Celebrate Piano! Lesson and Musicianship - 2B - Book Review

American Music Teacher, Dec, 2003 by Mary Grace George

Celebrate Piano! Lesson and Musicianship 2B is the fourth of six books in this series encompassing the first years of study. The book is designed to prepare very young students for the study of classical literature.

The presentations and activities in this book touch on many essential elements of musicianship including intervals and related singing exercises, rhythm exercises and games, technique, transposition, major triads, listening skills, musical terms and form and concise study suggestions for many of the pieces. Each element is put into action in a short piece clearly designed to highlight the new issue; there are twenty-six elementary pieces in the eighty pages of the book. These pieces also have optional notated accompaniments that are available separately from the book on your choice of CD or MIDI recordings; also available separately is a correlated set of flash cards.

A strong point of Lessons and Musicianship 2B deals with musical form. In four of the six units, the student is given effective introduction to parallel and contrasting answers, ostinato, D.C. al Fine, introduction and coda. Three presentations dealing with phrases include composition exercises asking the student to complete a given answer to the opening phrase. If this is part of an overall plan of the course, it would certainly encourage ongoing improvising and composing on the student's part--a most welcome prospect. It should be noted, however, that these elements of form are presented as facts without describing what each element adds to a composition and its performance.

This book will be welcomed reading material for those who use any course of study. Its emphasis on pieces that include the five Cs and the resulting leger lines is not easy to find. Furthermore, the print quality is excellent, and those who emphasize multi-key approach will find that represented as wel1.

My main concern about Lessons and Musicianship 2B of Celebrate Piano! is that it does not sufficiently prepare students for the richness and diversity of classical music, unless there are some wonderful surprises awaiting in the last two books not yet available. For instance, there needs to be more preparation for linear music, part thinking, the subtle inflection of two-note slurs (I was able to find only one piece in the book that had a few threenote slurs.), memorization, stylistic awareness and guidance to inspire the student beyond the black-and-white colors of the printed score. However, despite this concern, it is heartening to find a course of study dedicated to preparing students for the classical repertoire. Reviewed by Mary Gae George, Sandy, Utah.