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In the above picture, you see that Mrs. Curwen has written (a) TECHNIQUE (See Introduction) at the beginning of the chapter for the fourth preliminary lesson. You’ll see technique listed in most of the preliminary lesson chapters.
What is she referring to?
What technique related subjects should we be presenting to our students?
First, Mrs. Curwen says to see the introduction of the book. If you go back to the very front of her Teacher’s Guide, you’ll see an introductory chapter. This chapter has bold headings over paragraphs that address many essentials of her method. One of the paragraphs is titled Technique.
Mrs. Curwen talks through teaching basics of technique to a child:
1. Good muscular control
2. Loose, easy movements
3. Relaxed hands and arms
What do you do if you find yourself with a student who ‘ties himself into a knot’ or accompanies every hand movement with facial grimaces.
1. Forego playing the piano much at all
2. Practice free and supple piano movements on a table top
She goes on to say that,
“It is true that in the long run technique, like every else, is a matter of ear-training; but if a certain amount of muscular control can be established before the child tries to “play,” many bad habits may be avoided.” (page 3, 31st edition)
Despite feeling rather brief in this introductory chapter, Mrs. Curwen insisted upon these three points when it comes to technique:
1. The teacher must have, at least, good technique.
“What the pupil is expected to do well, the teacher must be able to do beautifully, and a person with bad technique must not teach a little child.” (page 6, 31st edition.)
2. Keep technique separate from reading music. Finger exercises , which can be taught by pattern, can be practiced long before a child is able to read them.
3. And last,
“I believed that half a dozen exercises, each with a different and a definite aim, would do more for the children than the weary pages they wade through, if each exercise were memorized , made perfect in its slow form, and gradually developed in speed, or force, or delicacy…” (page 6, 31st edition.)
Appendix on Technical Training
After Mrs. Curwen finished her introduction on technique, she goes on to say, “Now, however, there is more to be said.” 🙂 She then takes us to an entire appendix in the back of her book that is dedicated to teaching piano technique.
Back in the appendix, you’ll see Mrs. Curwen references an author by the name of Mr. Tobias Matthay. He wrote a book called Act of Touch that Mrs. Curwen was initially resistant to, but she eventually recommended this book to all teachers. There is also a shorter version called First Principles of Pianoforte-playing.
Mrs. Curwen was then faced with the question about teaching technique to children. The above mentioned books were interesting to the adult, but how do we apply it to the beginner pianist?
Thankfully Mr. Matthay then published a book called The Child’s First Steps in Pianoforte-playing.
I have purchased this short book and have been referring to it here and there throughout the preliminary lessons. It is definitely not a typical technique book. The first fourteen lessons in the book are purely preparatory to actually playing the piano. They focus more on listening to the forward progression of music and how the keys respond to your fingers.
While it is indeed a bit dry, it has opened my mind to the more abstract subject matters of music.
Mrs. Curwen says this book is “eminently suited to form the technical side of the child’s training during our Preliminary Course.” (page 349, 31st edition.)
“Mr. Matthay says that before the child begins to make music on the piano he should ‘have learnt to feel the pulse of musical rhythm and to hear the intervals of the musical scale;’ and this is precisely what the little Curwen pupil is learning during his Preliminary Course, with his Sol-fa, and his ear-training exercises in Pulse, Accent, and Measure.”