Premier Piano Course

Lesson Books

The Lesson Book, the core of the course, introduces all new concepts. Beautifully presented and intelligently paced, it combines unusually attractive music and lyrics. The book features note reading, rhythm reading, sight-reading, and technical workouts. Included with each Lesson Book is a CD recording of the music performed on acoustic piano by Scott Price. To enhance and encourage practice, the music on the CD was recorded at a performance tempo and a slower practice tempo. When the Lesson, Theory, Performance, and Technique books are used together, they offer a fully-integrated and unparalleled comprehensive approach to piano instruction.

Theory Books

The Theory Book is correlated page-by-page with the Lesson Book. Each new musical concept is reinforced through fun-filled writing, listening, and playing exercises. With games and puzzles added to compositional and creative activities, students retain concepts more easily and learn more thoroughly. In addition to written theory, unique features of the book include:

• Fun Zone—Explore music through written games and puzzles that truly make theory fun!
• Imagination station—Learn to compose and create.
• Learning Link—Discover facts related to history, science, and interesting subjects from daily life based on the music and activities in this course.
• Now Hear This—Learn how to listen to music through ear training. Most of these exercises should be done in the lesson.
• Now Play This—Learn to sight-read music.

Performance Books

The Performance Book contains appealing repertoire with charming lyrics to reinforce and enhance the learning of new musical concepts introduced in the Lesson Book. Attractive music, written by Dennis Alexander and Martha Mier, represents a variety of styles, plus performance tips on how to play each piece more musically. Like the Lesson Book, the CD included with the book contains all of the music performed at a performance tempo and a slowerpractice tempo. Performance skills are enhanced through Premier Performer suggestions. Students will enjoy performing these pieces for family and friends in a formal recital or on special occasions.

Technique Books

The Technique Book provides the technical tools needed to achieve artistic performances. Students will encounter skills in four areas—playing naturally (physical aspects), moving freely around the keyboard, playing beautifully (tone production), and playing artistically. The technical goals are accomplished through three types of activities—patterned exercises with necessary repetition to make the technique feel natural, artistic etudes that showcase the student’s technique in a musical setting, and appealing and descriptive exercises called Technique Tools.

The nine Technique Tools in Level 1A relate to relaxed shoulders, arm weight, moving freely, strong fingertips, finger weights, repeated notes, thumb position, finger independence, and gentle hand rock. Each page in the Technique Book correlates with a specific page in the Lesson Book.

Resources

There are many additional resources offered to help motivate students who are using Premier Piano Course, including flash cards reviewing concepts, general MIDI disks with accompaniment tracks, music history overview textbooks, and Success Kits. The Success kit contains all the items needed for a child to have success with piano lessons: a Lesson Book & CD, a Performance Book & CD, a Theory Book, At-Home Book, and Flash Cards. The Great Music & Musicians series is an overview of music history, providing the foundation for understanding the major cultural periods, as well as the major keyboard composers and their literature. These books include art and listening examples to fuel discussions, and written reviews at the end of each unit to solidify new information.

Premier Online Assistant Videos

Premier Online Assistant is a video resource to support teachers and students who are using Premier Piano Course. In each short video, co-author Gayle Kowalchyk explains a new concept in a concise way. Each video is correlated to the page in the Lesson Book where the concept is first introduced. These videos can be used by a teacher in a lesson to introduce a new concept or to reinforce a concept previously learned, or they can be assigned to a student to watch on their own as preparation for a new concept or as review of a concept already learned.