College Coursework for the Piano Major

Piano classes for the keyboard major include:

• applied keyboard study
• history of music literature
• accompany and ensemble performance
• chorus
• functional piano

The student will be exposed to a broad range of piano literature. Insight into various styles, an understanding of performance traditions, interpretative depth and sensitivity toward music are areas that are developed. The piano student should have at least a listening aquaintance of these composers, be able to identify the periods based on the style heard, and to be able to play increasingly difficult selections from each:

1. Representative seventeenth and eighteenth century works by D. Scarlatti, Couperin, Handel
2. A cross section of J.S. Bach's keyboard works
3. Familiarity with important sonatas, concertos, and other solo works of Haydn and Mozart
4. A representative sampling from each of the three periods of the Beethoven sonatas, as well as acquaintance with the concertos and variations
5. A cross section of such nineteenth century composers' works as Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schubert, Liszt, Brahms
6. Familiarity with representative impressionistic works of Debussy and Ravel
7. An examination of representative pieces of twentieth century figures as Scriabin, Stravinsky, Bartok, Prokofiev, Copland, Schoenberg

The piano teacher should be able to analyze technical problems, and over an extended period systematically guide the student toward ever greater physical ability at the piano. Exercises alone, introduced with the usual arsenal of scales, arpeggios, etc. will not be adequate preparation for virtuoso playing. The teacher must also be able to explain how to use the playing mechanism, what to do with the arm, wrist, and fingers as in keyboard phrasing, how to produce certain effects, how to go about unraveling a technically difficult passage, etc. Without correct technical training, the result can be lost time, sore muscles, and tight, poor playing.

The piano student learns to make his own interpretative decisions - especially in regards to keyboard dynamics - to gain even greater technical security, and able to produce finished results without the teacher's prompting. In short, he becomes an artistic entity in his own right.

Plan of Technical Development

• The piano is a medium for the musical self expression of the student. Technique is really a means to this end.
• The approach to piano playing should be through the music to be played. The music should be interesting while stimulating the desire to play, grows out of the student's past experience and is directly linked to it. Hence the importance of the "song approach."
• In learning to play even their earliest and simplest pieces, students recognize certain technical demands and requirements. These should be immediately reinforced by the teacher as material for drill.
• Each technical drill grows out of an immediate musical experience and should be applied to additional new and interesting musical material. Drill may at times be given per se, but it should grow out of actual music and lead to more actual music.
• These are especially applicable to the earliest years of study. They easily lead to the formation of musical habits and a keen interest out of which attention to matters of technique become more or less automatic. The older students then find real pleasure in overcoming the problems of more advanced technique.
• During the first year technical drills grow out of the experience of playing the musical numbers in the course books. To these are added games designed to develop control of fundamental movements of arms and fingers. Gradually this is developed into organized, independent drill in the several essential elements of technique, such as chords, scales, arpeggios, etc.

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Playing Piano from Memory

Playing from memory is a skill that can easily be developed. The essential elements are a strong, clear-cut impression; varied associations that set up related ideas (visual, aural, muscular impressions; analysis of form and harmony, etc.); repetition; and a formula or cue which will bring recall, such as the title of the piece, name of the composer, opus number, or key phrases of the piece.

Music memory is complex. with many people memory is largely visual; some remember better with aural impressions, while others remember a composition with their fingers, i.e. muscle memory. The student's natural memory tendencies should be developed by the piano teacher, while at the same time the other types of memory should be cultivated so that every possible association can contribute to the accuracy and retentiveness of the student's memory. No composition is fully memorized until the pianist can actually hear it in his imagination.

To develop the skill of playing from memory, start the student with small pieces. As his proficiency develops, build out toward larger pieces. Have the student memorize stanzas and then sections and then movements of the composition, memorizing each and building upon the prior memorized sections. By following this process, the student will have memorized the entire work in easily managed portions.

For information about piano lessons NJ, contact Barbara Ehrlich Piano Studio.