The Music Tree - Part 1

A Plan for Musical Growth at the Piano

By Frances Clark

this is still strikingly the best beginner PIANO method series that I keep coming back to when I am constantly looking around for even better replacement in the past ten years. I wish Alfred can measure up their printing quality, which seems deteriorating. The educational value should be weighted way...

more than business value, Alfred!

This is a fabulous piano series that often goes unnoticed in the world of piano methods. It takes an intervallic approach to note reading, which means that it teaches the student to read by intervals (2nds, 3rds, 4ths, etc.) before it ever teaches them the name of a note. It...

does this off the staff, on 2 or 3 lines in Time to Begin, the book before this. In this book, I starts out by teaching them three guide notes - C, G and Bass F and then teaches them to start a 2nd above or below that note, a 3rd above or below that note, all the way up to a 4th or 5th. So they are identify notes in relation to the guide notes. I also love how it doesn't keep them in one position like some other methods - have you ever noticed that students have an issue with always playing middle C with their thumb? If they use this course, they will come out strong readers. I do use this method with another method that teaches by note name because we still want them to learn the names of the notes!

My wife has been using The Music Tree for a number of years and likes it very much. [...]

A friend introduced me to "The Music Tree" series. I was attracted to the series because of the logic in how the concepts are organized. Learning to compose and transpose from the beginning are wonderful components. I wish The Music Tree had been around when I was a kid.