Abstract
In order to help teachers understand what happens when beginner piano students take their initial steps, this chapter examines the concept of learning from several relevant perspectives. Firstly, an overview of education theories indicates that learning is frequently interpreted as involving: (1) linear progressions, (2) making meaning from experience, (3) cyclical processes focused on exploration, and (4) the influence of individual and collective worldviews. Next, given the parallels between language learning and music learning, this chapter explores the process of language acquisition and transposes the principles of language learning to music learning. Finally, this chapter demonstrates how beginner piano students may move through three fundamental stages of musical development. The Background Stage involves how students informally acquire aspects of musicianship prior to formal lessons. The Foundation Stage focuses on tonalization development of technique and tone production as well as learning to play by ear . The Reading Stage continues to build on the Foundation Stage through the additional element of learning to read music.
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Notes
- 1.
I use the term meaning in reference to the individual ways students may interpret or make sense of their music lessons and the various aspects involved in learning to play a musical instrument. Meaning is also concerned with what’s behind students’ active participation in terms of the diverse reasons that may support their own meaningful involvement.
- 2.
At a workshop I facilitated for all instruments studio music teachers, wind instrument teachers indicated their preference for beginning with 3-note and 5-note scale passages as tonalization exercises. String teachers emphasized the importance of beginning with open string tonalization exercises.
- 3.
For an example of a scrambles-based reading methodology, please see the forthcoming publication: Thompson, M.B. PLAY & READ.
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Thompson, M.B. (2018). What Does Music Learning Look like?. In: Fundamentals of Piano Pedagogy. SpringerBriefs in Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65533-8_3
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