have only marginal development. Consider the following fact. Throughout history, humans have spoken more than 30,000 languages. Only 6,000 currently exist. The reason is that a language is no further from extinction than only one, just one, generation of adults not giving newborn and young children an opportunity to listen to that language. As an aside, only 200 of the 6,000 languages are written.
Without a rich listening vocabulary, development of a speaking vocabulary with proper pronunciation is restricted. I bring to your attention the unfortunate necessity of so many adolescents and adults to depend upon the words “like, you know, basically, I mean, whatever, awesome, and incredible.” These words represent the paucity of repetition in their narrow listening vocabulary. The chilling thought is that society is losing the wealth of our language heritage, and, due to similar neglect, our classical and Baroque music heritage is in jeopardy.
There are five parallel music skill vocabularies. In sequential order of development, they are 1) listening, 2) singing and chanting, 3) audiating and improvising, 4) reading, and 5) writing. As with language, listening is basic in piano instruction as well as all music instruction. Unfortunately, in typical instruction, listening is disregarded, often leading to detrimental results.
We hope you enjoyed this excerpt from Edwin Gordon’s keynote address at the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy in 2015. To read the entire text, sign up for our course, Foundational Piano Pedagogy.
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