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The Value of Keyboard Experience
to Piano Teacher and the Community
An Address given at the recent Convention of Alabama Music Teachers Association, Birmingham, Alabama
By LYMAN SEYMOUR
Southern Representative of Winter & Co., New York
feel that the piano teachers of this
country and the manufacturers of
pianos are in "the same boat". If we
did not manufacture pianos, it would
soon become impossible for you to
practice your art of teaching and very
frankly, if you ever ceased to teach the
art of piano playing, then our manu-
facturing industry would slowly come
to a grinding halt. If only one person
in Birmingham knew how to drive an
automobile, then there would be no
traffic problem. If only one person
knew how to play the piano, there
would be no piano industry. Both
teachers and manufacturers are work-
ing for the same goal . . . that goal is
more piano players.
To further these aims, the National
Association of Music Merchants sev-
eral years ago organized a completely
non commercial association called the
American Music Conference and to be
sure that you teachers realized that we
were interested in education, installed
Dr. John Kendel as Vice-President.
During the years that have followed.
Dr. Kendel and his staff have taught
children and adults to play the piano,
have devoted time to instruction on the
ukelele and have fostered music in
communities and in industry where no
music existed.
Suggests Playing for Fun
I'm here at the invitation of your
organization to beg you not to frown
on people who plunk at the piano be-
cause that's just what I'd like to con-
vince you that you should devote some
of your time to developing. I ask that
you teach more people to enjoy strik-
ing pleasant sounding chords for their
own pleasure without any thought of
having to play in public or practicing
six hours a day. Would you believe
me if I told you that there is so much
interest aroused and so much desire to
play the piano that correspondence
courses are being sold and that a com-
pany in California has devised a meth-
od by which an adult can learn to play
with the aid of an instruction book and
a phonograph record! Radio and now
22
LYMAN
SEYMOUR
television has brought the piano key-
board into the living room as never
before. . .
I was interested some time ago to
read the statement in one of our trade
journals that the editor belived that in
the old player piano days, very few
people preferred to sit in a room and
listen while some other member of the
family pumped the pedals and operated
the soft and loud controls. They want-
ed the personal participation in making
the music that went with pumping the
bellows and creating their own so
called "expression". That desire is
present even today in thousands of
people who are still afraid that taking
piano lessons will require hours of
practice on scales, etc. I would like to
convince you that you will find a
wealth of unexplored talent in your
communitv if you will explore for
yourself the ideas that have been de-
veloped for a modern day approach to
keyboard experience.
Now Keyboard Experience
Note that I don't say—Piano study
—the modern term is keyboard experi-
ence and it is just that because no ef-
fort is made to force a proper hand
position, to demand perfect fingering
or to expect sight reading. The mod-
ern theory is that all these things will
come as a natural result of basic key-
board experience.
To show an adult by rote if neces-
sary, the simplicity of playing a three
note chord with both hands and even
using black notes which used to be
forbidden to beginners—is like open-
ing a door that has remained closed
simply for want of someone willing
and capable of opening it. You are
that person in your community.
I am in complete sympathy with your
artistic goals of perfect technique and
skillful interpretation. Without these
things piano playing is dull . . . except
to the person doing the playing. For
that reason I might suggest that you di-
vide your brain in half, keeping one
half of it devoted to your present meth-
ods of teaching and using the other
half for this new and wonderful class
idea. Don't feel that you are doing an
injustice to music when an adult strikes
a wrong note. The very fact that you
have helped an adult learn to strike
a wrong note is one of the greatest
things you will ever do and you'll come
to be proud of it, almost as much as
of a pupil who appears as soloist with
the local symphony. I beg that you
give this serious attention and at once.
Practical Class Instruction
If Class instruction were not practi-
cal then our public schools would not
exist as they do today. Is it not possi-
le to explain the basic facts of piano
experience to a class if that same class
learns complicated formulas in chem-
istry classes? Many times I went home
from school not completely understand-
ing all that had been said and done but
in the main I learned enough to be
able to learn more when the time came.
Please always keep the thought in your
mind that in class teaching you are not
making an effort to train pianists . . .
you're teaching keyboard experience
and knowledge. Those children who
show the natural aptitude will quickly
learn the necessary technical side of
piano playing. Those children who are
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, APRIL, 1953