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I have seen lots of recommendations on the forums for music by classical composers, such as Beethoven, Bach, etc. But I haven't seen much discussion of music by teaching composers, meaning living composers who write educational piano music apart from method books. Some examples would be Dennis Alexander, Melody Bober, William Gillock, etc.

So, teachers: do you use books by teaching composers with your students, or do you stick to the classics? Any favorite books or composers you enjoy teaching?

My students and I enjoy Melody Bober and Christopher Goldston, just to name these 2 right off hand. I use Goldston's Fantastic Fingers series for some students, which contain fun solos. Oh, and Nancy Faber, of course!

some favorite pieces:
Circus Tumblers by Goldston
Night Train by Goldston
Turbocharged by Goldston

Faber:
Home Run Harry
They'll be Back
There's nothing like a circus
(really all of Nancy's sheet music is good)

Bober:
all time favorite is March of the Clones but there are many others....

It's All Good!

Pretty sure William Gillock passed away a long time ago.

But to answer the question: I use a lot of music from living composers in my teaching. Melody Bober, Martha Mier, Martin Kutnowski, Andrey Komanetsky, Carolyn Miller, Nancy Telfer, Christopher Norton, Christos Tsitsaros are some that come to mind that my students have worked on recently.

You mean "Living Composers" right?
I am a fans of living composers, I wish I can meet them all in person.
Started from Nancy Faber of course because I am fans of Piano Adventure Series, then Dennis Alexander, Christopher Norton, Melody Bober, Martha Mier, Christopher Goldston are my favorites!
Last month I had Christopher Norton visit my studio and I was able to get to know him in person, my husband and I both so excited...
I think piano teachers should support living composers as general!!

My students like Timothy Brown's works. A lot.

Lowell Liebermann wrote an excellent Album for the Young. I wish he would write more easy stuff, because most of his piano works are super difficult.

Emma Lou Diemer wrote some atonal works that are actually quite accessible.

Well... *ahem*.... there's my 'sketch music'.

But it's time for a little rant, if I may.

I took part in a small convention about musicians and music (in general) in Athens. One of the discussions was about teaching composition to little kids, by piano teachers. Ok, I see the point in all, but a piano teacher isn't exactly equipped to teach composition is (s)he?

In fact I would venture a bit too far and say that some recent piano educational works by living composers are... not interesting from a compositional point of view! Fabber, Hal Leonard, etc. It's all filled with 'redoings' of classical works, or easy tunes the children know.

This bothers me to the very core of who I am: Are we dumbing down our kids with that? Why not teach something outside this style and very strict style of music? Of course this applies mostly to method books that I've seen, because I've not seen much else (being in Greece and all), so I could be wrong with that...

But really, I think that it's a very rare show to grab a good piano teacher that's also a good composer... :-/

I agree about dumbed down classical works. I don't use those. I think those things have always been around, however. Probably nothing new.

As for piano teachers teaching composition, well there's another whole thread I'd happily participate in. I do teach my students some composition. Is a piano teacher equiped to teach composition? Probably more than any other teacher/person in the student's life. So if we don't do it, who will?

In a sense to troll a bit: Using the same idea I could say that a composer could teach piano (or even more the violin), since the's more equipped than any other teacher/person in the student's life!

To make things clear: I do think that creativity comes in many forms and in all honesty I do think that any piano teacher could teach the idea of creativity, form, etc. So for younger students 'doodling' (without meaning anything wrong with the word) with composition I'm very much in favour!

But if things get to a deeper path, then... :-/

Too tired to contribute. Nikolas, I share your concerns.

But I would also like to mention, briefly, that many composers do not know SPIT about how to compose for children or people who are not already superb players. I've mentioned Bartok's "music for children" before. Wonderful music, but you really have to be a fine player to do them justice.

To be dedicated to teaching - not just writing material for students without actually being in the trenches, truly teaching, day after day, year after year, is a kind of dabbling.

Yet being a fine teacher in other ways but being put in the position of having to teach composition is not going to work either.

So we are back to the problem of finding someone who is a fine teacher and also extremely creative.

And that is a RARE thing.

You know what Kabalevsky said about writing music for children...

Seriously, I could write better stuff than some of these pedagogical compositions. In the literary world, the best analogy I can draw is "slick fiction" or "genre fiction" (or even "fan fiction") aimed at profit and not art. It's the difference between _To Kill a Mockingbird_ and _Twilight_.

I don't want to offend any living composers by naming names, but I know there are several composers whose works I would not touch with a ten-foot pole.

Gary: Very much so, and I've said the same thing. You need to be both in order to compose for kids... I'm not entirely sure I fit the bill, myself, but I'm trying really hard to be creative (at least! :P).

AZN: Yup! I also know composers, of very big range, and with extremely difficult works, not only for educational material, whose works I do not enjoy AT ALL! :-/ It's the nature of the beast I think...

Thank you everyone for your comments. There seems to be a big divide between "art music" by living composers and "educational music." I agree that there is a wide range of quality in music for elementary to intermediate level students.

I also feel like there is a divide between current music that is in a contemporary style and that which is not. Like current music that is diatonic can't possibly be "art music" because it is not modern enough. What makes a piece of educational music (meaning intermediate level or lower) transcend to "art music" status? Is that even possible?

There's a division between academia and 'real life music'. Academia tries to push the envelope (since it has to stay in touch with current trends), while 'real life music' escapes such issues...

I think both are useful, but I'd like to think that not all diatonic music can't be "art music", since quite a bit of my music is quasi-diatonic, and as such I'd like to think of it as art!

The balance that me, Gary and AZN talk about it revolves around the ability to compose some unique and interesting music, while at the same time sticking to the same educational material that you have to teach: I mean you HAVE to teach about arpegges in the left hand (for example). There's already tons of etudes for that, so how do you go about it?

And we need to remember that what we're talking about here goes up to level 5 (to whatever grading system really, since all go up to 8-10-12 or something). So midways. After that there's such a wealth of material (thank gawd for that) that you don't need any more method books and the students' and teachers' choice is vast! You can dive in to Prokofiev, Bartok, Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, even some Schnittke, etc... There's still lots to learn, but if you can play some Prokofiev, or Shostakovich (ok a stretch here... I don't know many easy works from Shostakovich for piano, while I do know a few from Prokofiev) then you can play many other things...

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so the question is: How to make interesting music, for people who actually don't play the piano well. for those who have 2 years of experience or so... And not only do that, but find ways to teach them what needs to be taught next!!!!

And here lies the problem:

I was taking a look at the grading systems of a couple of global organizations... CM, ABSRM, etc... even in sheetmusicplus.com! Each one has a description of what they mean in each case. And NONE was covering any ground from what I have in my own works and in my mind. So if the teacher is not required to teach it according to the curriculum, then any educational works I put out are... useless! (reply: true or false?)

Yes, it is a catch-22. If you write something too "derivative" for lack of a better word, it doesn't have anything new to say that hasn't already been said many times. However, if you write something too "new," it faces the challenge of not finding an audience because it is too challenging to the ears of the students, and many teachers don't know how to teach it!

I would say contemporary teaching pieces are certainly not useless! It will just take time for the grading systems to catch up to the techniques in contemporary music. Give it 50 years!

I'll be 85 in 50 years... Can we make it 5 years please?

Really though... I will update you all about this soon. I hope to have EMF stuff reviewed by Trinity college and ABRSM for their curriculum, which is going to be... fun! hehe!

I think part of the problem is educating the teachers. Teachers tend to be "safe" creatures who prefer to do the same things, pull the same routine, for the next 50 years.

That's why, year after year, when I go evaluating CM, the following things happen:

1) For levels 3-5, in which students can omit one historical period, most students end up omitting the 20th Century. Most teachers loathe modern music to begin with, so if they can omit a period, Contemporary it is!

2) If students don't omit 20th Century, they will most likely be playing Kabalevsky, and, more specifically, "The Clown" from Op. 39 and "Toccatina" from Op. 27. I have the problem spots in those two pieces memorized by measure numbers.

3) For levels 6-7, where all four periods are required, the usual suspects for 20th Century are "Dance" and "Toccata" from Kabalevsky's Op. 60.

4) For good measure: if students go beyond level 8, then they'll most definitely be playing Kabalevsky's A-minor Prelude from Op. 38.


Kabalevsky seems to have the imagination of the piano teachers cornered.

I have been guilty of falling into the trap of teaching the pieces I know and am comfortable with. I have been trying to assign my students pieces I have never taught before, just to keep it interesting for all of us.

My local piano teachers organization has a wonderful festival each year where students are adjudicated on two pieces, one of which must be by a current American composer. The festival list is updated every other year with fresh music. It has really helped to push me to try new pieces that I would not have otherwise been aware of!

AZN: Kabalevsky is even more tonal than Prokofiev (for example) and Prokofiev has been called the 'enfant terrible of Russia' when he was young, so...

But, personally (as a composer more than a piano teacher), I feel bored very often with what I have to teach and I continuously try to come up with new works to teach my students. My own pieces, or from other composers it doesn't make a difference!

There is also the idea of the entertainment mentality. Many teachers seem to think that students will stick with piano only if the music is "fun."

This is where the main problem is -- we limit ourselves to fun and forget about true personal expression. For instance, I get really tired of people labeling major "happy" and minor "sad." The human experience is so much more than that.

What about grief, anger, joy, excitement, humor, serene? Are our vocabularies so limited?

I think we need to help students recognize a much larger world of expression and help them learn how music can help them express themselves on many different levels.

I understand that for being musically expressive. But how would you go about teaching both major and minor keys and major and minor chords, if you want the difference to be heard rather than just intellectualized? (You can have in intellectual understanding that minor chords have m3 and major chords have M3 in the middle in root position.) How much is hearing a part of piano teaching, period? It isn't something I would have asked before coming into piano forums.