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Music Theory Success Story

From Beginner to Level 6 in nine months!

One common question that I get from teachers about the Piano Program Music Theory Courses is ‘what level do I place my students into?’ This can be especially difficult to determine if you are working with a transfer student, or an older beginner. As a general rule, I place my students into the level that is the same as their school grade. For example, 1st graders are in level 1, 4th graders in level 4, etc. Now, of course this works out perfectly IF you have a student who starts piano in 1st grade. That way their theory knowledge is directly correlated to how many years of piano lessons they have had.

But of course, not everyone starts piano in 1st grade, right? In that case, there really isn’t a right/wrong way to assign music theory levels. Take for example, if you have a student starting piano in 3rd grade. You may keep him/her on a level 1, or jump them right into level 3 and try to fill in the gaps in their lesson with you. Another solution would be start them in the level 1 course at an accelerated pace, moving them through the courses at a faster pace than normal until they reach their school grade. And if the student is playing beginning repertoire but in a higher music theory level? That usually isn’t a problem as music theory is an academic study that can be understood before those concepts are met in the repertoire. In fact, knowledge of the music theory concept before it is presented in repertoire study usually prepares the student for a ‘light bulb’ moment of when they approach that concept in music that they are studying.

Let me give you an example from my own studio. One of my sweet students started piano in the summer of 2020. She lives several hours away from me, so her lessons are 100% online. She started piano as an incoming 8th grader with no previous piano experience. I suggested that she participate in our state music theory test, and she was up for the challenge. As a beginner student, I suggested that she test at level 4, under her grade in school. However, my student set a wonderful goal for herself in testing at grade 6. So in just NINE months of lessons, my student worked on my music theory courses, starting at level 1, and ending at level 6 in February of 2021. She tested at level 6 and got……..a 96%! I was so proud of her. So now she is working on level 7 with the goal of getting to level 9 by the time she starts 9th grade in the fall. She watches the music theory videos in my course at home, outside of her lesson, does the workbook pages, and during our lesson she and I go over her workbook pages to make sure that she understood all of the concepts. I share my answer key over zoom (found at the end of the course) for a quick self grade, and then we discuss concepts missed. It literally takes 5 minutes or less out of her lesson. (From a repertoire standpoint, she just completed Accelerated Piano Adventures, level 1).

So there is no right or wrong answer to how to get your students on the correct level for them, but with the independence of my online courses, it is an option for them to work up to whatever level you’d like for them to be on. Our students can do amazing things!

A letter to your students

Starting any new program in your music studio can be tricky!  Often it takes time and a little effort to get our students to use a new program, such as Piano Program Music Theory courses.  Here’s a sample email that you can use to communicate with your students.  Just copy and paste (changing the items in orange to your personal information) and send!  And feel free to use the graphic as a visual aid for your students as well!

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Are we preparing our students for university level music theory?

Online interview with Dr. Gene Willet

I’m excited to share this interview with you!  A little bit of a background – Gene and I went to graduate school together at UT-Austin (he was doing a PhD in Music Theory and I was doing a DMA in piano pedagogy), and then we both ended up teaching together for a couple of years as adjunct professors at Trinity University in San Antonio.  Gene is now a music theory professor at Baldwin Wallace University.  He’s a professor, dad, and all-around nice guy!  He agreed to do this interview to help all of us understand the gap between private studio teachers (K-12) and university music theory study.

My purpose of the interview was to answer the question:

Are we doing enough to prepare our student for university music theory classes?

Here are some takeaways from the interview:

  • If a student struggles in the first semester of Music Theory, this is an indication that he/she will struggle through many more academic music classes.
  • Many of the students who drop out of the music degree program are those that struggle with the first semester of music theory.
  • About 1/3rd of incoming music majors do not have enough music theory knowledge to take 1st semester music theory.  These students get put into remedial music theory classes (for those universities that have them.)
  • Many universities do not offer music theory classes every semester.  Therefor, a remedial class can interfere with a student taking all of their courses on time.
  • Many of the students who struggle with music theory are those that discovered music in their high school years.
  • Often, many high schools do not offer a music theory course for students, so it is up to the individual teacher to supplement this learning.
  • One skill that is lacking in a lot of students is matching pitch & singing.
  • The most important remedial skills to learn are:  key signatures, interval identification, knowledge of triads, and knowledge of rhythm.

I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with Gene about this, and it emphasized my thoughts about teaching music theory.  We, as individual teachers, are responsiblefor our students’ progress in music theory.  We need to prepare them for a situation of entering into a music degree program if they happen to pursue that in college.  So private teachers – keep up the wonderful work that you are doing!