Lesley Sisterhen serves as Assistant Professor of Piano Pedagogy at Baylor University, where she directs the piano pedagogy program, teaches class piano and piano pedagogy, and supervises the Piano Laboratory Program. She holds degrees in performance from the University of Houston and Florida State University and recently earned the Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Sisterhen has written articles for American Music Teacher and the online Piano Pedagogy Forum. An active clinician and researcher, she gave a presentation at the 2006 national convention for the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) and has presented for numerous music teacher organizations. Her previous faculty position involved teaching group and applied piano on the faculty at the University of Central Oklahoma.
Lesley Sisterhen
Baylor University
One Bear Place #97408
Waco, Texas 76798
254.710.6516
Lesley_Sisterhen@baylor.edu
In a panel discussion dedicated to the topic of "Group Piano and the Millennial Student," panelists presented their viewpoints on the needs of millennial students who are enrolled in group piano classes. They were asked to consider what keyboard skills are necessary for this generation of music students and whether class piano teachers are delivering this information in ways that make it relevant for the students. Panelists included Jamila McWhirter, Garth Alper, Brad Beckman, Karen Beres, and Victoria Johnson. The five panelists provided their own unique insights in the areas of technology, jazz and popular music, and the practical application of functional piano skills.
Jamila McWhirter
Dr. Jamila McWhirter, who teaches at Middle Tennessee State University as an assistant professor of choral music education, presented her research on functional piano skills for secondary choral music educators. Stating that there is a lack of consistency among piano proficiency requirements at different universities, McWhirter designed a research study to assess whether collegiate preparation in piano is related to what will actually be used by teachers in the classroom.
McWhirter created a survey for secondary choral educators regarding what piano skills are utilized in the classroom. The educators who were surveyed were also asked about their expectations of what piano skills should be possessed by student teaching interns. The study focused on how frequently educators used the skills and how important they believed these skills were for student teaching interns. The online survey was completed by members of the Southwest Division of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). The results of the survey were presented for the 2006 National Association of Music Educators (MENC) National Convention.
Data from the survey indicated that the majority of secondary choral music educators use many functional piano skills "daily" or "frequently." Additionally, most secondary choral music educators believe that functional skills are "important" to "extremely important" for student teaching interns. Many secondary choral music educators stated that they would use functional piano skills more often if they were more proficient at these skills, particularly with regard to accompanying.
Survey results also indicated that secondary choral educators frequently use the piano to play warm-ups and to prepare for teaching and conducting. The majority play the piano in their classes. Other uses of the piano include playing or sight-reading vocal parts from an open score at the piano, singing one vocal part while playing one or more parts on the piano, and playing or sight-reading accompaniments. The categories of harmonization, transposition, and improvisation received lower ratings as having less frequent practical applications. In written comments, the educators suggested placing less emphasis on memorized solos in piano classes or excluding them altogether.
The survey also asked respondents to rate the importance of particular skills needed by student teaching interns. The highest number of responses was given for playing the following: a single vocal part at sight, warm-ups, open score, simple accompaniments, and four-part chord progressions. Respondents were also asked to rate the piano skills of student teaching interns. The majority of those surveyed felt that the piano skills were "somewhat adequate" or "not adequate."
Using the results of this study, McWhirter made recommendations to help guide collegiate music departments in their creation of piano proficiency requirements. She recommended that piano proficiency requirements may differ depending on the specific music education area. Given the importance of basic piano skills for choral music educators, she suggested that some courses might be eliminated to allow for more piano course work. In addition, functional piano skills should be reinforced across the curriculum, rather than just in group piano classes.
Garth Alper
Garth Alper is a jazz pianist and educator who believes that popular music and jazz should be included in the class piano curriculum. He presented ways in which keyboard skills combined with the use of technology can lead to improvisation and composition in popular and jazz styles. In Alper's opinion, music schools are not keeping up with current technological trends. Additionally, the training of many class piano teachers is limited to Western art and these teachers may not feel comfortable teaching jazz or popular music. For these reasons, most class piano instruction focuses on the analysis and performance of classical music but ignores contemporary music that may be motivating and relevant for the millennial generation.
Group piano labs are an ideal setting for teaching students about the components of popular music. Many pianists believe that popular music lacks complexity, but Alper called this believe a myth and cited the rhythmic complexity of music by The Roots, the harmonic complexity of music by Steely Dan and Stevie Wonder, and the timbral complexity found in music by the Chemical Brothers as evidence that popular music is not always "simple."
Students may be given assignments to help them become familiar with the components of popular music. For example, students might be required to transcribe the bass part, drum beat, and chords from an assigned contemporary pop tune. This transcription can then be entered into a sequencer, which is often built into the electric pianos in group piano labs. Alper gave three examples of current songs that would work well for a transcription assignment. These included "Real Gone" by Sheryl Crow and "Put It Behind You" by Keane. These songs, which exhibit clearly heard chord changes and fairly simple rhythm and bass parts, can be found under “Today's Top Albums” in iTunes. An example of a more rhythmically complex song that might be more appropriate for a percussion major is "Feng Shui" by Gnarls Barkley.
According to Alper, the most important jazz skills that students should learn are the following: playing major and minor triads and seventh chords, as well as half-diminished seventh chords; reading a lead sheet; improvising over some basic song forms; and playing the ii-V-I chord progression over standard rootless voicings. Jerry Coker's Keyboard for Pianists and Non-Pianists and Bill Boyd's Jazz Chord Voicings for Keyboard are two books that contain helpful explanations of jazz chord voicings.
Alper also suggested that time should be spent in group piano classes on listening. If the task of transcription is too time-consuming, teachers may elect to give listening assignments and quiz their students on the pieces. The discography found in The Jazz Piano Book by Mark Levine and "Down Beat's Guide to 50 Essential Piano and Keyboard Jazz Recordings" from the September 2002 issue of Down Beat are two guides that can help teachers identify important jazz piano recordings.
Students might begin improvising by using major and minor scales. For the purpose of learning to improvise, they should also become familiar with the blues scale and some commonly used modes such as Dorian and Mixolydian.
For teachers who are not jazz pianists and may not feel comfortable teaching students to play in the jazz style, Alper offered the following advice: take lessons from a jazz pianist or attend a summer workshop by Jamey Aebersold in order to learn these skills. Alternatively, one might choose to bring in a jazz pianist from the community to teach a few weeks of the course.
Fred Kern
Fred Kern was unable to be present at the conference, so Dr. Brad Beckman took his place and delivered Kern's remarks on the needs of music majors in diverse specialties. Piano classes may fall under different headings, such as group piano, class piano, secondary piano, or keyboard skills, but the functional skills presented in these classes remain the same. Kern divided piano skills into four categories: know it, read it, play it, and fake it. Students should know scales, chords, chord progressions, and transposition. They should be able to sight-read simple scores in real time. Students should have the adequate technical ability to be able to "play it" and must also be able to "fake it" by improvising and comping patterns at the keyboard.
In reference to the question of what has changed for contemporary class piano courses, Kern states that there is less emphasis on memorizing and polishing repertoire or on pure technique. He added that the future of class piano teaching depends on changes in requirements given by the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM).
Most importantly, class piano teachers must be able to communicate effectively with students and faculty. If students do not see the relevance of learning basic piano skills, they may not be motivated to learn these skills and may have a negative attitude toward the course. Teachers can deter this attitude by learning how to communicate effectively with students of the millennial generation.
Karen Beres and Victoria Johnson
Dr. Karen Beres and Dr. Victoria Johnson shared their findings on how applied music teachers use the keyboard as a tool in their teaching and practice. Dr. Beres is the coordinator of group piano and piano pedagogy at the North Carolina School of the Arts, while Dr. Johnson is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Piano Pedagogy at Louisiana State University.
The two panelists collaborated in a research study in which they surveyed applied music faculty regarding how they use the keyboard. They used an online Front Page survey and received 171 responses, with at least one school surveyed from each state. Respondents included performers in each of the following categories: vocalists (35%), wind instrumentalists (40%), and string instrumentalists (19%).
Johnson discussed the results of the survey in which participants ranked piano skills by their importance for the performer or studio teacher. More than half of the participants rated accompanying as the most important skill, while ratings for other skills were much lower: 15% cited chord progressions as the most important skill, and 11% named score reading as most important. Technique, harmonization, improvisation, playing by ear, and solo repertoire received the lowest number of responses.
The responses in the survey highlighted the importance of basic piano skills for music majors. Over eighty percent of those surveyed felt that piano skills were "important" to "very important." When asked about the frequency of their current piano use, the musicians surveyed were asked to answer with "weekly," "monthly," or "never." In studio teaching, 30.6% of the respondents sight-read accompaniments daily, while 21.7% sight-read accompaniments in their own practicing.
Beres discussed how the research findings might be implemented in group piano classes. Performance majors tend to have fewer piano requirements than music education majors, but their learning goals are similar. Given the fact that sight-reading accompaniments received such a high rating, Beres suggested that this should be the class piano teacher's main goal for performance majors. Sight-reading every day should be part of the class piano curriculum. An early emphasis on sight-reading, chord progressions, and technical command can provide the building blocks for learning to accompany at the piano. In teaching chord progressions, class piano instructors should emphasize the fact that chords have a function. Musical literacy can be built through an understanding of harmonic analysis.
Suggestions for the class piano teacher included using "real-life assignments" with a practical application of piano skills. Teachers should also incorporate technology and include collaborative activities in their lessons. In addition, students should be involved in the planning for the class. If they design their own goals and chart their own progress, students will be more motivated to learn and will be more likely to see the relevance of class piano.
One of the challenges in teaching the millennial student is the fact that many students feel entitled to receive an A in the class. As a way of solving this problem, Beres states in her syllabus that attendance, preparation, and class participation make up 10% of each student's grade. However, it is a skill-oriented class, and 90% of the grade depends on the students' performances on daily grades, a midterm exam, and a final exam.
Grading expectations should be clarified early in the semester. A teacher might demonstrate a performance that would qualify for the grade of A, B, or C, so that students are aware of how polished an exam must be to receive an A. Students can also listen to a recording of their own playing and assign themselves a grade through the process of self-evaluation.
It is the group piano teacher's responsibility to help students become both versatile and marketable. The skills necessary for professional musicians include score reading, especially for a church position; transposing, especially for accompanists in a voice studio; jazz chords, especially for music theater majors; and fluency at reading figured bass and sight-reading.
During the last three weeks of class, an instructor may illustrate the importance of piano skills in the "real world" of professional musicians by having students demonstrate their piano skills in a mock interview. The teacher might ask the class "Who would I hire from this class?" Engaging in this type of scenario may help class piano students to see the importance of learning to play the piano. It may also prompt them to become more diligent in their preparation for the class.
Summary
Group piano teachers must continue to re-examine their teaching with an eye toward the relevance of piano skills for millennial students. Incorporating the newest technological trends and integrating jazz and popular music into the curriculum may help to draw in the current generation of piano students. However, teachers must place the highest priority on developing proficiency in skills that students will use in their career as professional musicians.
| TABLE OF CONTENTS |
|---|