Music Moves for Piano, Book 1 - Student edition

Book 1 is for students of all ages, beginners and transfers. Students learn keyboard performance, improvisation, and audiation skills while they begin to acquire a music pattern vocabulary. Transfer students become acquainted with singing, moving and chanting activities that help them learn how to play by ear, improvise, and arrange music. Initially, game-like pieces introduce rhythm/meter concepts, ensemble playing, and technical skills. Students become familiar with the whole range of the keyboard. The beginning pieces have teacher duet parts that are in different tonalities. These duet parts are simplifed for student performance. The pieces use both separated and connected styles of playing and use contrasting dynamics. Following the introductory pieces, most of the performance pieces in Music Moves for Piano are from our rich folk song heritage. Students learn to play in duple and triple meters and in major and minor tonalities. Students develop the left hand by playing the folk songs with each hand alone. Accompaniments are added when a student feels comfortable coordinating two hands. Teachers and students are encouraged to adapt the suggested accompaniments to the physical capability of the student. G Major, F Major, F-sharp Major, C Major and A Minor are introduced in Book 1. Pattern instruction includes duple and triple meter macrobeat, microbeat, and division rhythm patterns and major and minor tonic and dominant tonal patterns. Improvisation is the cornerstone of this audiation-based approach. Improvisation activities are included on the opening unit pages of the student books as well as in the Teacher's Lesson Plans book. The online audio files include performances of the music,rhythm and tonal and patterns for students to echo, and songs to sing.