Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Anyone heard of/use the Simply Music curricula?

There hasn't been new wine in quite a while, but there are always new combinations.

Simply Music, like MFYC, Edwin Gordon's approach, Kindermusik, and other "alternatives" to traditional instruction all borrow heavily from practices that have been fairly common in general music curricula for awhile. They owe a strong debt to Orff/Schulwerk, Kodaly, Suzuki, and Dalcroze.

They can be very effective, though. But as always, their effectiveness ultimately lies in the hands of the teacher.

Most people sign up for piano lessons in order to learn how to play the piano. So it's simple. Most people are done with lessons when they can play the piano! That's the simple answer. OF COURSE - everyone has different goals as pertains to the piano!

Playing the piano in its basics is a set of specific skills that a person wants to acquire - just like carpentry, science, landscaping. I know and teach all of the specific skills that are involved in playing the piano. The student has to learn the techniques and skills specific to that field in order to be a piano player, or a carpenter etc.
The rest is basically up to the student. The carpenter who spends a lot of time time time "practicing" begins to develop his own flair and ability - his work becomes recognizable as something set apart and he doesn't need a teacher anymore.

In Simply Music, every skill involved in playing the piano, reading music, writing music, improvising, transposing, composing, reading chord symbols- is taught. It doesn't have to be taught and retaught for years. My level 4 students are already able to read all the major and minor chord symbols, plus split chords, suspended, and are beginning the process of learning how to transpose a song into any key. From there - it's up to them. By level 6 they're well into the reading program and by level 7 they've learned the basics of comp/improv and are delving much deeper into the process.

If a student wants to become a fluent sight reader - that's up to him. The only way for that to happen is to read and play a zillion pieces of music regularly and often If a student wants to be in a rock band - they'll know what they need to know after 10 or so years of lessons, but being good at it is up to them, as is finding opportunities to get into the band scene. If a student wants to be a piano teacher, they're ready any time they want to. If a student wants to be George Winston, they'll be ready after 10 or so years of lessons, but obviously - they have to do all the homework. If a student wants to go to Carnegie Hall, after 12 or so years of SM lessons - they're better prepared than most, if not all of their peers going into the piano performance field in college.

Why do people believe that if they want to be good - they'll have to take lessons indefinitely? Because when their playing ability is determined by their reading ability, they CAN'T make any kind of decent progress and it drags on indefinitely. Are you going to insist that a child learns to read before he can speak? Of course not! So why teach the language of music backwards, with reading coming before playing?

We wouldn't tolerate a math teacher whose students don't know how to add. We wouldn't tolerate for long a reading teacher whose students can't read.

People don't pay me to teach piano if they're not going to "get there". I don't want them to be dependent on me any more than is necessary.

What Simply Music does that no other method on the face of the planet does is this...we teach every student how to express himself musically, in a way that is individual and unique. You will never be stuck with the songs that have already been written unless you want to be, and then you'll be able to absorb that music right down to the bone and make it yours, leaving the printed page in the bench. A comparison might be learning a new language, let's say Vietnamese. If I, the language teacher, teach you how to fluently read and say phrases in Vietnamese, does that mean I've taught you to speak Vietnamese? No - you still have to go out among Vietnamese speaking people and learn how to improvise - putting together words and sentences in order to communicate - you simply cannot go out with a script and expect that script to meet all of you communication needs.

Simply Music wants to be able to equip people to speak the language of music at the piano, communicating without the script. So in essence the wine becomes new, and so does the bottle.

How many piano students do you know who are able to play their own music, spontaneously drawn from within them and laid out on the keys in an individual and one of a kind way? A while back I remember reading posts from some adult students who resented being unable to acquire George Winston's music in print - they just couldn't understand that he never does the same thing twice - he speaks piano language, and doesn't read from a script. Once it's in print, it loses what makes it so special. In today's culture, nearly everyone is settling for the traditional as if it's the original, but it isn't.

I used to teach class music and the pupils could and did do this. It was called a music curriculum and I was trained to write it.

I know a few dozen. And there are a lot of materials out there that help with improvisation, chord symbols, composing, etc...

I'm not saying that Simply Music isn't good. I'm just saying that it's not new and revolutionary. Even the things about learning a language mentioned earlier in this thread come straight out of Suzuki philosophy.

I used to teach class music and the pupils could and did do this. It was called a music curriculum and I was trained to write it. [/QB][/QUOTE]

So you're saying that all of your students were able to sit down at any piano, any time, and play without the printed page? If so, I wish I had met you years ago!

Cindy, is it clear what kbk means by "writing music curriculum" or the concept of "curriculum" in this context? I suspect you're missing each other.

In formal teacher training of a certain kind for teaching any subject we are taught to do this. You begin with a set of skills and knowledge that you want a student to acquire in the long term and/or for a given year (still longterm).

The things that you have listed, which kbk says his students did, are such a "set of skills and knowledge", "being able to ..... " etc.

After defining what you want the student to learn, you figure out HOW he would learn it. You analyze everything involved, available material etc. You divide things into themes, concepts, plan what should be taught to support what else, what interrelates etc.

You then end up with a large scale plan like a map. We called it a matrix. This turns into a series of units, and on the smallest level it can be an individual lesson plan for this particular day. The sum total is what kbk calls a "curriculum". Simply Music is such a curriculum in that sense.

If you want students to be able to do the things you have listed then you have to find a path that will get them there. Some teachers will create that path in the manner that kbk has indicated. There is such a thing as curriculum programs, and that idea is not new. Such programs use existing pedagogical devices, whatever is available, such as the "language approach" in order to reach the goals they want to reach with their students. Simply Music seems to be such a program, and a good one.

But that doesn't preclude that another teacher may have created their own program aiming toward similar goals. Plus I understand that in the field of music it is incredibly hard work to create such a program from scratch.

Yeh, we used to call it composing. And keystring's right. My guess would be Simply Music is someone's curriculum. In those days you had to write your own. Australia's music program was quite similar to the UK's. In the US it was different - all that high school band stuff. Check out British Columbia's music curriculum - it's online. I remember my tutor going over there to help them write it.

That being Canada, however. The rule of thumb among homeschoolers used to be that the further West you went, the more progressive and open-minded the school system became. No idea if it's true. Our system is province-governed.

In my day Ontario was all high school band. I do hope they've enlightened since, though they will have probably thrown out all the babies too.

I also teach Kindermusik, and can see this as a continuation of this curriculum, as Kreisler pointed how. However, Kmusik is for early childhood, whereas SM doesn't necessarily appear to be geared toward that. Is that correct?

Careful, Ontario is the size of 5 or 6 European countries. The Toronto area, however, strikes me as insular, and could be called "Ontario 'R Us". Since the bid for centralization the whole province has come under the thumb of Toronto. I'm talking about public education as a whole. The danger is to local initiatives where they went well.

But we were discussing curriculum and your teacher's input in B.C. Among homeschoolers around the early 1990's when I was involved, B.C. was known to be open-minded and embraced various streams of educational thought. Instead of suppressing homeschooling or trying to intimidate or control parents, they created a system to work with the families. I had a general sense of a province that was less conservative, maybe more enlightened, so it doesn't surprise me that your teacher gave his input in that province.

My impression of music here is colored because I know it only through the arts magnet school which by its nature was not of the band mentality. I have often wished that it could clone itself, population attitude and all. It sometimes seems like a beacon in an otherwise murky place.

Apologies to all for the OT.

There are a few programs out there that are more 'experiential' in nature, ear before eye, etc... I teach one such program. Elementary students learn to improvise, compose, transpose, and 'comp'. It sounds like SM is similar in that respect. My students can also sit down and play without written music in front of them.

My concern (and I haven't reviewed the actual SM books), is that note reading is delayed until much later. And also the whole thing about teachers 'not needing to be advanced musicians or have any formal music study'. While I don't expect all piano teachers to be concert pianists, we do have to be proficient and knowledgeable if we are to teach.

Dumdumdiddle - can you tell us what specific programs you are referring to and which one you use?

I am very attracted to the SM approach, as I was trained in the typical classical route - reading notes from day one, 20 years of lessons and unable to play Happy Birthday without music (I've since addressed these deficiencies). I looked into the SM program as a teacher, but the cost is way too high for me, as I plan on teaching only a few students. When I return to teaching I am planning on a dual, simultaneous program of non-reading and reading approaches - think they are both invaluable. I am even considering delaying the reading as in SM to allow the student to build a direct relationship with the instrument and making music first.

Jerry, as a possible tool if not program, did you see my post on Guhl's "Keyboard Proficiency" that someone gave me and I began using? It was developed by a professor in a university music program for music majors and takes a different angle. I am sight reading while transposing keys and into minors, and modes at this point (chapter 3), working with rhythms which are challenging to me, and I given melodies to which I am to add a base line with suggested rhythms on top of the rhythms of the melody which to me are challenging. Music theory which must be applied is taught throughout. This book is meant to be taught through a teacher. Some of the teachers here seem to be impressed by the author's credentials so I am daring to offer my student experience.

Thanks for the suggestion, Keystring. I have the Guhl book, but have not looked at it thoroughly - I'll give it a closer look. From what I recall, though, it is quite different from the SM approach, which is more about being taught to play tunes in many styles by rote, with (hopefully) concepts of music composition and improvisation being acquired along the way and leading to the ability of students to become not just RECREATIVE, but CREATIVE pianists - being able to play their own arrangements from lead sheets, improvise, compose, play by ear, etc. etc. (Don't actually know how far SM goes in all these areas - I only have their first 3 DVDs).

The following piano programs are very non-traditional and taught in a group setting w/digital pianos. All teachers must be trained. They offer a curriculum for toddlers and preschoolers and then group piano from about age 4.5 on up to adult. I teach HR.

www.harmonyroadmusic.com

www.yamaha.com

www.myc.com

It probably is different, and does not start by rote. I'm only into the start of chapter 3. However, my impression is that the best way to understand how the book works and what it teaches is by actually going through it. She talks about the concepts but when you do the exercises they start to form and things jump out at you in surprising places.

I don't think it's for the casual student because you have to work at it, and it moves fast. But you are transposing, improvising from the beginning. She gives the opportunity and the tools.

Your first improvisation actually happens on p. 13. You've been given some rhythms to tap and suddenly you're expected to turn that into LH and RH music. Jericho (p. 22) introduces I V chords and asks for improvisation as well as transposiiotn. Popping over to p. 134 you have a row of chords and you're asked to improvise a melody in various time signatures. It does address some of that.

Sorry, I don't want to hijack the SM thread.

As far as the delay in reading, it's no different than how the traditional approach delays, if it ever gets around to, playing the piano without the reading. Which is the cart and which is the horse? I believe that playing the piano is more valuable than reading music, and if they can both be taught, IN THE RIGHT ORDER, then that's the way I'll teach.

As far as proficiency and knowledge in teachers - proficient and knowledgeable in what? If a teacher has at his disposal a well laid out curriculum that is proven effective in covering everything that's necessary for a well rounded music education, and if the one-on-one training with the founder of the method provides him with more understanding in the actual science of teaching than 4.5 yrs of college did - then I don't see a problem.

I think what really bugs teachers in the traditional world, and what was a huge shock to my world view as far as teaching goes, at least at first, is that anyone who wants to teach piano is now enabled to with a program that basically costs less than a semester of college and is accessible to EVERYONE - not just the ones "with talent" or "natural ability" or 4 plus yrs of college. It's kind of like saying that in order to preach, a person must have a degree from seminary. It's a good thing John the Baptist didn't know that.

Cindy, feeling somewhat combative but not meaning to be offensive.