Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Unhappy with Teacher's selection of music

Gary,

My teacher usually looks for the material and then brings it to my lesson without any input from me. Except for when I finished the Piano Adventures for Adults Book 1. I looked at the next levels of that series and told her that the approaches in that series would no take me where I wanted to go. So she brought to class Jane Magrath's Master Work Classics 1-2. I had also been perusing the different series and materials at the music store and felt that the Snell series using the theory and two repertoire books was written in an adult manner. So we combined the two. Plus she will bring in other books for supplementary material in other styles other than classical so I can play different music. Usually she'll ask if I want the book or not. For duets we are using Robert Vandal's duet books.

I did not get a chance for a thumbs up or down on the Bach and Mozart books because she had circled in pencil the pieces we would be working on prior to me being able to thoroughly go through the books and discuss things.

Does this help?

The pieces have titles but who knows what composer catalog number it is or what larger work it comes from. For example a piece is called "Prelude for Beginners No. 1" which is the same as Prelude in D minor BWV 935 as indicated in Alfred. Since the other books that I have been using use the title, opus numbers, composer catalog number, source of a piece if it comes from a series of pieces written for student I am used to having this information. For example, in Snell Level 3 Romantic & 20th century Bartok's Folk Dance states it is "from For Children, vol. 1. In Alfred, Magrath, Snell anything from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena is so indicated with the BWV Anh number. Snell 3 Baroque & Classical has a Bach Musette as "Musette "from English Suite No. 3."

In searching for Karamar editions, I was led to a company called "East Coast Books." One of the citations which came up under this google search was this!

We don't want to get Frank or Piano World in trouble, so lets be very careful what we say in response to this thread.

I am wondering how to ask this, or whether it should be asked, because different teachers will also have different approaches. If a student had the kinds of goals and attitudes that the OP expressed here, what might she expected to see from a teacher's side? What might the teacher be doing? Would there be exercises, or repertoire in a particular order or some things that usually get assigned at certain times? In another thread John spoke of the necessity of scales and exercises, for example (the 87 year old student, I think).

The question is about repertoire and editions, but maybe it's not about repertoire and editions.

John,
Thanks for the heads up. How do I contact the administrator of the Teachers Forum so he'll delete my posts? I surely didn't mean to get anyone into trouble here. I should have kept things more generalized.

Yikes!

What if the name of the edition were deleted and only the character of the edition were mentioned? For example, what might a student want to see and what should be avoided? The music that I inherited turns a Bach Gavotte into a romantic piece with the tempo almost half-speed and dynamics and phrasing that distorts the music completely. I can imagine someone saying that this is not a good way of learning about Bach or Baroque music.

Hi, Keystring,

I am learning all of the scales, arpeggios, chord inversions for all major and minor keys cadences. I am doing hands together scales multiple octaves. We are using a series of graded exercises and we work though the 2 graded series previously mentioned progressively, unless there is something she thinks I am capable of and we will do it out of order.

But like you, I think it would be interesting to know what other piano teachers' might be doing to address the goals I have.

I'll step out of this thread after this since it's the teacher forum and we are both students. I think you should talk to your teacher about goals, maybe set aside a time to do nothing but that. Some teachers in this forum actually book this once a year.

Discussing what information is and is not included in different editions seems to me to be a separate issue.

I did not see the other thread John mentioned, but my hunch is that members were nasty and unfair. Even the way members attack each other in threads is often shocking to me.

I would first ask Frank (the owner) if there is a problem. So long as we continue to discuss fairly, I don't see where we have gone wrong. I don't believe anyone has been attacked.

I don't have time to read the entire thread(s) right now, but in general...

It is ok to express your opinions in a public forum, provided they wouldn't be construed as defamation or slander (that's not legal advice, just a generalization).

Pointing out what you personally might consider flaws in a publication isn't any different than doing the same thing when talking about a product.

As for getting Piano World in trouble, we are protected by the law (as a "publisher"), however, as an individual you aren't.

I don't think it's wrong to point out the negatives if they are true. Part of what people come here for is to find out about products/companies/services.
They appreciate honesty .

Thanks for the clarification. We don't want to get you in trouble!