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Rachel May
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| Posted: Aug 11 2009 at 4:02pm | IP Logged
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I'm having a typical military child problem--5 moves, 4 piano teachers.
We've gone from Alfred to Bastien to Faber and Faber and now the new teacher wants to switch people back to Alfred again. This wouldn't be so bad except for 2 things: 1. one teacher mentioned that how these different curricula present keys and musical notation can be very different. So jumping from book to book, I'm afraid that we are going to miss something. 2. Once the kids finish level 2B in Faber and Faber, the teacher wants to move them to level 2 in Alfred! How discouraging!
What I'm looking for in an understanding of how these curricula present musical knowledge and in what order and how they compare side by side. I'm also interested in which books people feel are "core" and which are optional. For example, in their current "Performance" book is an easier version of Fur Elise than the one Anthony played 2 years ago. IMO, the kids need the core musical info more than performance help. They perform well beyond level 2.
Any thoughts, insights or pointers?
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Rachel
Thomas and Anthony (10), Maria (8), Charles (6), Cecilia (5), James (3), and Joseph (1)
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JennGM
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| Posted: Aug 11 2009 at 4:20pm | IP Logged
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Rachel, I cornered a friend the other day who teaches on a regular basis. She has tried them all, including a lot of Faber, but she did mention she likes to stick to the old Alfred. If this teacher wants to go to Alfred, find out if it's the newer books. I forget what she says about Faber, but the newer Alfred she thinks is "harder" and the student feels less successful than the older books.
I only use the core book and sometimes the theory workbook, but that's it. My friend is similar in her approach. There's a lot of extra nonsense in a series that you don't need to have.
I like to add different type composers and music outside of a series. I also like to be as close to the original pieces as possible, to challenge the child, just like I don't like unabridged books. So there are hymns so the student learns to play smoothly, folk and sing-alongs so learn to accompany, duets, exercise/scales books for practicing, then classical music skills, like sonatinas, beginning Mozart and Beethoven and Bach. Providing a variety helps the sight reading. After the first book when I learned we never had a "level". The teacher should be able to match the student's ability with the music, and keep on challenging.
If no one else jumps in, I'll look in further on analysis of different systems, as I need to do that for my own teaching.
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to  & ds1  '03 & ds2  '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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Rachel May
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| Posted: Aug 11 2009 at 8:58pm | IP Logged
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That is helpful, Jenn, thanks! I'll definitely check which Alfred she's using. I think I needed some assurance that I could request we not do all the bells and whistles and stick with the basics. We have tons of supplemental music which excites and challenges the kids, and I think that is part of why their performance ability is so far above where they are in the curriculum. This teacher already says she's a booklover  and showed up with about 20 music books to try so I think she'll be good at finding them good music. I would just love to see them move forward in the level numbers too!
This looks like she wrote a paper on this topic: "A Comparison of Five American Piano Method Books, Alfred, Bastien, Faber, Music Tree, and Noona," Spring 1999 . I wonder if she'd share?
Does anyone else prefer a specific piano curriculum?
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Rachel
Thomas and Anthony (10), Maria (8), Charles (6), Cecilia (5), James (3), and Joseph (1)
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4Real Forums : The Arts in the Everyday
Topic: Piano--Alfred vs Faber
