An Investigation of the Piano Lessons Repertoire Applied in the Music Education Departments Based on the Views of Teaching Instructors

Abstract

In this study, it was aimed to investigate the piano lessons repertoire applied in the Music Education Departments based on the views of the teaching instructors. For this particular purpose, the qualitative method was utilized in the study and a case study in accordance with this method was used. The study group of the study consisted of 10 instructors who were assigned by the easily accessible sampling method and who conducted piano lessons from five different Music Education Departments. The data of the study were collected by using semi-structured interview technique, which is one of the interview technique types. As the data collection tool, a "piano lesson instructor interview form" developed by the researcher was utilized. The qualitative data obtained as a result of the interviews were analyzed using the content analysis technique in accordance with the descriptive analysis stages. In the light of the findings analyzed under eight themes in the study, it was concluded that the instructors considered various criteria for the students, repertoire and course while generating the repertoire they used in the piano lessons applied in the Music Education Departments; that they definitely considered the course achievements, chose the works that met the achievements as much as possible, and planned the course according to these achievements; that they included the works from each period and also the Turkish works in the repertoire they used in order for students to recognize each period, to have the necessary information about these periods, to apply the rendering styles of each period and to gain technical and musical achievements by recognizing the whole piano literature; that they included various etudes and exercise from different composers; that they failed to prefer the works of different genres such as atonal, impressionist and popular music from the contemporary period for various reasons; and that they encountered various problems while creating a repertoire and furthermore, the piano literature which had a wide range, should not be restricted to a common repertoire to be used in the Music Education Departments.