Piano teachers agree that acquiring piano technique knowledge and skills is beneficial for musical interpretation as lacking a good technique may impact on the musicality of a performance and poor technique may lead to muscular pain or injury. Many piano teachers use a series of piano method books as major teaching materials in the lesson. It is essential for teachers to understand the technical elements included in the piano method books and to investigate whether any piano technical element is missing so that they may consider using supplementary technique teaching materials. Besides, to understand how the technical elements are presented and how soon each technique element is introduced would help teachers to teach more efficiently. The purpose of this study was to review how expert pedagogues teach piano technique to establish a framework of technique elements that should be taught to young piano beginners. Based on this framework, we undertook an analysis of the technical elements found in thirteen series of piano method lesson books together with their accompanying technical books. A calculation of the proportion of each piano technique element in each series, an evaluation of the pace at which new technique elements are introduced and an analysis of how each one is presented forms the objective of this study. The results will provide piano teachers with thorough information on the technique elements found in different method books and will help piano teachers to select the most appropriate method books for their students.

It has been the purpose of this study to examine representative beginning piano methods, as found available in published form, and to compare and evaluate them according to musical, psychological, physical, and educational standards.

My recital will feature jazz music from different decades in the 20th century. The program will feature well known jazz standard tunes from influential artists such as John Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Miles Davis, Steve Swallow, and others. The program will include both solo jazz arrangements for piano such as ���Alone Together���, ���Quiet Now���, and ���Falling Grace��� as well as jazz combo arrangements featuring drums, bass, and trumpet. The jazz music will include different styles of jazz such as ���swing���, ���modal���, and ���bebop���. In doing so, this will allow me to demonstrate a variety of ways to play and improvise over the various songs adding to the listener experience of the recital. The recital will also include improvisational solos by other combo members including drum solos, trumpet solos, and bass solos. / Mary Pappert School of Music; / Music Performance / MM; / Recital;

Sonata duodecima for violin and continuo / Isabella Leonarda -- Fuzzy bird for alto saxophone and piano / Takashi Yoshimatsu -- Sonata in A major, K.526 / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart -- Sonata for English horn and piano / Paul Hindemith -- From Histoire du tango / Astor Piazzolla / text

7 variations on "Bei Mannern, welche Liebe fuhlen" from Die Zauberflote, WoO 46 / Ludwig van Beethoven -- Poeme elegiaque, op.12 / Eugene Ysaye -- Marchenbilder, op.113 / Robert Schumann -- Sonata, op.23 / Lowell Liebermann / text

The piano etude is a musical genre that has evolved since the 18th century from a work composed to develop technique into a full-fledged concert piece. The genre has continued to pose a challenge for the composer who attempts to combine the utility of a technical exercise with musical invention equivalent to other genres in the concert repertoire.Falko Steinbach composed his first set of piano etudes, entitled "Figures," 17 Choreographic Etudes, in 2006. This major work is comprised of 17 pieces, which explore all the physical components of successful pianism. These components are outlined in his book A Compendium on Piano Technique. The book also explores psychological disciplines, which can assist the pianist in overcoming technical difficulties, both in practice and performance.This document will consist of an analysis of both "Figures" and A Compendium. It will address the issue of "Figures" as both a didactic work and a work of art in the tradition of the Chopin etudes. It will also discuss how Steinbach synthesizes aspects of both physiological and mental learning disciplines to create a technical approach to the piano that directly impacts both sound and movement.

Both Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) and Maurice Ravel (1875-1837) were outstanding composers of the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century who followed and transmitted the specifically French tradition. Ravel studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Gabriel Faure (1845-1924), who was a student of Saint-Satins. SaintSaens's Trio No. 1, Op. 18, was written in 1863, while he was teaching a the Ecole Niedermeyer. As one of the earliest works by the composer, it reveals his conservative style in the well-defined four-movement structure, particularly characterized by classical periodization and clarity of texture. Saint-Sadns's Trio No. 2, Op. 92, was written in 1892, when he was more mature and better known as both composer and performer. Written twenty-nine years after the first trio, the second trio is more ambitious and complicated than the first trio. The second trio exhibits elaborate harmonies and extensive sonata structure, including a fugue within an unusual five-movement framework.Ravel's trio was completed in 1914, shortly after the start of the First World War, at Saint-Jean-de-Luz in Basque country. I The trio displays new sonorities and expression achieved by brilliant string techniques and powerful, vertical piano writing, as well as the employment of various kinds of non-traditional scales. Within a four-movement structure, the second movement, entitled Pantown, a poetic form of Malayan origin, is most original, including the middle section in polymeter.The analyses of these three trios reveal significant similarities in stylistic and formal characteristics. All three trios preserve the outline framework of the traditional sonata concept. Saint-Sa&ns's second trio and Ravel's trio include passacaglia movements, based on the Baroque form. All three trios employ folk elements: the modal style of certain themes, and certain rhythms; e.g., the Basque dance rhythm, zoriko, appears in Saint-Saans's second trio and Ravel's trio. The use of quintuple time in both trios also shows the Basque influence. Among other common characteristics are rhythmic ostinato and thematic juxtaposition. All three trios represent trends in French music between the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century: nationalism and neoclassicism. / School of Music

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

This thesis focuses on a group of keyboard pieces composed in the first half of the twentieth century entitled ‘prelude’, and explores the issue of genre, investigating the significance in the application of this generic title, and the development of the piano prelude in this period. The application of a generic title often invokes the expectation of its generic features its conventional and formal characteristics. Though the prelude is one of the oldest genres in the history of keyboard music, it has relatively few conventions, and hence, with the abandonment of its primary function the prefatory role in the nineteenth century, it has been considered an indeterminate genre. Rachmaninoff, however, asserted that a generic title should carry with it appropriate generic manifestations, which parallelled similar generic concepts in literature. This expectation of generic traits is like setting up a ‘generic contract’, offering an invitation to either conform or reform, and thus affecting its course of development. A survey of the prelude’s historical development points to six rather consistent generic conventional and formal characteristics: (i) tonality, (ii) pianistic/technical figuration, (iii) thematic treatment and formal structure, (iv) improvisatory style, (v) mood content, and (vi) brevity. Though these general characteristics may overlap with other genres, it is their collective characteristics that have contributed to the genre’s unique identity. These features form the basis for an exploration of the conformity to, or further evolution of, these characteristics in the preludes of the early twentieth century. From the substantial number of piano preludes composed in this period, selected sets, representative of the various stylistic manifestations of the period, are analysed in relation to the identified generic characteristics. The examination reveals that these preludes, though apparently diversified in style and outlook, exhibit affinity in one form or another to the generic characteristics. Each example exhibits different treatments of the generic characteristics reflective of twentieth-century developments, whilst retaining its generic identity. The prelude is thus an amalgamation of a tonal, technical and affective piece, which may be considered a combination of a tonal essay, a study/toccata, and a character piece; and collectively, a sequence of tonalities, a collection of pianistic technical studies, and a compendium of musical styles/genres in miniature.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of Maryland, College Park, 2007. / Compact discs.