Piano Lessons Research Articles

Teaching and Learning of Piano Timbre Through Teacher-Student Interactions in Lessons.

The ability to play the piano with a variety of timbres requires a performer to have advanced pianistic skills. Little is known about how these skills are acquired and developed in piano lessons and what the role is of elements such as concepts, technique, sonic outcomes, and bodily movements. To investigate the teaching and learning of piano timbre, the lessons of three pairs of university-level teachers and students (two teachers and three students) were observed, during which they behaved as usual in the first two lessons and were asked to use a dialogic teaching approach in the third lesson. Verbal communications of teachers and students about timbre were coded and analyzed, aiming to gain insight into the teaching/learning process of piano timbre and the roles of embodiment and teacher–student interaction in the context of higher music education. The results suggest that piano timbre is not learned through imitation or as “fixed” and objective knowledge, but as a co-constructed conception between the teachers and the students. The meaning of timbre goals in piano lessons is enacted through “in-the-moment” bodily experience and embodied through performance actions. This study contributes to the understanding of piano timbre as a multifaceted phenomenon and illustrates the teacher's role in developing the student's mind–body integration involved in tone production.

Reconstruction of College Piano Teaching Model from the Perspective of "Internet+"

As an important course for music majors in colleges and universities, piano lessons need to enable students to master the theoretical knowledge of piano and form certain playing skills.Relying on the Internet+, reconstructing the piano teaching mode will help improve teaching efficiency and quality.This article first discusses the connotation characteristics and teaching functions of internet+, and then examines the current deficiencies in piano teaching from the perspective of internet+. Finally, it proposes strategies for restructuring the piano teaching model, hoping to provide reference for college piano teachers.

The Effect of Individualized Online Instruction on TPACK Skills and Achievement in Piano Lessons

This study investigated the effect of online teaching and individualized instruction in piano lessons of the department of music teaching on students’ TPACK skills and achievements. The research was conducted on the basis of a pretest-posttest control group design. In the experimental group of the study, piano education was carried out with online learning and face-to-face individualized instruction, and in the control group, activities were carried out using the current distance learning method. Teaching activities lasted 20 lesson hours in the experimental and control groups. Piano Lesson Achievement Test and TPACK scale were used as data collection tools in the study. The Mann Whitney U test was used on the achievement and TPACK skills of the groups on the pretest and posttest scores. The findings of the research showed that the online learning and individualized instruction applied in the experimental group were more effective in the piano lesson achievement and some dimensions of the TPACK scale than the current curriculum. The Effect of Individualized Online Instruction on TPACK Skills and Achievement in Piano Lessons

Research on the Application of Computer Audio Technology in Piano Education

The influence of music on human qualities is extremely far-reaching, and music is both a means and an end in terms of human development. In order to have a good piano lesson, it is crucial to mobilize students’ positive emotions in piano lessons according to the psychological characteristics of contemporary students and in the context of their actual situation. How to make the most of music lessons, to create maximum value with the limited time available in class, and to have a more profound and lasting positive impact on the students’ subsequent development and growth. Computerized audio technology offers a new way of thinking and approach. Based on this, this paper explores the application of computerized audio technology in piano education.

Exploring perceptions and experiences of students, parents and teachers on their online instrumental lessons

ABSTRACT This holistic multiple-case study sought to examine how students’ learning changes when transitioning from face-to-face to online instrumental lessons in a one-to-one setting. Specifically, as this was a pilot research, it explored the students’ sight-reading, aural skills, lesson engagement, and motivation to practice. The participants interviewed in this study were ten young, London-based students at beginner and intermediate levels, who had been taking online piano lessons – led by the same teacher as for their previous in-person classes – for four months. Furthermore, five instrumental teachers from the UK were interviewed so as to gain their reflective insight into teaching and learning processes, and to discover their online teaching experiences. The findings revealed that, while most students became more independent, both the students and their parents reported that the teacher’s physical absence had influenced the learning. The absence of such factors as non-verbal communication, gestures, scaffolding, and a tactile approach had affected not only the learning but also the students’ levels of engagement and motivation. While most of the teachers were satisfied with teaching online, the students and their parents preferred face-to-face lessons, reasoning that the lessons were more productive and beneficial when conducted in-person.

Pointing to Musical Sounds as a Focus of Instruction in Piano Lessons

Pointing to Musical Sounds as a Focus of Instruction in Piano Lessons

A Soft Place to Land by Janae Marks

Reviewed by: A Soft Place to Land by Janae Marks Elizabeth Bush Marks, Janae A Soft Place to Land. Tegen/HarperCollins, 2021 [288p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780062875877 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780062875907 $8.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 4-6 When Joy’s father was laid off, the family sold their house and downsized to an apartment; the move of twelve-year-old Joy into a smaller bedroom with her younger sister is challenging, and parental bickering has accelerated into what both parents assure their daughters is a temporary separation. Fortunately, the community is supportive, the tweens in the building get along well, and Nora, neighbor and classmate, rapidly turns into a friend. Joy concocts a plan to make money to continue her suspended piano lessons (an absolute must for a girl aspiring to become a film score composer) through a joint dog-walking enterprise with Nora. Her steady ascent toward a new normal goes into a tailspin when she is cornered into revealing the location of the kids’ secret hideout in the building basement, which results in the loss of her new friends—including Nora—and even worse, the loss of a neighbor’s pooch that escapes from Joy during a thunderstorm. There’s some front-loaded authorial orchestration here, but the domino cascade of interrelated mishaps is fully credible, as is the patient rebuilding of trust Joy must undertake with family, friends, and neighbors to pull back on track. Marks has a keen eye and ear for the telling particulars of the family’s struggle to forge ahead in a new setting, and the book is sensitive to everyone’s need for a space to be alone from time to time: kids who need a private, safe place to hang out, and parents who need a respite from perpetual discussion of their shared responsibilities and anxieties. Although the stakes may be lower than those in Marks’ debut From the Desk of Zoe Washington (BCCB 12/19), fans will welcome her introduction to another determined and resilient Black tween heroine. Copyright © 2021 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Unique ways to organize the first piano lessons for adults"

Unique ways to organize the first piano lessons for adults"

Ролевые игры в классе фортепиано

The article presents innovative forms of work with musical texts during piano lessons applied in work with beginning students in all conditions of teaching: in the academic educational process, as well as in private teaching practice of self-employed specialists. The reader shall be acquainted with concrete methodological elaborations of role playing which may be useful for the teacher in his or her practical work. The elaborations are carried out within the framework of one of the leading contemporary directions developed by the academic school of practical musical semantics. The presented homework assignments may serve as specimens for the creation of analogous elaborations by the teacher himself with substitutions of the musical material and with consideration of the pupils’ age-related capabilities. The author of the project, Liudmila Nikolayevna Shaymukhametova aspires to draw attention not only to new approaches to work with the musical text and to practical semantics as the most important direction in teaching music, but also to the question of what the contemporary textbook for the beginner musician should look like. The materials are addressed, among others, to upgrade training courses and professional retraining of teachers of schools, methodologists and teachers of general and professional education, as well as for application in practical work of private school teachers

Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck

Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck

Experiences of developing pre-performance routines with recreational pianists

The main approach for improving the performance experience and/or performance quality for musicians has been to find solutions for music performance anxiety. An alternative model is prevention through psychological skills training (PST), which is increasingly being shown to have beneficial effects. Pre-performance routines (PPRs) are a common strategy used in such programs. PPRs are thought to help musicians be “ready to perform,” and that musicians could benefit from a deliberate introduction to PPRs by an instructor. This article reports on the teaching of PPRs to recreational piano pupils in an exploratory action research project designed to introduce a PST approach in regular piano lessons. PPRs were taught for 4 weeks in two action cycles leading up to a performance and were evaluated by teachers and pupils. The findings demonstrate how PPRs can be developed, learned, and implemented and suggest that PPRs function in two ways: to improve concentration and to achieve a sense of calm prior to the performance. Consequent increases in performance confidence and improved performance quality could not be attributed to the PPRs alone as the teaching of routines led to changes in working practice. Implications for future research are discussed.

Piyano Eğitiminde Öğrenme Stilleri ve 5E Modeline Yönelik Etkinliklerin Başarı ve Kalıcılığa Etkisi

Bu araştırmada Piyano eğitiminde 5E modeli ve öğrenme stillerine dayalı etkinliklerin öğrencilerin başarı ve kalıcılığa etkisi incelenmiştir. Araştırmada nicel yöntemlerden Kontrol gruplu Öntest-Sontest Modeli kullanılmıştır. Araştırma verilerinin toplanmasında Piyano Dersi Başarı Testi ve Kolb Öğrenme Stilleri Envanteri kullanılmıştır. Araştırma verilerinin analiziyle aşağıdaki bulgu ve sonuçlara ulaşılmıştır. Yapılandırmacı 5e modeli ve öğrenme stillerine göre öğretim yapılan deney grubu ile geleneksel öğretim metodu uygulanan kontrol grubunun piyano dersi sontest, kalıcılık ve piyano çalma becerisi puanları arasında anlamlı bir fark vardır. Deney grubundaki öğrenciler anlamlı düzeyde yüksek piyano dersi başarısı, piyano çalma becerisi ve öğrenme kalıcılığı elde etmişlerdir. 5E modeli ve öğrenme stillerine dayalı öğretim etkinliklerini bir arada uygulayan öğrenciler sistematik bir yaklaşımla kendi öğrenme süreçlerine göre etkinlikleri aktif olarak yapılandırmışlar, aşamalı bir şekilde görsel, işitsel ve kinestetik aktiviteler gerçekleştirmişler ve kubaşık stratejinin deneysel işleminde kendi öğrenme süreçlerini sorgulamışlardır. Bu bütüncül yaklaşım 5E modeli ve öğrenme stillerine dayalı öğretimin uygulamasının piyano dersi başarısı üzerinde yüksek etki oluşturmasına yol açmıştır. Yapılandırmacı ve öğrenme stillerine dayalı piyano eğitiminde her bir öğrencinin tercih, ilgi, ihtiyaç, öğrenme yaşantıları ve bireysel farklılıkları dikkate alınarak, öğretim yöntemleri, öğrenme ortamı, ölçme-değerlendirme teknikleri düzenlenmiştir. Bu anlayış çerçevesinde piyano dersinin düzenlenen öğrenme ortamlarında, öğrenciler aktif bir şekilde öğrenme sürecinde sorumluluk almışlar, kendi öğrenme stillerini uygulayarak dersin kazanımlarını elde etmeye çalışmışlardır. Tüm bunlar piyano dersinde yüksek başarıyı, kalıcılığı ve olumlu yönde duyuşsal öğrenme ürünlerini ortaya çıkarmıştır.

"블루스 안에서 동화와 분리의 하모니: 󰡔지트니󰡕와 󰡔피아노 레슨󰡕을 중심으로"

이 논문의 목적은 윌슨이 아프리카계 미국인들의 위대한 유산인 블루스를 통해 그들의 하모니가 가능하다고 강조하는 것을 고찰하는 것이다. 어거스트 윌슨은 문화적 역사적 전통에 대한 아프리카계 미국인들의 이해에 기반한 진정한 흑인의 정체성을 강조하고 있다. 그의 모든 작품에서 윌슨은 아프리카계 미국인들의 고통스런 경험들을 표현하는데 블루스를 활용한다. 블루스는 아프리카계 미국인들의 사상과 그들의 과거와 현재의 역사를 이어주는 역할을 포함하는 구전 전통이다. 윌슨은 그의 두 작품 『지트니』와 『피아노 레슨』을 통해 백인사회 내에서 동화주의자와 분리주의자들 사이의 충돌을 보여준다. 이 두 작품의 인물들은 백인사회에 대해 정확히 상반된 반응으로 그들의 아프리카인의 정체성을 찾는 서로 다른 방법들을 지닌다. 그러나 이 두 유형의 흑인 인물들의 블루스는 그들의 생각들이 조화를 이루도록 한다. 그들은 자신들의 실제 과거의 고통스런 역사의 올바른 인식을 통해 그것을 이뤄낼 수 있기 때문이다.

Parting Ways With Piano Lessons: Comparing Motivation Between Continuing and Dropout Piano Students

Abstract Piano teachers believe that dropping out of piano lessons before reaching a moderate mastery of the instrument is a common problem among students. We used self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) to measure the motivation of dropout students and to discover if amotivation and controlled motivation are related to attrition from private piano lessons. Using the Survey of Musical Interests, 55 former piano students who had quit lessons completed a questionnaire with Likert scale, multiple choice, and open-ended questions, and their parents filled out a complementary questionnaire. The dropout students took lessons for approximately 5 years and stopped lessons in the preteen years, which supports a common experience of studio teachers. These participants were compared to 260 students who were still involved with piano lessons. Beyond the predicted findings that dropout students would demonstrate less autonomous motivation and stronger amotivation, other interesting, exploratory findings arose. There were significant differences between the two groups’ types of motivation, and also differences regarding the age at which lessons began, ethnicity, practice amounts, parental involvement, and rewards for achievement. Recommendations are made for future research and for student retention strategies.

Surviving Trauma and Magical Realism in August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson

This paper explores the elements of magical realism in August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson and how the play attempts to address and overcome individual and collective trauma of African American slavery on the individuals who suffered under it. Generations of violence create the trauma in The Piano Lesson, and its presence is especially evident through the character Berniece and how she responds to the piano, a family heirloom. The existence of a ghost in The Piano Lesson forces Berniece to face the tragic family history and achieve a reconciliation with the past. As a conclusion, this paper argues that Wilson uses magical realism in The Piano Lesson is used as a literary device to emphasize the reality and impact of trauma, and demonstrate survival from trauma by re-narrating personal history.

Trauma in August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson

August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson (1987) is a play which deals with the social life of a broken African American family in Pittsburg – a city in Pennsylvania – who migrated from the South. The family’s grandparents, who were slaves on a Southern plantation, were separated and exchanged with a piano. This shocking incident causes cross-generational trauma and other traumatic incidents for the family as they retrieved the piano. This study examines the play through the lens of Literary Trauma Theory. This theory appeared in the middle of 1990s, henceforth it has been developed by so many scholars, and the latest revision is made by Joshua Pederson, an Associate Professor of Humanities at Boston University, in 2014. The first wave of the theorists claim that trauma causes amnesia for the victims; they can neither remember nor describe what they have experienced, but Pederson in his revised edition of the theory proves the opposite. By applying the latest version of trauma theory this study shows how slavery, its aftermath or its legacy affected and haunted African Americans, and created trauma or historical trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for the African Americans.

An Analysis of the Metaphorical Perceptions About the Piano by Fine Arts High School Students

The aim of this study is to determine, as expressed in metaphors, the attitudes of the students of music department in the Fine Arts High School (FAHS) in the 2019-2020 academic year. The study was carried out with 37 music students in 9th and 12th grades of Mersin Adiyaman Fine Arts High School. In line with the phenomenological research design, a form including the statement “The piano lesson is like… Because...” was used to collect the data for the study. Determining the attitudes of the students of the music department towards the piano is critical in terms of increasing the quality of piano learning and music education. Since metaphors are crucial in determining the student's attitude towards a musical instrument, the metaphors that are used by the student are extremely important. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the metaphorical meanings assigned to the piano by FAHS music students. The data were categorized by using content and frequency analysis techniques, which revealed 34 positive and three negative metaphorical definitions about the piano instrument. The findings indicate that most of the participants have positive metaphoric definitions of the piano.

Investigation of the Effect of Piano Education on Attention and Concentration in Preschool Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of piano education on preschool children with attention deficit and hyperactivity problem on attention and concentration. . In this study, 30 minutes of piano training was applied to two 5-6 year old preschool students with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder for 1 year (12 months) to improve their attention skills. The other two students were the control group. Multiple polling model among subjects was used in the study. In addition, Attention Collection Test (FTF-K) was used as data collection tool for children aged 5-6 years. Before the piano lesson application, all children underwent a pre-test of the attention-taking test (FTF-K). After the program was applied, the same test was applied again as the last test. Finally, the differences between pre-test and post-test were examined. After long-term piano education, it was concluded that “FTF-K” attention test results were higher in students with hyperactivity attention deficit compared to other students. Keywords: Piano Education, Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity, Preschool, Attention and Concentration Skills Special Issue of Educational Sciences DOI: 10.7176/JSTR/6-06-06

Pianos and Pianolas

A biographical reminiscence by Sylvia Townsend Warner describing the piano-playing of her grandmother Fanny, her own first piano lessons and the way that her father played the pianola.

Experiencing Chopin: A Listener's Companion by Christine Lee Gengaro

Reviewed by: Experiencing Chopin: A Listener's Companion by Christine Lee Gengaro Laura Pita Experiencing Chopin: A Listener's Companion. By Christine Lee Gengaro. (The Listener's Companion.) Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. [xxiv, 181 p. ISBN 9781442260863 (hardcover), $42; ISBN 9781442260870 (e-book), $39.50.] Timeline, glossary, bibliography, discography, index. Christine Lee Gengaro's Experiencing Chopin: A Listener's Companion appears nearly simultaneously with two other books on Chopin: Alan Walker's comprehensive biography Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2018) and the essay collection Chopin and His World (ed. Jonathan D. Bellman and Halina Goldberg [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017]), which brings together a substantial group of Chopin scholars. Experiencing Chopin is Gengaro's first publication on nineteenth-century music, as her principal area of research is film music and music in popular culture. (An earlier book is Listening to Stanley Kubrick: The Music in His Films [Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2013].) With Experiencing Chopin, Gengaro explores the niche of critical literature for the nonspecialist. The book belongs to the Listener's Companion series, which provides readers "a deeper understanding of pivotal musical genres and the creative work of … iconic composers and performers." This task is accomplished by placing readers "in specific listening experiences in which the music is examined in its historical context with regard to both compositional and societal parameters" (p. ix). Experiencing Chopin is organized into ten chapters, supplemented by a timeline, a glossary of musical terms, and selected readings and listening lists. Most of the chapters use biography as a context to discuss a set of pieces, usually from a specific genre. Chapter 1, "The [End Page 473] Piano Lesson," examines Chopin's etudes in relation to his experiences as a music student in Poland and as a teacher in Paris. Chapter 2, "Chopin's Concert Life," deals with Chopin's performances from his years as a child prodigy through adulthood and the composition of the two piano concertos. Chapter 3, "Confidants and Collaborators," explores Chopin's relationships with some of his Polish mates and close friends in Paris while commenting on his collaborative work with Auguste Franchomme on the Grand duo concertant sur des thèmes de Robert le diable and his Sonata for Cello and Piano in G Minor. Chapter 4, "Creative Nocturnes," looks at Chopin's stay in Vienna in 1830 and the influence of John Field on his nocturnes, while chapter 5, "Devotion to Poland," considers Chopin's mazurkas and polonaises in the light of his nationalism. The ballades and Chopin's relationship with George Sand are the focus of chapter 6, "Love, Chopin Style." Chapter 7, "Chopin and the Voice," discusses Chopin's songs in the context of his fondness for vocal music and his association with the poets Stefan Witwicki and Adam Mickiewicz. In chapter 8, "Musical Inheritance," Gengaro observes the influence of Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on Chopin's preludes and the variations on "La ci darem la mano." As part of an examination of his piano sonata, chapter 9, "Maladies among the Melodies," presents various theories on Chopin's fragile health and the cause of his death. The last chapter, "Modern Chopin," offers a study of the endurance of Chopin's legacy in popular culture as reflected in the use of his music in cartoons and his presence as a character in films and video games. Gengaro's book is not a standard text of music history and criticism but rather an investigation of both Chopin's artistic and mundane self—a "portrait of an actual man, touched by genius" (p. xv). The author makes clear from the beginning that her aim is to use the historical contexts of creation and reception, and musical commentary on the pieces, to connect readers with Chopin's musical world and thus inspire them "to sit back and really listen" (p. xv). In doing so, she draws from historical facts and quotes extensively from correspondence and other personal sources—by Chopin, his lovers, friends, and students—while also indulging "in some invention and speculation" (p. xv). Whether Gengaro has been successful in such a venture is not easy to answer...