Many incoming students have studied piano prior to entering college and receive much of their theory training through music study with a piano teacher. The National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) designed a website page for potential students to answer the question, "How should I best prepare to enter a conservatory, college, university as a music major?" Theoretical concepts they suggest can be grouped into three main categories: Basic Music Theory Rudiments, Ear-Training Skills, and Form and Harmony. This research examines five piano theory method books (Alfred Premier Piano Course, Bastien Piano Basics, Faber Piano Adventures, Harris Celebrate Piano!, and Kjos Fundamentals of Piano Theory) to assess their effectiveness in presenting the theoretical concepts NASM recommends they should know. The five books used for this study provide a basic foundation for many of the concepts undergraduates will be expected to know as they enter college theory courses.

Method books are an integral part of the percussion pedagogy. Because of the vast number of instruments a modern percussionist is expected to play, they often look for progressive, concise, and effective resources that can make learning such a variety of instruments more efficient. Instructional books currently exist for many areas of percussion performance, including snare drum, mallet percussion, timpani, World music, accessories, and marching percussion. Included in these books are information and procedures on music reading, rhythm studies, listening skills, part preparation, and technical approach. Focusing on timpani methods specifically, many of these books include tuning and pedaling exercises and etudes. However, their pedagogies for the execution of such difficult procedures are superficial and focus primarily on technical prowess. Timpani are the only Western pitched instruments a percussionist is required to tune, which proves intimidating for many players. Moreover, the aural and technical demands of the contemporary timpanist are ever-increasing with the technical demands found in modern composition. This dissertation will address the skills and techniques for tuning and pedaling timpani ignored by current method books and provide the timpanist with a process through a systematic set of etudes with audio accompaniment tracks. The goals of this method are to target the specific set of skills needed by the timpanist for accurate and effective timpani tuning in a modern ensemble setting.

Many piano teachers agree that suitable repertoire motivates their students to learn and practice their instrument. Asking students to learn different categories of repertoire might be a good approach for piano teachers to motivate and maintain their students’ musical interests. However, how do teachers evaluate what kinds of repertoire is presented in the teaching material that is available to them? The purpose of this study is to review the pieces found in North-American piano method books in order to provide an inventory of the different categories of repertoire found in each series and to calculate the proportion of piano repertoire belonging in each category. Consequently, this research will allow piano teachers to see more clearly which kinds of repertoire are in a method book and help select the most appropriate method books for their students.

Many piano teachers agree that suitable repertoire motivates their students to learn and practice their instrument. Asking students to learn different categories of repertoire might be a good approach for piano teachers to motivate and maintain their students’ musical interests. However, how do teachers evaluate what kinds of repertoire is presented in the teaching material that is available to them? The purpose of this study is to review the pieces found in North-American piano method books in order to provide an inventory of the different categories of repertoire found in each series and to calculate the proportion of piano repertoire belonging in each category. Consequently, this research will allow piano teachers to see more clearly which kinds of repertoire are in a method book and help select the most appropriate method books for their students.

Comprehensive Musicianship (CM) is a philosophy that developed in the 1960s to encourage the study of contemporary music and student creativity. It expanded in the 1970s to describe the interdisciplinary study of music. Its goal was to encourage teachers to go beyond technical and performance aspects of music and start integrating theory, history, composition, improvisation and aural skills instruction to their curriculums. However, while CM has had a strong influence on many music programs, it is not clear whether this trend has influenced the field of private piano instruction, and whether CM elements have been included and integrated in beginner piano method books. To address this question, categories that constitute the core elements of CM were selected to conduct a content analysis of 12 piano method series. Analysis showed that the focus tends to be on aural skills (as teacher duets), and theory, with a noticeable lack of the more creative activities of improvisation and composition.

Comprehensive Musicianship (CM) is a philosophy that developed in the 1960s to encourage the study of contemporary music and student creativity. It expanded in the 1970s to describe the interdisciplinary study of music. Its goal was to encourage teachers to go beyond technical and performance aspects of music and start integrating theory, history, composition, improvisation and aural skills instruction to their curriculums. However, while CM has had a strong influence on many music programs, it is not clear whether this trend has influenced the field of private piano instruction, and whether CM elements have been included and integrated in beginner piano method books. To address this question, categories that constitute the core elements of CM were selected to conduct a content analysis of 12 piano method series. Analysis showed that the focus tends to be on aural skills (as teacher duets), and theory, with a noticeable lack of the more creative activities of improvisation and composition.

Many piano teachers agree that suitable repertoire motivates their students to learn and practice their instrument. Asking students to learn different categories of repertoire might be a good approach for piano teachers to motivate and maintain their students’ musical interests. However, how do teachers evaluate what kinds of repertoire is presented in the teaching material that is available to them? The purpose of this study is to review the pieces found in North-American piano method books in order to provide an inventory of the different categories of repertoire found in each series and to calculate the proportion of piano repertoire belonging in each category. Consequently, this research will allow piano teachers to see more clearly which kinds of repertoire are in a method book and help select the most appropriate method books for their students.

Comprehensive Musicianship (CM) is a philosophy that developed in the 1960s to encourage the study of contemporary music and student creativity. It expanded in the 1970s to describe the interdisciplinary study of music. Its goal was to encourage teachers to go beyond technical and performance aspects of music and start integrating theory, history, composition, improvisation and aural skills instruction to their curriculums. However, while CM has had a strong influence on many music programs, it is not clear whether this trend has influenced the field of private piano instruction, and whether CM elements have been included and integrated in beginner piano method books. To address this question, categories that constitute the core elements of CM were selected to conduct a content analysis of 12 piano method series. Analysis showed that the focus tends to be on aural skills (as teacher duets), and theory, with a noticeable lack of the more creative activities of improvisation and composition.

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.

For many piano teachers, developing proficient reading skills in their young beginner students is one of the important aspects of weekly lessons yet it can also be one of the most frustrating tasks to undertake. To assist in this process, teachers look to method books to provide structure and an approach to music reading. Two reading approaches are prevalent in the current marketplace and widely used by teachers; the mixed intervallic approach and the middle C approach. The mixed intervallic approach, which stresses reading by interval, pattern and direction, is favoured and endorsed by current pedagogy and is adopted by many method books. This study compared the reading skills of young beginner piano students (ages 7-11) using either the mixed intervallic approach or the middle C approach to see which approach produced more reliable reading skills. Participants performed several music reading tasks to test keyboard identification (verbal), note identification in treble and bass clef (verbal), single note identification in C and G position (playing), broken and solid intervals in C and G position (playing), 3 note patterns and non-patterns in C and G position (playing), and sight reading. I hypothesized that the middle C students would perform better at single note identification while the mixed intervallic students would perform better in interval recognition, pattern recognition and sight reading. The results showed that the middle C students outperformed the mixed intervallic students in all tests except for keyboard identification and 3 note patterns in G position. These findings are surprising as they may indicate that the middle C approach, which is often criticized, is generating reliable reading skills among beginner piano students.