Belmont University Belmont Digital Repository Music Theses School of Music Summer 8-11-2021 Teaching Songwriting and Incorporating Popular Music in Beginning Group Piano Sarah Andrews sarah.com Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.edu/music_theses Part of the Composition Commons Recommended Citation Andrews, Sarah, "Teaching Songwriting and Incorporating Popular Music in Beginning Group Piano" (2021).edu/music_theses/5 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Music at Belmont Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Music Theses by an authorized administrator of Belmont Digital Repository. For more information, please contact repository@belmont. TEACHING SONGWRITING AND INCORPORATING POPULAR MUSIC IN BEGINNING GROUP PIANO By SARAH WILLIAMS ANDREWS A RESEARCH PAPER Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music in Piano Pedagogy in the School of Music of the College of Music and Performing Arts Belmont University NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE August 2021 Submitted by Sarah Williams Andrews in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music in Piano Pedagogy.
Accepted on behalf of the Graduate Faculty of the School of Music by the Mentoring Committee: 07/05/2021 ______________________________ Date Kristian Klefstad, D. Major Mentor ______________________________ Robert Marler, D. Second Mentor Terry Klefstad ______________________________ Terry Klefstad, Ph.D Third Mentor ________________ ______________________________ Date Kathryn Paradise Assistant Director, School of Music ii Contents Tables .viii Presentation of Material Introduction. x Part I Chapter One: A History of Group Piano Trends.
2 Chapter Two: Modern Core Curriculum. 10 Chapter Three: A Need for Change in Group Piano. 16 Chapter Four: Songwriting as a Solution. 22 Diversity and Integration.
30 Lead Sheet Reading. 31 Part II Chapter Five: Summary of Sessions. 35 Keyboard Skills Exercises. 41 Session One: Cee Lo Green¾Playing in Root Position Triads.
41 iii Session Two: The Beatles and a Drone Bass. 43 Session Three: Boogie-Woogie Music with Inversions. 46 Session Four: Trading Fours. 50 Session Five: Improvising with Lyrics and Rhythm.
53 Session Six: Accompaniment Patterns. 56 Creative Listening Exercises. 59 Session Seven: Production and Prosody. 59 Session Eight: Candy’s Boy Versus Candy’s Room.
61 Session Nine: Queen Tribalism. 63 Session Ten: Hotel California. 66 Chapter Six: Final Projects and Conclusions. 70 Improvements to the Study.
Comparative Rubric Rating Table. Comparative Table of Keyboard Skills Exercises, 2020-2021 Group Piano Introduction to Keyboard Harmony and Keyboard Harmony I, Blair School of Music. Comparative Chart of Creative Listening Exercises, 2020-2021 Group Piano Introduction to Keyboard Harmony and Keyboard Harmony I, Blair School of Music. Cumulative Letter Grades, 2017-2020 in Introduction to Keyboard Harmony.
Cumulative Letter Grades, 2017-2020 in Keyboard Harmony I. Course Evaluation Statistics, 2017-2020 in Introduction to Keyboard Harmony. Course Evaluation Statistics, 2017-2020 in Keyboard Harmony I. Measures 1-8 “Café Vienna,” Alfred Basic Adult Piano Course Lesson Book, Level I.
30 vi Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. Kristian Klefstad for the energy he has poured into helping me stay motivated to finish this project and my degree. To Claire Westcott, who not only found this program that was beneath my nose, but kindly forwarded me the application. To my friend and teacher Karen Krieger, who showed me that music should always be F-U-N.
To all of my friends and family¾thank you for your endless support, long phone calls, co-writing schedules, editing assistance, and porch conversations about this project. To my loving husband, thank you for always picking up the pieces while I studied, wrote, and practiced. And lastly, thank you to my children, who tried their best to cooperate for him and forgave my shortcomings in the home these last few years. vii Abstract This thesis examines how incorporating popular songwriting is an effective way to teach keyboard skills to music majors in a traditional undergraduate music school.
Basic keyboard skills taught in group piano are similar to the skills used in writing and performing a popular song. Connecting students to popular music inspires students and keeps them motivated to practice keyboard skills that are more tedious but considered necessary for learning the instrument. This thesis is divided into two parts. Part I offers the history of pedagogical trends in group piano from the eighteenth century until present day, focusing specifically on practicality, improvisation, and composition.
This section also discusses the need for a change in the field of group piano teaching, relying on research that suggests the inclusion of more creative assignments in music schools will better prepare music students for employment upon graduation in the twenty-first century. Part I explains how creative skills like composition and improvisation are currently taught in the group piano classroom as well as why these methods may be ineffective and suggests teaching popular songwriting to students can teach beginning keyboard skills in a creative way that keeps them motivated. Part II of this thesis presents information gathered through an informal study in the Fall Semester of 2020 and Spring Semester of 2021 at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University. Chapter Five details weekly exercises implemented alongside two viii different textbooks.
Each exercise is rated based on observations of student reactions and student performance. Chapter Six concludes with a review of the semester final project, suggestions for how to conduct a more in-depth research study on this topic, and other final observations about the field study. ix Introduction The idea of Group piano class is notoriously dreaded by undergraduate music majors. Students who are dedicated to advancing on their primary instrument are often nervous to learn a new instrument during their busy Freshman year.
Additionally, learning something new in a group can feel especially daunting. An accurate assessment comes from Christopher Fischer in his book, Teaching Piano in Groups: For some, what may begin as excitement at the prospect of learning a new instrument can easily disintegrate into an environment fraught with feelings of disinterest, frustration, and even resistance to learning altogether. Group piano courses can become yet another hoop through which students must pass on the way to fulfilling degree requirements and thus are often relegated to the bottom of the student’s list of priorities. (Fischer 2011, 216) This account from Fischer is less grim than a student’s testimony posted on an online forum when asked the question, “What to expect as a freshman in music school?”: Lots of late nights banging your head on a piano in a practice room wondering why they are forcing you to learn this stupid instrument when you can already play the violin.
(Gomez, May 28, 2010) Seconding this sentiment, Gabriella Haas in her how-to book about being a music major says this about piano class: This is where Education majors learn all those warm-ups and stuff that teachers play in lessons and where non-Education majors how to take the ability to use the world’s second most common instrument. Practice or you will once again Have A Bad Time. (Hass 2017, 3) Literature is continually published with the hope of solving the problem of motivating students in the group piano classroom. Parallel to this discussion is another ongoing conversation that focuses on integrating popular music into traditionally classical x higher education music schools and the benefits this has for students from motivation to practical skills to the prospect of employment upon graduation.
There is a movement in academia to incorporate more composition and improvisation in the curriculum, often informed by popular music and inspired by popular culture (Larson 2019). This discourse has gained momentum over the last decade as music educators acknowledge the benefits of creating music alongside interpreting music. Inspired by the movement to integrate popular music, I decided to examine if student motivation in the group piano classroom, herein referred to as group piano, could improve by introducing creative exercises with a focus on popular songwriting. I immediately noticed that my classical music students expressed a strong sense of desire to connect with the current music of their culture.
The motivation needed to develop their keyboard skills was in abundance not only for practicing the required technical material, but also for refining their songwriting talent. Teaching popular songwriting in this setting gives beginner keyboardists a practical way to approach piano that will be long-lasting to them. xi Part I Chapter One: A History of Group Piano Trends Teaching piano in groups has an established place in music history. It was first popularized by Johann B.
Logier in Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century. Logier cultivated method books and training programs centered on group teaching through his invention of the Chiroplast1. Much more significant than the Chiroplast was the pedagogy Logier used in his group teaching. He would frequently write out ensemble pieces in different parts for grouped students based on their level, leading the keyboardists in group playing and coaching them simultaneously.
He also authored a text on thorough bass and would often combine theory and composition into group piano lessons by having students improvise over a figured bass. Ensemble playing, composition, and improvisation undergirded with music theory and harmony are facets of his teaching that continue to be included in group piano method books today (Jackson 2006, 234-239). A brief survey of method books from the early twentieth century onward reflects this history and shows how these components have been valued differently in accordance with changes to teaching philosophies over the years. In the early nineteenth century, teaching philosophies generally focused on technique, finger strength, counting, and repetitive practice sessions.
During the twentieth 1 The Chiroplast was a device made of horizontal boards that stayed above and below the hands and forced fingers to only play intended notes in order to develop keyboard technique. An attached metal piece with holes inside kept young fingers in place but did not allow for fingers to cross over and under like they needed to do to play scales or lengthier passages. Progress in students’ playing was therefore minimal and the Chiroplast quickly went out of fashion (Rainbow 1990, 195). 2 3 century, this philosophy shifted toward student-centered teaching2 that catered to the amateur and to developing a broad musical understanding (Sturm et al.
Other early group method books contained little, if any, music for students to read and instead functioned as theory tutorials for the older beginner or lesson plans for the teacher of young beginners. Burrowes published the first American class piano method book in 1820, titled The Piano-Forte Primer. Giddings published a more substantial text, The Public School Class Method for the Piano. Raymond Burrows, Ella Mason Ahearn, and Dorothy Graynor published Adult Explorer at the Piano in 1937 for class instruction and then Burrows published his own method book, Elementary Piano Instruction in College in 1944 (Hirokawa 1997, 155).
All these methods place an emphasis on practicality and usefulness at the keyboard in keeping with their goal toward a well-rounded music education. The prologue to The Public School Class Method For the Piano explains that the piano is an integrated instrument on which students can learn harmony, melody, and musicianship while concurrently training their facility (Giddings 1919, III). The first chapter provides an anecdote of a teenage boy wanting to learn piano and already reading music proficiently but not being able to accompany himself while singing popular songs. Under the section titled “Better Piano Teaching Necessary,” Giddings stresses that a more practical and applicable teaching method should be adopted to motivate the student to work harder and with more interest toward goals in mind.
Just as students are not taught 2 Child-centered teaching is often called whole-child teaching and refers to meeting the needs of each student individually, rather than following a method book so rigidly. This practice began in the late nineteenth century by education experts such as John Dewey and Dr.