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Preface from the book:
The object of this work is to furnish young players with as easy an introduction as possible to the art of playing on the pianoforte.
It is intended for children, even of the tenderest age, and the progression has therefore been made as gradual as possible within the limits of the work. From this it will be clear that an exhaustive treat of all the difficulties, ornaments, &c., does not lie within the scope of this book, which is not meant to be more than an elementary instruction book to furnish the pupil with material for practice during his first and perhaps second year.
There is, it is believed, room for a work of this kind which may also be used by musical parents in preparing their children for the professional master.

You can download the entire book in PDF from:
web page

By the bottom of page 6, you'll have 100% drop out.

Should have posted this on April 1st!

I thought the meat of the book started on Page 8.

What's sepcial about April 1st?

While not used much anymore, the Beyer method was the "John Thompson" of Germany for many, many years.

Several of the pieces from the method live on - you'll occasionally find them in elementary anthologies here in the US.

MA - you must be new here. How long have you lived in the USA?

John, I knew April 1 is the Fool's day but didn't believe that you seriouly thought this method book was that bad. Is it because the book is deadly boring? (e.g., no colorful cartoon pictures) Or it's overly fast-paced? Or it was not well thought out and had many holes in between?

Or because we simply don't expect young children today to accomplish the book in one year?

Oh, that brings back memories...

I spent nearly three years going through that book. Some exercises are better than the others. I think the edition I used changed the numbering a little. I don't recall seeing those folktunes near the end. I remember liking #96 and #100 very much.

One needs to supplement that method book with more 20th century repertoire. The balanced approach is better when it comes to different tonalities and styles.

The bass clef magically appears in exercise #59.

Then suddenly in #63 both hands are in the bass clef. And BOTH hands are suddenly out of a five finger position.

All sorts of things appear out of nowhere, as in #73 where suddenly there is a chromatic passage.

Bass clef is all but neglected for so long that it is almost certain students will be weak in bass unless other materials are used to suppliment.

A lot of the music is crammed so densely into measures that it makes things even harder.

Remember, this is all supposed to be for children of the "tenderest years".

Looks more like something to torture kids with to me.

"The object of this work is to furnish young players with as easy an introduction as possible to the art of playing on the pianoforte."


Uh huh...

MA - Gary & Sal nicely summarized the obvious.

For example, the student isn't introduced to G major until #70, which is at least a year into the program. Probably more. Three-fourths of the way through the book, we finally get to F major. Of course, students have learned triplets, dotted rhythms, etc. In other words, they will have major problems ever playing out of the key of C major.

This isn't good pedagogy. I don't think I'd recommend this, even for a beginning student at the tender age of 10 or more.

John:

Unfortunately, Beyer is huge in Asia--they still come up with newer and newer editions that incorporate more and more 20th-century repertoire to replace the German(?) folksongs. I have a colorful edition (full of cute pictures and well-spaced pages) sitting on my shelf. They divided the Beyer book into three parts (thus three different books) and then added a lot of newer pieces. And the editors even added written instruction!

In the early 20th century, there was a Japanese teacher who compiled a series of pieces (in two books) that correlated to Beyer by number! I think highly of this compilation; thus I still use it with my beginner students. My first piano teacher used that Japanese series, along with John Thompson, Schaum, Glover, and a book of Asian folksongs to supplement Beyer. I was easily playing 6-7 pieces per week. But the problem was I didn't get to play even a sonatina until well into my 3rd year of piano. There are definitely drawbacks.

Argument could be made that, "Well, some good pianists grew up using Beyer, so Beyer must be good!" But nowadays I see more and more brilliant young pianists who did _not_ grow up using Beyer, and they are even more impressive than folks from my generation. Thus, my argument would be "Modern method book series must be better than Beyer because more kids are playing advanced music at a younger age than generations before!"

Interesting comments, some of which are surprising to me.

I created the topic because I found the free download online after my son had been trained with this method for a few months. His teacher is experienced in teaching children from 5 years old to pre-college, and doesn't use any children method book (except this one). He was assigned a few exercises (plus repertoire not from this book) every week. He is near the end of the 2nd stage after 3-4 months. (He has weekly 1-hour lessons but skipped a few lessons due to holidays and illness.) He will be trained with repertoire (and repertoire only) this sememster. (Sonatina, enssemble music, etc.)

Although I know this method is very old and not suitable for every teacher/child, I wish my daughter had been trained with it. Her first teacher started her with RCM repertoire plus Frances Clark technique/etude books, and a little bit of Suzuki and Faber. The latter were nearly useless for her.

Beyer is still quite frequent in Spain. Used both with children and with adults who want to follow the classical route.

I started with it. Then, my teacher combined it with Czerny op 599.

Bass clef is introduced on Page 4, and grand staff on Page 7. The bass clef reappears on Page 40 between #50 and #51. Then "magically" near the end of #54.

I like to watch my son being "tortured" during the lesson, e.g., when the clef sign changed in the middle of the music, or when he had to play 2-octave G and F. His teacher has made it more "torturous" by letting him figure out these things on the spot by himself, and my son actually enjoyed it.

I suppose this method book is more like a technique/exercise book. You definitely need to supplement with repertoire. For example, my son was assigned Minuet in G by Pezold (or Petzold) and other repertoire pieces.

Clearly, this is not an independent study book. The child needs the guidance of a teacher and perhaps the help of a musical parent to plug the "holes" in the book.

I don't think the book is a good selection for any beginner as it is not visually easily readable by any age.

I admit I did not look at all 88 pages, but pages 1-6 were plenty for my estimation.

This might serve as a good review book but the scope of it goes far beyond elementary skills and reading ability for the average student.

I have liked using Ferdinand Beyer music as eaches, but in one single book as a method book, I dont' think this is successfully doable without losing the student's interest.

If I were familiar with every page and the sequence of it, I could defend it's usefulness, but on a brief summary of a few pages, I wouldn't start where it starts, nor sequence it the way it is.

Would anyone care to profile a successful student and a successful teacher of this volumne? I am reading that there are other countries where this is an established method.

It gets my curiosity, but alas, no extra time at the present to get into it at the piano and follow along on the merits and critiques of this.

There are "holes" I'm sure - and a well written book will attempt to remove and allow "no holes".

Interesting subject!

Betty

Yes, there are some good elementary pieces which have been incorporated into other series, but Betty, you're right on, IMHO.

I have to agree with both of you. There are things in the book that certainly could be useful, but the way concepts are presented would require a ton of "hole-filling".

My biggest concern would be that reading would not happen. Since the number one problem I run into as a teacher is trying to teach students, coming to me from other teachers, how to read bass clef (or read at all), the way the bass clef is introduced and the amount of time spent with both hands in the treble sets off alarms in my mind.

Most of the exercises from this book are not in any of the first/second year books of the contemporary/popular methods I have seen.

Take #44 for example. It introduces 8th notes. It also reviews what the student has learned, i.e., whole, half, dotted half, and quarter notes. The student gets to see the complete picture. Played with the teacher part, it sounds melodic.

#86 is another example. It introduces 8th-note triplets and 16th notes in a similar way.

Most beginning students would assume that the bottom clef is bass and top one is treble. After playing so many exercises from this book, my son still made the mistake in his last lesson when asked to sight read a new exercise that is written in both treble clefs. A careless mistake he fixed by himself right away.

If you go through the exercises in this book, you will know how much reading is required. My son has become a very good sight reader partially because of this book.