I love Piano Adventures, to the point of being blind to any other beginner method books. This early on in my career, I am thinking this is a flaw, so I'd like to know your thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of this series.

My thoughts are:

Pros:

*The pieces are catchy and fun to sing/play

*The duets are exciting

*It offers lots of different entry points depending on the capabilities of the new student i.e simple pieces using only black keys, more difficult pieces using black keys, simple pieces using only white keys and not reading notation on the staff, and then a very gentle introduction to the grand staff

*The very gradual introduction of new notes on the grand staff, starting with C, then C and G, then C, G and F for the first 6 songs on the grand staff. This is good in that the intervals are large while getting used to the idea that up on the stave = right on the piano and vice versa during the first pieces that don't have letters written inside the notes, and also time to memorise orientation points on the stave. Then moving into reading steps for 9 songs, then steps and skips for the rest of the book, with plenty of time to get used to reading these intervals.

*There is plenty of time to consolidate basic rhythm reading, with new note values being introduced very slowly. Much of the book uses only quarter notes, half notes, dotted half notes and whole notes, and rests aren't introduced until the very end of the book (p.60).

*The lyris to the songs match the rhythms of the pieces, and are sometimes quite funny!

*Unlike Bastien, right from the get-go the fingerings vary from piece to piece, so you don't end up with the misunderstanding that "G is always played by the 4th finger".

*The books themselves are very sturdy, and I am yet (I'm pretty sure?) to have the staples come out of a students book, or the cover fall off.

*It has it's fair share of catchy tunes that the kids already know, particularly at the beginning.

*The discovery points, which remind the teacher to reinforce or teach concepts.


Cons:

This is where, hopefully, you are going to help me. I'm sure there are plenty, but I haven't had enough experience yet to know what they are. Can you fill me in so I can compensate for them with other material or explanations to avoid misunderstandings/gaps/difficulties?

Maybe more bass clef reading??

I don't do all the teacher-student duets.

Well, this won't help you - it's another "pro" -- I find their website very helpful!

I haven't used the new Premiere course, but the old Alfred has the same problem. I've taken quite a few transfer students from a local "music school" that uses Alfred exclusively, and I got a bunch of students who are stuck in their C positions. And this association between letter name and finger number DOES NOT GO AWAY! I've had students who have been with me for three years now, who still occasionally end up with some illogical fingering, especially at cadences. To remedy this, I make the student write out all the finger numbers in their pieces.

I have the same problem. The number one principle I try to get across starting in the first month of lessons, with complete beginners, is that at any moment any finger of either hand may play any key on the piano.

The essential problem, I think, is that students need to be able to follow fingering exactly, because when they begin inventing their own, it leads to horrendous technical habits. However—and this to me is the ironic part—I believe much of my lightning-fast reading reflexes were developed from totally winging fingering. This lead me to some extremely advanced and excellent solutions to composers whose scores have no fingering at all provided, but it also lead to some incredibly sloppy fingering in Mozart and Bach, something that I had to slowly fix on my own even after being given excellent fingering principles by a first-rate teacher. My problem was that anything I learned BEFORE this excellent teacher had flawed fingering.

My solution is to alternate between absolute insistence on following my fingering and giving students total freedom to work out their own, even if it is not the best. I let them experiment on things I am reasonably sure they will never play when they become excellent players. If I am working on anything I think they are likely to play for a lifetime, I am very, very careful.

On an advanced level I always allow students to make choices, based on their hands, span, and so on, but I reserve the right to over-rule.

I haven't used the Premiere course, but I'm doing some workshops in three weeks where it is being covered, so I've spent some considerable time in the past two weeks going through the first books: this problem has been fixed - the hands are in a range of positions right from the start.

In regard to the OP: why are you looking for cons?? and, I think all of your pros could apply to a couple of other methods too!!

In response to the first two posters, both very valid points, thankyou!

I didn't know Bastien had sought to remedy the finger/note association problem. That's good. I started out teaching Bastien and that was my number one problem with it. Also, I had a parent complain that the pieces were "old fashioned", and I do definitely find that kids seem to enjoy their piano lessons a lot more since I switched to PA. This may also be that I am more jokey and relaxed since I have more experience.

Elissa: From the end of my long rambly post - "Can you fill me in so I can compensate for them with other material or explanations to avoid misunderstandings/gaps/difficulties?" Also, I have to discuss the pros and cons of a method book of my choice in a pedegogy class tomorrow, and especially since the teacher seems to have mistaken my giant enthusiasm/addiction for pedegogy with being a know-it-all, I don't want to go in with a giant list of pros and no cons as she would probably see this as me showing off that I could find the perfect method book, and I don't want to further fuel this bad impression that she has of me!

Firstly - the Premiere course is not from the Bastiens, it's the latest Alfred method book, so maybe the Bastien course still is guilty of the finger=note crime.... (it's a crime in my book, anyway).

Now .... a con to my way of thinking is the reliance of Piano Adventures (like most other method books) on a quite diatonic harmonic language, whereas children today experience mostly modal music (Mixolydian is more common than Major, Dorian more common than Harmonic or Natural Minor, and the Lydian mode is also in common currency, and that's without getting into the modes of other scale patterns). Piano Adventures do not have the most exciting accompaniments in this harmonic language sense.

Another con for me is how their lyrics don't always scan properly - drives me nuts when method books don't get this right.

And another con (in common with most method books) is that there is limited opportunity for students for creative engagement with their pieces - which is not to say that there are none, but many of the so-called creative exercises are hardly that ('play the pedal with the piece', for instance, or 'count 1-2-3 while you play the piece').

And another con (this will be enough to make your teacher happy now!): unless I'm mistaken, or they've updated the books since I got my copies, the method calls 'crotchets' 'quarter notes', and that drives me nuts! So that maybe is just a con for teachers who have this preference...... And maybe they've published a 'crotchets-minims-semibreves' edition so this isn't a con at all!

Hope this helps! I've just been comparing all the methods myself (material for a website), so I was intrigued by your post!!

FYI, Alfred Premiere was authored by Dennis Alexander, Gayle Kowalchyk, E. L. Lancaster, Victoria McArthur, and Martha Mier. (Alexander and Mier wrote most of the music.)

The original Alfred Piano Course was authored by Morton Manus, Willard Palmer, and Amanda Vick Lethco.

As for Piano Adventures, you missed a couple of pros:

1) They have the best teacher support of any method in the US. www.pianoadventures.com has teachers' guides, videos, and an active forum.

2) The original authors are still very much involved. The Fabers actively promote their own method - they do workshops, communicate with teachers, and continue to write and publish supplementary material.

As for cons, I can only think of two:

1) I find the theory books too short. The theory books are very good, but there's not a lot of reinforcement so I usually end up supplementing with something else.

2) There could be more intervallic reading. The interval introduction sequence is solid and well thought-out, but there could be more reading work. (This was remedied in part by Stephen Covello's "Step, Skip and Repeat" books.)

http://www.fjhmusic.com/piano/stepskip.htm

Kriesler - I mentioned the website in my first post. I like it a lot.

I am about to start using Alfred Premier with one student (whose twin I will keep in PA). I've played through all the Premier level one books, and charted which things are taught when, compared with PA. things are taught in a slightly different order, so it is going to make using the PA supplemental material a little harder - but not a huge obstacle. In general, the two methods are quite similar. I love Martha Mier, so I was happy to see her included.

I would say a con of using any method exclusively (as I am guilty of) is that I get a little tired of the music, and a little lazy. I am looking forward to this experiment with Premier. The Premier series comes with CDs, too.

I'm not a teacher, just an adult beginner. But I've gone through the PA Adult series book 1&2, and I've also used the PA Basic through the first couple of levels (all the books) before I switched to the PA Adult series, then all the performance books up to level 5 when I finished the PA Adult series and wanted to go back do all the performance pieces from the PA Basic series.

The one con I see is that some of the musical pieces used seem to be "made-up" to reinforce the points of the lessons (mostly in the lower level books). Which is fine if they can't find anything else in the real world I guess. But those "made-up" pieces (if they are indeed made-up) sound pretty lame and silly. I remember being turned off and skipping through them because I got no inspiration from playing them.

Just from an adult student point of view.

Personally, and I'm sure this is just me - this series drives me crazy because of all the corresponding pages in each different book you're supposed to use. I don't like skipping around in books trying to find pages to go with the lesson I'm trying to teach. I know it's not the only book to do that though, but it seems to do it in a confusing way to me. It's probably a user problem. :-D

I prefer something a little all inclusive and I always try to move students on to primer level repertoire, theory book and scales asap. For the very young ones I use a different method book.

I've had quite a handful of transfer students come to me using PA. I've continued using their PA until I can't stand it anymore, then I transition quickly to the repertoire.

What level do you start using rep, Sparkler? I actually like the way the books reinforce each other. For the more capable student, having all the books reinforce the same item at the same time seems to help it sink in. For students who are moving a bit more slowly, I can assign the lesson piece one week, and the performance piece a couple weeks later, and have the same concept in front of the student for a longer period of time without the student feeling like he's spending too long on anything.

However, my most advanced students are only at the 2B level and only beginning to be able to handle traditional rep., so I may not be where you are.

@Volusiano - I do know what you mean, but I want to point out that ALL music is "made up". But yes, it is chosen specifically to reinforce a concept being introduced. I only have one adult student, but she seems to like the Faber adult series. However, along with the lesson book, I use a book of easy classics, a scale book, a Dozen a Day, and another "performance" type book of Adult-geared solos. She is playing for fun. The other books allow her to learn pieces she knows. The Faber book allows her to see regular progress.

Lollipop, what you're saying makes sense to my head, but I guess something in me feels like I need to keep all 3-4 books around the same pace and when I fall behind in one it drives me crazy and I feel disorganized. :-D

I have students in the range of complete beginner to college level (as in, thinking about majoring in piano in college.) So, quite a hodge podge.

Ha ha, you got me there, Lollipop! Very true that all music is "made up" . But it looks like you know what I meant anyway.

Just to clarify, I was talking about musical pieces that don't sound popular/familiar or mainstream. When you first hear it, you'd be asking yourself like "Did they just make up this piece to fit the concept in because they can't find something already available/popular that covers the concept?"

But it's really just nitpicking here because there are not too many of these weird pieces, and only at the first few lower levels anyway.

I wonder if another reason the publisher/author prefer multiple books like this, beside pedagogy reasons, is also so they can make more money by selling more books. For example, the PA Adult series all in one books sell for $18 for level 1 & 2. Meanwhile, if you get the minimum 4 books for the PA Basic series at $7 per book for each level, it'd cost you $28 total for the 4 books per level. I agree that there's more content in the Basic, and the Adult only has 2 levels while Basic has 7 levels. But the point is if they can organize the flow in the Adult series as "all-in-one" like that, they should be able to do the same for the Basic level if they want to.

Do you stress these names with your own students?

When you say Mixolydian in terms of at least "popular music", another term I don't really like but perhaps we are stuck with, I immediately think of blues. For Dorian, I immediately think of jazz improv, with a minor feel, and for Lydian "fantasy" sounds, so common from composers such as John Williams (and many others). For instance, ending with something like CDEF#G, rather high, quick light run, is so typical of this sort of thing.

Some students need more material, some need less. I prefer to have more material available for the students who need it. I use the Lesson Book, primarily. Depending on the student, I will use the Technique and Artistry book or the Performance Book. If the student needs more of a challenge, I'll substitute the Gold Star book for the Performance book. I've pretty much given up on the theory books. I don't find them that useful. I use something else.

I don't stress these names with the very young students when they are first starting out, but as it becomes appropriate (due to the particular musical experiences the student is having) we use the correct term to describe the tonal language.

Most kids can handle really big words much earlier than we give them credit for. And when we don't give them the language to describe their experiences they begin to discredit those differences for which they have no words. And 'Mixolydian' is no more difficult than 'hippopotamus', and no one shies away from talking about a hippopotamus with a toddler.

Hahaha, thanks for all the cons Elissa, tops! What did you mean by lyrics don't scan properly? Do you mean when photocopying? Because I doubt the publishers are too concerned about that :P

Ah, yes, the lack of education in poesy in schools in the second half of the 20th century now bears its fruit: 'scan' has another meaning besides the technology-specific notion of collecting visual data for reproduction! The term 'scan' refers to the way words flow in a rhythm in a poem or lyric. This has been less important in much 20th century poetry as the rhythmic pattern has been less predictable than in, say, a sonnet, or, more commonly known and understood, a limerick. But when music is attached to a lyric it is terribly important that the accented syllables occur on the first not second beats of the bar!! And Piano Adventures quite often just bungs in words any old how, irrespective of whether the word accent matches the music accent. This is a crime against good song-writing, good word-setting and good poetry. A definite 'con'!!!

Are you doing the course with Gemma Carey? She and I sat down to talk about what she does with her students back in 2007, but we got interrupted and the conversation has not yet resumed!! But she did tell me about this method book review, and I thought it was a brilliant idea - really makes you look at the things you take for granted....

I haven't run across the problem of the lyrics not fitting the rhythm. Can you give me an example?

I don't use the lyrics very often. They came up recently with one student when she was questioning how the repeats worked in a particular song. Occasionally I need to teach students how to read one line of a verse at a time. Or a particular student might just enjoy them. Otherwise, I tend to ignore them.

I wonder if there might be something lost in translation - from American accent to Aussie?

I like the division of the 4 books, because I can also use what I need on an individual basis. I've found it helpful to introduce the books like a sport. I tell them that the Lesson book is like baseball practice, where they learn how to play. The Technique book is exercises to help them play better, like batting practice. The Theory book is like the rule book, and the Performance book is "Game Time." Youth sports are really big around here, and it's rare that I get a child who hasn't been involved. Words like theory or techniqe are new to them, and this analogy helps them.

Yes! Small world, I am indeed doing the course with Gemma Carey. You know my favourite thing that she has taught us in the 5 classes we've had so far? That if you tell a kid that the white keys are the piano's teeth, then put down the lid and get them to stand a couple of metres behind the piano, you can lift the lid a few centremetres and say "see that? the pianos smiling!".

Ha but no she is very good at what she does, and obviously loves what she does. She gets us to start 10 minutes before we're officially meant to and every week clearly wants to go on for a lot longer than the allocated time and tries to, until she gets booted out by someone from the next class who need the room.

I'm pretty set on Piano Adventures for now, but it was fun laughing at some of the really terrible methods that are out there, and I took a quick squiz at a Russian method book that was TERRIFYING.

Have you finished the comparison of the methods yet? If yes could we please have a link? I'd be interested in reading it.

Well, it's not such a small world as a very niche profession! We (Gemma and I) were both at the Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference in Canberra (2007) when we had that start to our conversation......

I'm not specifically comparing methods - I'm creating a document to go on the P Plate Piano website (www.pplatepiano.com.au) to help teachers know how the concepts of any of the traditional methods fit into the sequencing of skills and ideas in P Plate Piano, so there is an implicit comparison, but only as regards the specific issues arising out of the P Plate Piano books (and I assume teachers will be most interested in the first two books and how they connect to methods books 1-3).

Meantime: some examples of lyrics not scanning..... Well, I don't have time to trawl through these books for multiple examples, but here's one I remember coming across on the weekend: Primer Level Lesson Book, p.35, Best Friends. There are four beats in a bar and the rhythm for the first 4 bars is crotchet crotchet minim, crotchet crotchet minim, crotchet crotchet crotchet crotchet, crotchet crotchet minim. The lyric is: C and G, best of friends, their friendship will never end.

Now the accents of the language, even in that strange suite of dialects spoken in North America, do NOT put an emphasis on 'ship'! And yet the word-setting in this piece does. That's irritating, if you notice and care about word-setting. A good setting of that lyric would have been: crotchet crotchet minim, crotchet crotchet crotchet crotchet, crotchet minim crotchet, crotchet crotchet minim, but of course, the lyric is composed after the music, ostensibly to 'fit' the music!!!!! Students sitting theory exams would be penalised for this kind of incompetence!!!

And maybe this one example is the ONLY example in the whole series - but I suspect if they let one through there will be more examples throughout.....