Contemporary Piano Method Book 1A

By Margaret Brandman.

The overall objective of the material in Book 1A and 1B is to enable the student to play within the five-finger hand position over the range of four octaves, with extensions to the intervals of sixth, seventh and octave, in all major keys, using note-values from the whole note to the sixteenth note.

BOOK 1A: keys – C, G, D, A, E.

STAGE 1:
Interval Reading in the five-finger hand-position
– including such aspects as:
* reading without looking at the hands
* playing by feel
* developing the ear by having to listen for the intervals for correction
* transposition
– awareness ofcombined directionfor both hands: up, down, in, out, same oroblique
– in this level of the course, the tunes presented include amixture of intervalsbetween the hands ( the majority of the songs in the preparatory book,the Junior Primer,have matching intervals in both hands)
– as preparation while usingfinger -tracingand as thestudent is playingthe directions should be identified (preferably said out loud) for instance:step up(both hands) orskip out
– when the music uses varying intervals students should say –mix outormix downetc
– once the piece has been rehearsed and the student knows the mixture intervals, then the process should be streamlined so they are sayingdirectionandcountingonly
–proportional notationfor easy understanding of timing.
– playing in all areas fromVery High CtoVery Low C( over the range of four octaves)

STAGE 2:
Introduction of Scales
– for hand-position changes
– to learnscale pathwayson the keyboard
– to learnkey signaturesand thecycle of fifths
– to find chords inroot position.

STAGE 3:
Extension of the five-finger position using the larger intervals: sixths, sevenths and octaves.

STAGE 4:
(a) Chords in Inversions, Block and Broken forms.
(b) Primary Chords in Major Keys and the Chord Table
– how to find chords on the written music
– Chordal analysis of each piece
– 12-Bar Blues

STAGE 5:
Playing in all major keys via scale pathways and interval reading
– using the key signature in the original sense of the word, as a ‘key’ to unlock the puzzle
– more hand-position changes along pre-learned scale pathways
– Chromatic scale.
(N.B. During the entire course there is a progressive introduction of musical signs, touch markings, etc. plus the pieces give experience in reading in many time-signatures and all styles of music.)