Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Why do some people view old piano methods negatively?

Well as a beginner, in my first month of piano learning I basically browsed through this site, Amazon, and asked about methods that people use. By now, still a beginning student, I can say I am relatively familiar with the array of piano method books available in north america at least. I know people learn differently and no method can be all encompassing to give you a taste of everything. It is actually encouraged by many teachers on this site to go through various books cherry picking and get a well rounded learning experience.

Long story short, after 2 months of so called playing the piano I have a bookshelf dedicated to my piano books. From John Thompson, Piano Adventures, Leila Fletcher, and hal Leonard, and the infamous All in One!. Don't worry, I wont lose focus. I work with only one book as the main one and when I get tired I play one or two songs from the other book.


One could say I am an interested student and well I am! I have however ripped all the CD's that came with those books into my IPOD and listen to them at school work and bus. What I see is a not of old and new methods are very similar than different. Very similar. However,....


I have on many instances heard people say "this method is anciant", "So and So method is Light years a head of the So and So method"...and other comments. Specifically, I have seen some people cringe when I say that I learn from John Thompson...well if the beginner music is similar and ...what makes newer methods superior?

I fully agree that in the last 60-70 years there has been a lot of advancement and progress in piano pedagogy, and newer books embody that progress. For example, not being a middle C method, and intervallic reading...which I still don't know what they are...LOL


What I am saying is just by being an older method does not make it an inferior method...if fact a lot of teachers have learned from those older ones...


Best wishes, and thank you for your comments...

1. Most piano teachers find a published method they like and stick with it. Maybe two methods at most. No harm in this, but we're not as broad-minded as you are.

2. Each piano method arrives on the market with great publishing fanfare, because it has been expensive to produce, taken many years of writing and test-marketing, and has the potential to make the authors and the publishers a pile of money. This publishing fanfare tends to include a subtle slagging of past piano methods.

Correction: a lot of teachers have learned in spite of those older ones!

As a beginner, what do you base your assessment on? Do you think that first-semester Calculus students are equipped to criticize Calculus textbooks?

Peter, I don't think this has anything to do with being broad-minded. My problems with John Thompson have to do with weaknesses in the method itself, and I'm sure most people would agree. There are way too many finger numbers. The materials are not well graded - big jumps in difficult. There are holes in the logic.

Every student who has come to me using only the Thompson method has read very poorly. That does not negate the possibility that there are good things in the method, or that we can't learn something from it. Nor does it assume that newer, more popular methods are perfect.

But I do believe that music instruction has improved. All these methods are just a means to an end, right? The goal is to get good enough to play music that is NOT in method books...

Gary D., I have read your post, here:

Originally Posted By: Peter K. Mose
1. Most piano teachers find a published method they like and stick with it. Maybe two methods at most. No harm in this, but we're not as broad-minded as you are.

Peter, I don't think this has anything to do with being broad-minded. My problems with John Thompson have to do with weaknesses in the method itself, and I'm sure most people would agree. There are way too many finger numbers. The materials are not well graded - big jumps in difficult. There are holes in the logic.

Every student who has come to me using only the Thompson method has read very poorly. That does not negate the possibility that there are good things in the method, or that we can't learn something from it. Nor does it assume that newer, more popular methods are perfect.

But I do believe that music instruction has improved. All these methods are just a means to an end, right? The goal is to get good enough to play music that is NOT in method books...

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It may not be, for me, appropriate to comment in a teacher's forum

......My problems with John Thompson have to do with weaknesses in the method itself, and I'm sure most people would agree. There are way too many finger numbers. The materials are not well graded - big jumps in difficult. There are holes in the logic.

Every student who has come to me using only the Thompson method has read very poorly. That does not negate the possibility that there are good things in the method, or that we can't learn something from it. Nor does it assume that newer, more popular methods are perfect.

But I do believe that music instruction has improved....."

Yes, there are too many fingering numbers but they can be ignored by looking at the musical notes and not the numbers specifically. Yes, the pieces are challenging - but not too challenging. As a beginner I don't know what the holes in the logic are. I wish I knew what any of the logic holes were.

When you say that...Every student who has come to me using only the Thompson method has read very poorly. I am sad to hear that because if I learned anything - it was learning to read the music measure by measure. The thing that I don't understand is how could anyone not know the names of the notes and how could anyone not look at their hands in spite of it being printed in red in every method book where it says read and say the note names as you play them. Don't look at your finger/hands but look at your music.

.....But I do believe that music instruction has improved.....

I would humble request of any, absolutely, any music instruction that is/has been improve and I will anxiously purchase it at any price at my local music store - to learn what is improved and learn from what is available.

My goal is to learn classical music and at page 43 of Book 1 of John Thompson Air from Mozart is the first piece that I have encountered as classical - in book 2 - excitedly - almost every piece in the John Thompson books are full of classical pieces or extracts but I did not find that so, extensively - in any other method series - tell me and I will buy the books immediately.

politely and respectfully yours,

If you are reading everything on the page and following the instructions, you are a most unusual student!

Michael, there are plenty of good educational reasons why piano teachers as a community have long since moved on from John Thompson. Gary has listed some.

But you are also right that John Thompson materials gets the student into real music - folk and classical - quickly, and to me that's a notable strength we teachers tend to forget. These books can work very well as early-level repertoire books for adult learners and relearners. For my end-of-season student recital tomorrow night I have a fellow who is performing two classical selections out of a JT book he first used when he was a kid back in the 1940s.

Piano Town introduces its first classical piece, Bach's Minuet in G, on page 40 of its Primer Performance Book (that's preparatory to Book 1). Gotcha.

And so what? I would use Piano Town or any of the Alfred series over John Thompson any day of the week, for very good reasons. We've had decades to dissect Thompson's work and avoid/overcome the weaknesses. And as pointed out above, as a beginning student, you'd not be expected to recognize Thompson's short-comings.

pianolover85, you might find it useful to compare the different method books for what skills they teach, in which order. Also how much reinforcement is available for a particular skill. Rather than comparing them on pieces taught. This may suggest to you reasons why a teacher might prefer one series over another. Also sometimes teachers use different series for different students, depending on that student's strengths and weaknesses.

If you want to see a really old method, look at Muzio Clementi's Art of Playing the Pianoforte, published in 1801. Think about the skills and knowledge needed to play the very first pieces (page 20 in Segment 1). Modern methods teach those skills more progressively, with more reinforcement of each skill before moving on. Of course, we don't know how 19th century teachers actually used Clementi's method: how much extra explanation and exercises did they offer that aren't in the printed pages?

As students, we don't always have the perspective to evaluate all the reasons that might cause a teacher to prefer one method over another. I really appreciate it when teachers explain these things. I've also picked up some information from reading the (entire) archives of this Teachers' Forum.

Someone above mentioned calculus textbooks. One of the venerable old textbooks is Thomas. In high school, I found it in my school's math center and absolutely loved working through word problems from it. I thought it was a beautiful and exciting book. But our calculus classes used a different text. I'm not sure why the teachers didn't use Thomas, but I'm sure they had good reasons based on their experience teaching calculus. That doesn't mean it wasn't an excellent supplement for me, even though it might not have worked for others in my class.

I like learning about these reasons though, and pedagogical approaches, for several reasons. I think I'm just curious about pedagogy in general, in any field. My pipe dream is to be a piano teacher (I know, I'm a loooooooong way from that being in any way a possibility for me). As a student, I like understanding the "why" of what I'm doing, rather than just learning pieces.

Ouch!! But how true.

You may think it goes without saying, but I recommend you be explicit:

"My pipedream is to be a good piano teacher."

John v.d Brooks and Peter K. Mose, thank you for responding with helpful information.

Oh, my goodness, yes.

Wow! This fellow is older than my parents!

I must admit that a few tunes from JT have been stuck in my head (such as his reduction of the Habanera from Carmen), but since my teacher used it as a supplement, I already read notes fluently and I actually ignored all the fingerings in JT.

The biggest problem, IMHO, is that JT assumes all kids to be prodigies, and the pacing is completely unrealistic. It also predates intervallic reading.

As for "classical" tunes, JT does a slightly better job than Schaum, but why would you want to play a fake/watered-down/simplified version of a classic? JT had a simplified Chopin Prelude in A Major. I remember struggling with it for weeks and hating it. Then when I got to the real version, I hated it even more. But what struck me the most was that JT never made it clear that he was simplifying the music!

The more recent methods also contain simplified versions of classics, but the authors have clearly stated that these versions were arranged and, in some cases, updated to a more modern idiom in a clever composition.

Well, from a parent perspective, I don't see the benefit and actually am struggling with the old "folksy" repertoire of one of the old methods, John Thompson Easiest Piano Course. I am going to have to tell my son's teacher, who grew up in Siberia and would have no reason to know, that he won't be performing 2 of the pieces in the book because they are just too racist for us to have to sit down and practice every day for a week or more. I will ask for substitute material that conveys the same concepts. There are other songs that I suspect are at best really irrelevant, but are below my outrage threshold.

Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_Me_Back_to_Old_Virginny

The Cotton Picker (I don't know the lyrics to this one but the title alone is just, ugh...)

If you've had any of your Black students abruptly leave after being assigned these Black Minstrel "folk songs," now you know why! Be careful with dated material, it will reflect the values of the period it was written.

missmommypiano, I have read your post, here:

Well, from a parent perspective, I don't see the benefit and actually am struggling with the old "folksy" repertoire of one of the old methods, John Thompson Easiest Piano Course. I am going to have to tell my son's teacher, who grew up in Siberia and would have no reason to know, that he won't be performing 2 of the pieces in the book because they are just too racist for us to have to sit down and practice every day for a week or more. I will ask for substitute material that conveys the same concepts. There are other songs that I suspect are at best really irrelevant, but are below my outrage threshold.

Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_Me_Back_to_Old_Virginny

The Cotton Picker (I don't know the lyrics to this one but the title alone is just, ugh...)

If you've had any of your Black students abruptly leave after being assigned these Black Minstrel "folk songs," now you know why! Be careful with dated material, it will reflect the values of the period it was written.

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Well, in Canada, most of the modern method books are very _very expensive but JT with all its issues is 78 pages of music or 50 pieces of music for only 8.00 and tax so a very, very good price and there is nothing remotely similar in Canada - and if you know of a similar method book, please tell me and I will look for it.

Considering it was written in the 1940s, and considering the price, it would be appropriate in all of the circumstances to politely rip those pieces out of the books that are inappropriate.

But remember lots of Bibles are sold today that speak of stoning people and those pages have yet to be removed from the books. _______________

Supposing that there are problems with that book. Supposing that a teacher has to undo those problems. Figuring the hourly rate of teachers, then your cheap $8.00 book becomes an expensive option.

Yup...

I tried to make that point long ago. There are things here and there that are good and that are not in any other book. The problem is that you have to buy a whole book to get one or two things that are good and that are not in other books.

I think it is just plain bad logic. I do not believe that the most talented kids in the world develop better with too little material jumping too fast. Far better to have books that have too MUCH material on the same level, because then you can safely jump.

I believe I know exactly what you are talking about, and if I remember correctly, it is in the right key and retains the correct chords but zaps out notes here and there. NOT good.

Also, lets keep in mind that doing an arrangement of something from Carmen and slicing and dicing a composition written for piano are not the same things. And it is very important for a student to know when things are simplified, why, and by whom.

Michael, this simply isn't true. I did a quick ebay and amazon search (Canada engines) and found the prices to be identical to the USA, only adjusted for the exchange rate. I only looked at Piano Town, as that is my method of choice, but it's not expensive at all SEE HERE.