Piano Learning and Programed Instruction

Abstract

In musical education, the use of principles of programed instruction is still largely confined to proficiencies in musical perception and to the provision of the basic rules of music theory. Ihrke was the first to take a decisive step beyond this, in that he required an immediate musical response from pupils and subjected this response to objective control.' A further step in this direction was the computer-controlled device for the automatic control of pitch, which was developed by Kuhn and Allvin and used at first for problems of intonation in singing.2 Finally Herberger, who drew on Ihrke's idea in formulating his own technique of the automatic control of rhythm, mentions in a survey of the present stage of development a teaching device, also computer-controlled, that is used in the U.S.S.R. as an introduction to the elements of piano playing.3 An attempt to develop methods of programed instruction for more advanced levels of instrumental instruction results in a num-