Piano Learning Research Articles

The meaning of learning piano keyboard in the lives of older Chinese people

Across the globe populations are ageing and living longer. Older people seek meaningful ways of occupying and enjoying their later years. Frequently, this takes the form of learning a new skill, in this case playing the piano keyboard. From the initial act of commitment to learning comes a raft of related aspects that influence the learner, their family and their community. This qualitative study investigates the keyboard learning experiences of 16 Chinese older amateur keyboard learners who actively participate in group keyboard lessons at Tangshan Older People University, China. This article uses a phenomenological qualitative research approach to explore the meaning of playing keyboard in their later life. This research utilized a case study design. The data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The data show how keyboard learning contributes to older adult by providing ways for maintaining emotional well-being, physical well-being, experiencing lifelong learning and realizing their achievement through performance.

A pedagogical tale from the piano studio: autoethnography in early childhood music education research

Our inquiry centres on a hopeful tale about creative teaching and learning, trusting one's teaching intuition and processes, caring for children, and believing that children will respond to opportunities to learn music when they are invited with thoughtful care. Though the process of writing, both our young student and ourselves, we evoke the notion of autoethnography as pedagogy. By considering autoethnography as creative, didactic non-fiction, our essay sings out with a call for transformation in how we engage with children in teaching and learning piano – on how we engage in a ‘listening pedagogy’ to transform piano teaching and learning into a much more expressive, meaningful, playful and positive learning experience. Our inquiry also includes a discussion of early childhood music research and different forms of pedagogy, presented in a holistic way that invites new understandings of the relationships between early childhood music practitioners and young music learners.

Musical Practicing: A Hermeneutic Model for Integrating Technique and Aesthetics

Successful performances of Western classical music exhibit both technical mastery and aesthetic insight. While legacies of music teachers have distilled schools of technique and stylistic performance practices, the aesthetic components of interpretation have not received systematic treatment. This may be due to inherent difficulties with teaching aesthetics: musical meaning is hard to express in words, and even demonstrating for students does not guarantee their understanding. Some teachers, like Theodor Leschetizky in the above quote, believe aesthetics cannot truly be taught because it reflects a musician’s personal voice. according to this view, teachers can only encourage those who have musical aptitude and should not impose their own aesthetic ideals onto students.2 Yet practical observations about aesthetics are readily available in writings and interviews of renowned performers. Based on their commentary, i propose a model for learning piano that combines technical and aesthetic elements.3 The model reveals how the practicing habits of professionals shape their individual interpretations, and it can serve as an example for students. i begin by defining aesthetics from the pianist’s perspective, and it is typically considered in three overlapping contexts. The most common is the perceived effect on listeners (usually called musical affect), where music is often described in terms denoting character, emotion, or a program. For example, andras Schiff’s observations about Ludwig van Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Op. 27, No. 2, includes these attributes: The first movement is akin to a dramatic scene in a story, specifically, “the moment following the murder of the Commendatore in Mozart’s Don Giovanni.” The second movement on

THE LEARNING PROCESS AND THE ROLE AND THE IMPORTANCE OF USING LEARNING STRATEGIES IN PIANO EDUCATION

The piano education is inherently based on an individual education system. Playing the piano is a skill which have cognitive and affective dimensions that is mostly dominant psiko –motor dimension. Development of motor skills is supplied by well-organized exercices and practicing. Some students have problem while learning piano. They complain about not getting efficiently result and not able to learn even though they work hard. The main problem is result from that students don’t know how they work correctly. Some students need shown how they have to work to learn playing piano. Before incorrect working habits become established, they have to be guided how they will learn by their teachers. The most important learning is learning to learn. On this account, the learning strategies are one of the most important subjects in the education field. This article was carried out to determine the role and the importance of the learning strategies in piano education as well as the learning strategies that are practicable and may be usable in this field. The article based on the given objective possesses descriptive study charecteristics. National and foreign references which are related to this subject were searched, the role and the importance of the learning strategies for the piano learning process were determined and the ones among these strategies which were practicable at piano education was found out. Kerwords: Piano, Piano Education, Learning Strategies

Perceptions of challenge: the role of catastrophe theory in piano learning

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the perceptions of private piano instructors on the role of challenge in teaching and learning the piano and to examine the potential application of catastrophe theory in understanding the role and outcomes of such challenges. A 23-item electronic questionnaire was administered to collect quantitative and qualitative data related to perceptions of music teaching and learning. Respondents included (n = 804) piano instructors affiliated with Music Teachers National Association. Results of a correlation analysis indicate an interaction between years of teaching experience and the potential for a non-linear advancement in music learning. The analysis suggests that catastrophe theory may indeed be applicable to music education. Implications from this research contribute to our knowledge of the role of challenge in student retention and our understanding of curricular development in the advancement of music learning.

The effect of flow on piano learning

The effect of flow on piano learning

Design and Implementation of a Piano Learning System Considering Withdrawal from the System Support

Design and Implementation of a Piano Learning System Considering Withdrawal from the System Support

Piano pedagogy with a student who is blind: An Australian case

Teaching and learning piano poses challenges when the student is clinically blind. This article addresses the following question: What can be learned from a case study of teaching piano successfully to a student who is blind? The article has three purposes. The first is to document the achievements of a young student who met these challenges. The second is to investigate how an experienced teacher chose effective ways of describing and demonstrating music to meet the needs of her student. A third is to examine the language of teaching and learning between teacher and student using Tait’s theory of language communication in studio music lessons. This article reports on the process of teacher and student in the journey that has led to the formation of a sensitive and gifted musician.

Learning piano melodies in visuo-motor or audio-motor training conditions and the neural correlates of their cross-modal transfer

To investigate the cross-modal transfer of movement patterns necessary to perform melodies on the piano, 22 non-musicians learned to play short sequences on a piano keyboard by (1) merely listening and replaying (vision of own fingers occluded) or (2) merely observing silent finger movements and replaying (on a silent keyboard). After training, participants recognized with above chance accuracy (1) audio-motor learned sequences upon visual presentation (89±17%), and (2) visuo-motor learned sequences upon auditory presentation (77±22%). The recognition rates for visual presentation significantly exceeded those for auditory presentation (p<.05). fMRI revealed that observing finger movements corresponding to audio-motor trained melodies is associated with stronger activation in the left rolandic operculum than observing untrained sequences. This region was also involved in silent execution of sequences, suggesting that a link to motor representations may play a role in cross-modal transfer from audio-motor training condition to visual recognition. No significant differences in brain activity were found during listening to visuo-motor trained compared to untrained melodies. Cross-modal transfer was stronger from the audio-motor training condition to visual recognition and this is discussed in relation to the fact that non-musicians are familiar with how their finger movements look (motor-to-vision transformation), but not with how they sound on a piano (motor-to-sound transformation).

Arm Movement in the Early Piano Learning

Arm Movement in the Early Piano Learning

Arm Movement in the Early Piano Learning

Arm Movement in the Early Piano Learning

The acquisition of absolute pitch for the mainstreamed, special educational needs and academically talented under Lau Chiu Kay Music Educatherapy

Absolute pitch (AP) is an ability to identify or produce tones without references. It is rare among musicians. This study examined the effectiveness of Lau Chiu Kay Music Educatherapy in training students to develop AP and identified factors that exerted significant influences. Three academically talented, 103 mainstreamed and 38 special educational needs students at Music Home, with an age range of 2 to 25, constituted the sample. It was a case study incorporating a one-group-pretest-post-test quasi-experiment. An AP assessment and a questionnaire were utilized. Results showed that (a) Lau Chiu Kay Music Educatherapy helped all subjects to develop AP. (b) Singing absolute solfge, accurate tuning, interest and attention were influencing factors, whereas the gender, aptitude, age of onset, language background, acute memory, auditory sensitivity, pitch identification practice, inheritance, tinnitus and chromesthesia were not. (c) AP could be developed within one to two months and during the starting grade of the piano learning. (d) The verbal encoding strategy was the major processing strategy, etc. Following theories can be suggested: (a) AP is innate. (b) AP is a successful outcome of the tonal-absolute solfge with the octave designation labelling association. (c) AP may have a sensitive period. (d) AP is developmental etc.

Mapping perception to action in piano practice: a longitudinal DC-EEG study

BackgroundPerforming music requires fast auditory and motor processing. Regarding professional musicians, recent brain imaging studies have demonstrated that auditory stimulation produces a co-activation of motor areas, whereas silent tapping of musical phrases evokes a co-activation in auditory regions. Whether this is obtained via a specific cerebral relay station is unclear. Furthermore, the time course of plasticity has not yet been addressed.ResultsChanges in cortical activation patterns (DC-EEG potentials) induced by short (20 minute) and long term (5 week) piano learning were investigated during auditory and motoric tasks. Two beginner groups were trained. The 'map' group was allowed to learn the standard piano key-to-pitch map. For the 'no-map' group, random assignment of keys to tones prevented such a map. Auditory-sensorimotor EEG co-activity occurred within only 20 minutes. The effect was enhanced after 5-week training, contributing elements of both perception and action to the mental representation of the instrument. The 'map' group demonstrated significant additional activity of right anterior regions.ConclusionWe conclude that musical training triggers instant plasticity in the cortex, and that right-hemispheric anterior areas provide an audio-motor interface for the mental representation of the keyboard.

Piano Technique and Fingering in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Bringing a Forgotten Method Back to Life

We develop a creative method for teaching and learning piano technique which motivates students to devote more time and energy to technical exercises. First, we describe the approach to technical exercises of pianists and piano students of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Second, we address a central feature of technical practice from earlier periods: fingering rules and systems. Third, we discuss whether and how older methods might be reintroduced to contemporary piano pedagogy and practice.

On the importance of being polite

A number of years ago I asked my son David about the teachers at his middle school. Could you tell me which of your teachers obviously likes teaching and coming to school in the morning? He took a minute and said, Mr. Z. Are there any others? No. Imagine, in a middle school with 12 teachers, only one was found by my son to be obuiously interested in teaching. If your students were asked the same question, would they name you? If not, how can you change what you're doing so that you would be named? I am going to suggest in this essav that one thine vou can do is to be overtly and conscio;sly polite. Mv collearme. Joe E.. started me thinking about this a . number of years ago when I took a course from him. This was an evenine course. Joe invariahlv bounced into class with a cheery&ile, a hearty 'Good-evening, and generallv exuded the feeling that he was deli~hted to be there with us. We all felt ce&n that Joe didn'twant to be somewhere else, wasn't there because it was required in some way, and genuinely loved the subject he was teaching. This was no chore. It was what he both wanted and enjoyed doing. Moreover, his enthusiasm went beyond the subject matter and embraced us as friends and collaborators on a joint journey oflearning. He was respectful and unfailingly polite in dealing with us. Being in that room, with him, and in the lovine ambiance he created. made that class a iov to attend. In flct, I looked forward that class all weeL as a kind of oasis of friendship and camaraderie. As a teacher of any subject you have already made a statement about its import to you and your commitment to it. I am serious about chemistry and transmitting knowledge and understanding about it. This seriousness may be why it took me such a long time to be able to be overtly open about my feelings about the subject, teaching, and my students. Somehow, for a bona fide scientist, it is unseemly to get emotional. Although I certainly encourage the open show of passion about chemistry (or any other subject), the central message of this essay has to do with being polite and showing respect. Students know that the teacher is more expert than they in the subject they are struggling to master. There is never any point in rubbing that in or showing off your mastery. Any teacher can design an examination so difficult that the class average will be below 20. To do that is malicious and petty. Teachers need constantly to keep in mind that they are the experts for whom all this flows easily, and their students are the tyros laboring with learning. (Isn't that awareness the foundation of being a good teacher?) Yet the teachers also need to remember the efforts they put into learning this particular subject and the fact that many students are much more proficient than they'll ever be in a variety of other subjects and activities. As a personal eximple, I tned learning piano in middle aee and never got much hewnd davmadThree Blind Mice below the levei of a mechanicai piano! So, in some

Piano Learning Effects on Sequentially Presented Visuo-Spatial Stimuli

Students of the Music Department and control subjects made memory matchings as to the sequentially displayed dot patterns in Experiment 1. The pianists experts performed better than the other subject groups by the aid of a special strategy (imaging a score). Experiment 2 showed that pianists experts employed this strategy spontaneously, but other subjects were unable to utilize this strategy when advised to employ it. Experiment 3 and 4 revealed that the visuo-spatial ability of the experts was comparable to the controls unless the employment of a special strategy was difficult. Based upon the results, the effects of intensive piano learning on cognitive ability are discussed.

Piano Learning and Programed Instruction

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-

The relation between age (chronological and mental) and rate of piano learning.

The relation between age (chronological and mental) and rate of piano learning.

A preliminary study of the touch method of learning piano music.

A preliminary study of the touch method of learning piano music.

The relation between two methods of learning piano music.

The relation between two methods of learning piano music.