New Book Release - Piano Teaching Skills: A Complete Guide for Piano Teachers

May 9, 2013 - PRLog -- Good teaching strategies increase the likelihood of teacher satisfaction and lessen the likelihood of pupils discontinuing piano before they attain real skill. Teachers wishing to develop the proper approach to excellence in training will gain strategies and techniques for doing so; teachers interested in adding to their skills will find this book helpful too. Self-motivated students who wish to add to their current knowledge and skills can also benefit. Forward by Dr. Paul Pollei, Professor Emeritus of Piano Studies, Brigham Young University, Founder of the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition.

Author Elaine Andrus Watts has a Master’s Degree in Music Education and graduated a member of the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. She holds professional teaching certificates and has taught band, choral and general music in the public schools. She has maintained a piano studio for forty-five years, teaching hundreds of private piano students, and presenting them in group and solo recitals. Her students have won contests, have been awarded study grants and have played concertos on symphony youth nights. She also taught approximately ten hours per week for six years as a member of the piano staff of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. She has served as adjudicator for music festivals, contests and public school solo festivals. She has accompanied soloists, choral groups and professional vocal teachers. She has been a church organist for many years and an occasional vocal soloist. She has composed piano teaching pieces, choral compositions including a cantata, and solos for piano, flute, trumpet and voice. She has taught her own five children to play the piano. Her son says, “When we turned seven years of age, we were given piano lessons whether it " tickled us pink or not." (They all love music.) She says that music and students have been like beautiful flowers in her life.

REVIEWS:
Elaine Andrus Watts has penned an important book entitled Piano Teaching Skills: A Complete Guide for Piano Teachers. The premise of this book is of the highest pedagogical goal, inasmuch as she was prompted to write her findings as a piano teacher to assist the development and training of one of her own students, thereby giving the next generation the benefits and wisdom of her many years of piano teaching. Mrs. Watts has approached her writing with the goal to instruct and detail the many facets of piano teaching, from the beginner to the completion of training and performing in recital. The book is replete with references citing major authorities of the world of contemporary piano pedagogy, in addition to a vast and interesting personal traversal of her many years in the studio with students of all ages. I highly recommend this book for teachers who are interested in adding to their skills as teachers and developing the proper approach to excellent training. Each will be highly rewarded for the joy of reading this new book.
Paul Pollei, Professor Emeritus of Piano Studies, Brigham Young University, Founder/Artistic Director of the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition.

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Written by a very experienced, highly qualified piano pedagogue to assist one of her students in their own piano teaching journey of discovery, "Piano Teaching Skills, A Complete Guide for Piano Teachers" is a compact but complete guidebook to piano pedagogy from teaching beginners to preparing advanced piano students for performance and subsequent piano-related careers. Twenty chapters cover topics including the art of teaching, training students to play by ear and transpose, developing proficient piano technique, how to teach music reading, how to teach sight singing as part of ear training, musical terminology, curriculum and repertoire guides, musical expression and interpretation, pedal technique, how to incorporate music history, musical ornamentation, transposition and modulation, improvisation and composition, and finally, helping students enjoy music and value instruments and books, recital etiquette, and the home studio. There is even a chapter on how to prevent piano practice injuries. All this information is succinctly presented in an 80 page (paperback) guidebook that will prove invaluable to the beginning and more experienced teacher, as well as the self motivated (young adult) performer. An excellent overview of current piano teaching tenets, "Piano Teaching Skills" is sure to be a successful ticket to a long chronology of satisfied students and piano performers.
Midwest Book Review