Hi, I just purchased a few of the PA beginner books to compare with other method books and see there's a cd included. Does the cd provide teaching ideas for the book, or is it geared to the student? I don't want to break the seal to pull out the cd, in case I decided not to use the books. Thanks!

It's probably a CD with songs from the method book. I don't think there are teaching tips on the CD. You should, however, check out the www.pianoteaching.com website. There are teaching demonstrations for almost every song in the first method books. It's a wonderful resource.

Hi, I was on the website, and clicked on the method book, and was only able to view a short mini=clip. I found it very helpful, but of course, would like to have more than just a minute of viewing time. Maybe I missed something. Is there another way to get more detailed demonstrations?

This link will get you to the page that describes the Primer Lesson Guide. From there click on 'menu of all pages' and they have a list of songs from the Primer book; when you click the song the video demo will also be displayed.


http://www.pianoteaching.com/guide/how_to.html

And here's the link to 'My First Piano Adventure', for younger students. There aren't as many video demos as in the Primer, but they're still quite helpful.

http://faberpiano.com/myfirst/

The CD's are correlated to the lessons. Most of them are "secondo" part to make the kid sound better. It's cute for little kids. The Fabers actually did a great job with their production.

Thanks Dumdiddle and AZN. I returned to the music store and purchased Level 1, 2, 3, etc. and see that CDs are not included in those books, so I guess it's just for beginners. Too bad, I prefer visual aids to reading pedagogy books. I really wish there were visual resources for new teachers. The pedagogy course I took in college just wasn't the best preparation for actually teaching lessons.

A lot depends on the program. I never took one class on pedagogy, and I'm doing okay. I've sat in on pedagogy sessions. Some were good. Some not so good.

If you want visual stuff, you might want to look into some of the recent publications by Kjos, developed by TCW and the Bastiens.

I know I'm going to tick people off here, but the only real way to be prepared is jumping in and doing it. The more you do it, the better you will become at it. Preparation is a good thing, but even if you did every single thing the most renowned teacher did, you would still come across a problem that you weren't prepared for.

I agree. The Kjos/Bastien pubs you refer to are books? I am looking for videos. Do you have any info on teaching beginner videos? Thanks.