that is the question! Like most Americans, I have a deep love and appreciation for many different styles of music: jazz, country, folk, R&B, classic rock, Latin, and of course classical. So why only teach classical or only focus on classical music as many piano teachers do? Classical music demands a tone and technique that should only be produced by the performer acoustically (not electronically). It also combines a deep intellectual understanding of structure (form) and harmony with a performer's interpretation of a composer's musical ideas and vocabulary.
I won't lie though. Some of my fondest memories of playing the piano revolve around playing pop music. In fact, playing popular music vaulted me onto a whole other level of playing right about the time I hit fourth grade. That was the year my sister discovered the musicals Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. I was so taken with the music of both shows that I learned it on my own despite the fact that Andrew Lloyd Weber really likes to vary the keys of all his music. It was the year I became a great sight reader. Pretty soon, my family would gather around the piano on Friday or Saturday nights for Broadway sing alongs and I became a little bit of a human juke box. As I matured through high school, I took lots of solace in the music of Tori Amos which seemed to combine aspects of classical and rock, for me the best of both worlds. These days I don't listen to the radio half as much as I used to but I can still sight read and play power ballads like Jar of Hearts or Adele's Someone Like You. This really helps when it comes to accompanying at the Community College of Denver where I play for vocalists in the Commercial Music Recital. This spring selections ranged from Michael Jackson's Human Nature to R, Kelly's I Look to You. So when one of my students prefaced her lesson yesterday with, "I'm ready for a new jazz piece, " I didn't object. Popular music, which for me also encompasses many genres, demands a high level of musicianship specifically related to rhythm. For myself and my students, this music has become an essential part of my curriculum. We still learn classical repertoire with the appropriate technique required to play it but we also enjoy our jazz, blues, or pop piece. In fact, this music is becoming such a staple that my goal for the upcoming year is to put together a pop recital with a live rhythm section. I got this terrific idea at the MTNA Conference in 2013 when I heard Kristin Yost give a presentation on the Popular Music Showcase.
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AuthorStephanie Morrison: A Piano Teacher in Austin, TX constantly striving to find new strategies to communicate and demonstrate piano technique and musicality. Archives
January 2022
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