Siok Lian Tan, Assistant Professor of Piano; Coordinator of the Class Piano Program; L.T.C.L., Trinity College of Music, London; BM (summa cum laude, Pi Kappa Lambda), MM, DMA, University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). A native of Penang, Malaysia, Ms. Tan came to Cincinnati in 1988 as a scholarship piano student of Frank Weinstock at CCM. She has been heard in live broadcasts on Cincinnati Public Radio Station WGUC and has appeared as soloist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra on the 1993 Young People's Concert and the 1995 Casual Classic Series. She has won numerous scholarship awards and piano competitions, including the Three Arts Scholarship and Clef Music Club Award. At CCM, she has been a teaching assistant for all her five years of graduate studies where she was also assistant to the head of the Secondary Piano Department and Piano Pedagogy. In 1995 she received the CCM "Most Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award" for her excellence in teaching. She was also on the faculty of the CCM Preparatory Department (1992-1998) and University of Cincinnati-College of Evening and Continuing Education (1993-1996). She is active as a clinician and adjudicator and is heard regularly throughout the midwest as soloist and chamber musician.
Siok Lian Tan
School of Fine Arts
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056
513.529.3072
TANSL@MUOhio.Edu
Panelists:
Tony Caramia, Eastman School of Music
Michelle Conda, University of Cincinnati
Martha Hilley, University of Texas
Fred Kern, University of North Texas
Kenon Renfrow, University of Miami
Moderator: Andrew Hisey, Oberlin College Conservatory of Music
The First National Group Piano and Piano Pedagogy Forum opened with a session featuring five group piano experts discussing how they adapted their curriculum to the size and nature of their institutions. After the panelists described their individual situations, they fielded questions from the audience.
Michelle Conda shared her views on the importance of including non-major group piano class as a course in a university. Her past experience at the University of Toledo demonstrated that there was a high demand for non-major classes. She initially started off with the beginning level and within a few years had expanded the course sequence to four levels. All four levels of piano classes were filled every semester. The high demand also occurred when she offered non-major piano classes at University of Cincinnati. She stated that teaching these classes was extremely rewarding. She also pointed out that non-major piano classes were useful to some music majors as well; these classes could serve as preparation for music majors who were not ready for standard music classes. They could also be used as group teaching demonstration classes for piano pedagogy students.
Conda expressed her disappointment with many college administrators who cite budget drain as a reason to to eliminate non-major classes from their programs. She argued that the offering of these classes were not a drain at all. The students who signed up for these classes actually brought more general funds from the university into the music department. She pointed out that teaching piano as a class was an effective use of faculty time and energy because the student-faculty ratio was 12 to 1 instead of 1 to 1. She also suggested that music departments could charge a small technology fee from each student who took the non-major class. The fee could be used to maintain equipment in the piano lab. Conda believes that the demand for non-major piano classes will continue to grow because of the current trend toward more general education courses.
Kenon Renfrow discussed how he developed a foundation technology course for all music students at the University of Miami based on the research of his doctoral dissertation. The topic of his dissertation was "Development and Evaluation of Objectives for Teaching Graduate Piano Pedagogy Majors to use Computer and Keyboard Technology." He surveyed all institutions in the United States that offered graduate piano pedagogy degrees and found that most institutions recognized the importance of computer and keyboard technology but most did not do enough to address the subject. From his survey, Renfrow concluded that there was a need for a course to introduce music students to basic music technology. As a result, he designed a course entitled "Computers, Keyboards, and Music," to provide students with an overview of current computer and keyboard technology as they related to music. The course included a basic introduction to Windows, word-processing, spreadsheet, database management, CD-ROM, the Internet, and music education software. Topics covered at a more in-depth level included MIDI, digital sequencing, and computer-assisted musical. This is a required course for all music majors at University of Miami except students in the BFA degree program. The course was so successful that he was asked to design a series of upper-level music technology courses for the curriculum.
Tony Caramia from the Eastman School of Music pointed out that the high-level of performance ability at his institution did not necessarily impact the class piano program. He stated that although all his class piano students have very high level of performance talent on their own instruments, they still have the same problems as average class piano students from other music schools. Many first-year class piano students cannot find middle-C on the keyboard. He has had first-year cellists who cannot not read in treble clef, violinists who cannot read in bass clef, percussionists and singers who cannot read well at all. Therefore, he advises his teaching assistants to realize to whom they were teaching and to make adjustments accordingly. Caramia also raised a similar issue with respect to the hiring of teaching assistants. Every year he interviews many talented pianists for teaching assistant positions but many of them had difficulties teaching simple piano skills, such as how to introduce a C harmonic minor scale to a class. He closed by remarking that similar pianistic and pedagogical problems occur at Eastman: talented music students do not always make talented piano students, and talented pianists do not necessarily know how to teach beginning piano students.
Martha Hilley shared her experience training and supervising teaching assistants at University of Texas, Austin. She explained that all her teaching assistants are hired primarily based on their performance competence. Many of them know how to play the piano well but have had no prior teaching experience or training. Therefore, she has to train her new teaching assistants on the basics of teaching. All her new teaching assistants are required to attend a two-day, pre-semester workshop where she takes them through many basic teaching skills. In addition to this pre-semester workshop, Hilley requires all her first-year teaching assistants to take Robert Duke's course in supervised teaching. She observes and video-tapes all her teaching assistants at least twice per semester and gives them constructive comments based on her observations. She hopes that her teaching assistants will learn from her comments and be better prepared for their future college teaching appointments.
Fred Kern from University of North Texas discussed his duties as coordinator of the class piano program in one of the largest music schools in the nation. He supervises fourteen teaching assistants who teach twenty-four sections of keyboard skill classes for music majors. There are approximately six hundred students enrolled in keyboard skill classes each semester and Kern has to listen to each of them taking their proficiency exam. Kern divides his four-semester curriculum into a set of forty-eight specific skills, focussing on twelve skills per semester. If a student can do all the forty-eight skills, he or she can pass out of piano class. Kern's curriculum is weighted heavily on sight reading skills. He hopes to move towards a piano proficiency exam where everything has to be played at sight. Like Caramia and Hilley, Kern faces the same problem with inexperienced teaching assistants. Most of them are good players but do not know how to teach. Therefore, Kern has to dictate the pacing of the curriculum and grading procedures for all his teaching assistants to create a sense of unity among different classes.
After the panelists gave their remarks, they took questions from the audience. Among the issues discussed were piano proficiency requirements, grading policies, and the number of class meetings per week. While details of all the issues discussed above varied slightly from each school, it was interesting to learn that all five colleges shared the same overall goals and problems in their programs. Each school has minimum proficiency requirements that all music students have to meet in order to pass the piano class sequence. All these experts have the same problem getting experienced and interested teaching assistants to teach class piano because most assistants were hired on the basis of their performance skills. The panelists also talked about what keeps them fresh in college group piano teaching. They all agreed that the ability to change their students' attitude, which usually comes in the form of delayed appreciation, and their influence on the growth of their teaching assistants makes their jobs challenging and rewarding. As class piano coordinators, they have the opportunity to meet and work with all the music students in their schools and they enjoy doing that. Their ongoing efforts to find new and better teaching materials and better ways of presenting concepts helps keep their work interesting and fresh.
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