Practical Piano Pedagogy: The Definitive Text for Piano Teachers and Pedagogy Students.

by Martha Baker-Jordan. Warner Bros.(15800 N. W. 48th Ave., Miami, FL 33014), 2003. 450 pp., $39.95.

This practical guide for pedagogy students and teachers is a welcome addition to our collective libraries. The many first-person references from the author's extensive experience give the book an autobiographical feel.

The text is organized into three parts: the Business of Teaching, Teaching Elementary and Intermediate Students, and a "Grab Bag" of Ideas for All Levels of Teaching. A unique feature is the inclusion of a CD-ROM with teaching and business forms. These forms include California's Certificate of Merit Technique Requirements, Levels I-9.

Four guest chapters strengthen the text significantly. "Learning Styles" and "Collaborative Problem Solving" provide ideas from educational psychology. "Technology in Your Studio" is a wonderful compendium of today's technology for the piano teacher, and "Teaching of Jazz" is logically sequenced.

Less successful is the chapter devoted to "Technical Tips for a Right Start," illustrated with student pictures of inferior photographic quality. Information is included on staccato touches and the two-note slur touch. No mention is made of rotary motion from the elbow or lateral movement from the wrist. Guidance for scale fingerings, generally void of any new insights, is provided at the end of the technique chapter. The text implies that students go directly from five-finger positions to hands-together scales with traditional fingering. A more favorable learning sequence, preceding traditional fingering, hands-together, scales might be: tetrachord scales, hands-alone scales and, finally, contrary motion for mirror image scales such as E major and E-flat major. The fingering chart provided on page 111 fails to identify the minor scale form being illustrated. This basic introduction also excludes triads and arpeggios.

Chapter Eleven is for everyone who has ever taught, or anticipates teaching, a transfer student. Recurring encouragements for the reader to engage in independent thinking is a strength. For example, "Before reading further, list some reasons you think might cause a student to seek a different teacher."

In the chapter about methods and materials, the author states the following before beginning her review of ten selected methods: "No methods will be recommended over others or evaluated in a negative manner." Contrary to her self-imposed guideline, she critically questions content and methodologies in the The John Schaum Course and The Piano Discoveries method. However, she is surprisingly sympathetic to the venerable 1936 John Thompson Series, saying that in comparison to recent methods, "many similarities to Thompson and Schaum remain ... only the packaging has changed!" A later chapter titled "The Black Hole of Piano Teaching" laments the absence of improvisation, harmonization, composition and transposition in traditional piano study. Do Thompson, Schaum and others share responsibility for this deficiency?

In an otherwise excellent chapter on group teaching, no mention is made of the many available class piano textbooks. The chapter on motivation is full of great ideas. My favorites are the Honors Notebook, the Pizza Performance Party Without Parents and the "Blue Jeans, Hot Dog, Swim Party" Recital. Yes, the author lives in California! Reviewed by Paul Stewart, Greensboro, North Carolina.