Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Searching U Iowa Piano Pedagogy Videos?

If you aren't familiar with this wonderful series of recordings of repertory staples from the U of Iowa piano faculty, you should be. The project aims to post YouTube videos of all pieces from the standard piano rep, and thousands are up now under the UIPianoPed label.

My current problem is that there are so many videos up now that I'm having trouble finding some that I suspect are there. YouTube's search function doesn't help much. It's easy to get a list of all the titles, but there appears to be no organization to the list -- so it's like entering a library where all the books are arranged according to size.

It's probably right there and I'm just missing it, but does anyone know of a catalog of the UIPianoPed works that organizes the recordings in some logical way and allows easy access to whatever has been posted?

Thanks!

I'd be interested in this too. I've seen some of the videos, but there doesn't seem to be a text listing of them anywhere.

The videos seem to be organized in playlists by levels, e.g. Level C1, Level B2. Are these levels unique to the U of Iowa? If so, what do they mean?

They've included LOTS of pieces/videos at each level. If you access the playlist for a level, you get all the videos in that level. Too many to search or browse.

I'd find these videos very helpful if I could access them readily.

I don't know if there is a catalog, but I'd use Youtube's search keywords within the channel search.

From https://www.youtube.com/user/UIPianoPed/featured, click the search icon, to the right of the "About" word.

Then to search for a specific word or phrase in a title, type "intitle:XYZ", without a space after the ":".

For example, "intitle:Burgmuller".

I think Carlos is on the right track. But Jason Sifford - one of the two people attempting to record this overwhelming body of 9000 piano pieces - is our very own moderator, who goes by the name Kreisler. Maybe he'll show up to explain more.

When I heard him talk about this project last month at the MTNA convention in Chicago, he and his partner in crime Alan Huckleberry explained that the Iowa Music Teacher Assn. syllabus was behind the organizing and levelling (though I have trouble imagining a syllabus of 9,000 pieces!).

It's an amazingly valuable resource; I've very grateful that they have undertaken it!

I think Carlos' approach works when you know what you're looking for. For example, you're looking for a particular piece or all the pieces by a particular composer.

I'd be interested in a catalog that would help me browse when I'm not sure what I'm looking for.

For example, if I think my skill is at about Iowa's level C2, I'd like to be able to "shop" for a piece at that level to work on as my next project. I'd like to see a simple text listing of all the C2 pieces, and then pick a few videos to watch.

Currently, I can see all the videos (previews) at a particular level. Some levels only, though. That info seems to be stored outside of YouTube. Trouble is, it takes forever to load and you have to page through it.

For example, here's the link I have to the C2 playlist, which has 211 videos:

http://shelf3d.com/Search/IMTA%2BLevel%2BC2%2BPlayListIDPLB17AF034189C4569

I confess I don't know how I stumbled onto that link.

You can see it starts with a bunch of pieces by Ferdinand Beyer, a composer I had never heard of. (My bad!) So browsing would expose me to more pieces than would searching for a specific piece/composer.

Carlos is right - you have to use the channel search feature. Go to the channel at youtube.com/uipianoped and click on the little magnifying glass.

To bring up a level playlist, search for "imta level" - you'll get several playlists by level.

FYI - the Iowa Leveling is roughly as follows:

Level A - Elementary-Late Elementary (RCM 1)
Level B - Late Elementary-Early Intermediate (RCM 2-3)
Level C - Intermediate (RCM 3-4)
Level D - Late Intermediate-Early Advanced (RCM 5-8)

(This is all off the top of my head, I'm sure there's plenty of room for argument since there are great differences in what one considers "Elementary", etc...)

Within the levels, the number designations are chronological. B1 is early (baroque), B2 is Classical/Romantic, and B3 is modern/contemporary. This is on a piece by piece basis, so a modern composer writing in a romantic style (like Rollin or Rocherolle) might be listed in D2, while their more modern works would be listed in D3.

I'll check back later today to answer any other questions people might have.

Thanks for watching, all!

I tried this, and it worked great! Thanks very much for the search info, and for explaining the level designations.

Just posting another Thank YOU for this amazing resource! It has helped my students so much!

Thank you so much!!! I use it since, I think, almost one year now. Great work!