• Why can students play difficult repertoire and not be able to play "Happy Birthday" without music?
• Why can some students play cadences fluently, yet be unable to improvise on tonic and dominant chords?
• Why can many adults, after years of study, only play a few pieces that they learned in high school?
• Why are so many adults unable to read unfamiliar music or accompany singers and instrumentalists?
• Why do creating and improvising seem impossible to many adults who can read music?

The answer: These students have not learned how to think musically. They have not learned to ‘audiate’ music. Audiation is essential for developing musicianship. Audiation is to music what thought is to language and visualization is to what we see.

How do students learn to audiate? The process is the same as for learning language. From birth, we listen before we speak. Then we begin to think, speak, and acquire a vocabulary. After a large thinking, speaking, and listening vocabulary is acquired and there has been much improvisational conversation, we learn to read and write. Aural learning precedes reading and writing.

Just as a language vocabulary provides the basis for understanding and communicating ideas and thoughts, a tonal and rhythm pattern vocabulary is the foundation for learning, performing, improvising, reading, writing, and understanding music.

Movement and singing are important in the pattern learning process. Rhythm is based on body movement and singing develops tonal audiation.

Rhythm and tonal patterns are the "content" of music. They are learned in the "context" of a meter or a tonality. Patterns have meaning, or function, and are organized in categories. They are learned in a certain order, or sequence.

Rhythm patterns are chanted without pitch and are in the context of a meter (duple, triple, or something else). They are most commonly two or four durations and are organized into six categories, including rest, tie, and upbeat patterns.

Tonal patterns are sung without rhythm and are in the context of a tonality (major, minor, or other modes). They are usually two or three pitches and function as tonic, dominant, subdominant, and so forth. 

Patterns within the context of a meter or tonality make musical sense. Music notes have meaning only when they are part of a pattern that is in a context. Naming individual notes, intervals, and chords or naming lines and spaces and counting are ways of learning about music that do not relate to a tonal or rhythm context. This type of learning process is intellectual decoding and cannot be understood aurally. For example, play an A Major cadence, then play a tonic A perfect-5th. Next, play a D Major cadence, then play a dominant A perfect-5th. The sound of tonic is not the same as the sound of dominant. Context makes a difference.

Through sequenced instruction, piano students learn two instruments: a performing instrument and an audiation instrument. The ear and the mind must learn to audiate before the eyes can read music notation with comprehension. If this does not happen, there most likely will be mental confusion when performing, listening to,or reading music.

Music Moves for Piano was created to achieve the goal of music literacy through the development of audiation skills and performing skills. Now, in the 21st century, the tools are available to teach piano as an aural/oral art.

This piano series includes eight instruction books: Keyboard Games, Books A and B, a Preparatory Book, Student Books 1-5, and a Pattern CD as well as supplementary materials.

The Keyboard Games Books A and B can be used for beginning students of any age, but are especially appropriate for transitions children who are four- and five-years old. 

The Preparatory Book introduces kindergarten and other beginners to the keyboard. It may also be used as a supplementary book for older students who begin with 
Student Book 1. 

The game-like pieces are short, in contrasting character, and in both duple and triple meters. Students become acquainted with the full range of the keyboard and play on black keys and white keys.

Students learn proper alignment of the playing mechanism. Many pieces are played with one finger. The arm moves behind the finger and the motion of the finger-hand-arm unit is straight. Students are encouraged to be aware of how they produce sound.

Many pieces have duet parts. This book includes several folk song duets arranged so that the student plays an accompaniment while the teacher plays the folk song. 

Improvisation activities are an integral part of the book. Students learn to choose register, dynamics and meter. They also write stories for which they create short, descriptive pieces.

Student Books 1-5  

Books 1-5 are organized into units. Each unit includes:

• Lesson Time Objectives. This overview of the lesson communicates to parents and students what was covered at the lesson and lists home practice and listening assignments.
• Song to Sing. Class activities familiarize students with the 'songs to sing' through movement and singing, since they will be performance pieces later. Students learn that if they can sing it they can play it. 
• Improvisation Projects. Many beginning unit pages include short improvisation or creative projects.
• Performance Piece(s) and/or Scales, Cadences, Arpgeggios.

Student Page Design. The student book pages are designed in a workbook format.

• In the "Information Box," the meter, tonality, and starting tones are given for each performance piece.
• The unique "rote notation" provides pictures of hands and keyboards that give hand/finger and keyboard placement information about the pieces. Students learn to use the "right" fingers on the "right" piano keys.
• Tonal syllables are printed to reinforce hearing tonal patterns within the context of a resting tone (such as Major and Minor) and a tonic (such as G, C, or F). The syllable system is 'Moveable DO with a LA-based Minor,' since this is the only syllable system that fosters audiation.
• Music notation for performance pieces is included for the teacher/parent's reference.
• The "Check List" provides a place for the teacher to mark and date what was studied at the lesson, and for students to mark what was practiced at home.
• Scale, cadence, and arpeggio pages use keyboards and tonal syllables to reinforce the kinesthetic feel of the keyboard as well as audiation of the tonality and patterns.

Improvisation. Improvisation is the cornerstone of this method. Improvisation provides the readiness, reinforcement and repetition necessary for learning how to audiate and for becoming a fluent performer and reader. Students are able to improvise a successful substitute when needed during a memorized performance.

Most units have improvisation projects that the students do at the lesson, then at home. At first, students improvise using rhythm patterns, then they progress to using tonal patterns and chord progressions. 

Improvisation activities use the folk song repertoire to transpose, change tonality, change meter, harmonize, create melodic and rhythmic variations, and create accompaniments. During the lesson time, students engage in other kinds of improvisation activities using their voices or the keyboard.

Performance Pieces. Performance pieces are taught by rote and through the application of audiation skills. The philosophy is that students learn best by playing many short, contrasting pieces by rote. When beginning students are not expected to look at music notation, they can observe their hands and feel and think about how they physically play the piano. Concentration on listening, thinking about the music, and how to play it helps to prevent the muscular tension that can develop from looking at music notation before natural playing skills are developed.

Technique and Keyboard Geography. Students become comfortable with black keys and the whole range of the keyboard from the beginning.

Performance pieces begin with one finger, then gradually progress to five-fingers, crossings, and extensions. Careful attention is given to developing the arm-hand-finger movements so that the body is free from muscular tension and the fingers develop fluid movement behind hand-arm balance. Students learn to avoid gripping, twisting, stretching, and reaching.

Accompanying CDs. The CDs that accompany Student Books 1-5 are organized by units that correspond to the student books. These CDs include songs to sing, performance pieces, and patterns (tonal, rhythm, and melodic) from each of the performance pieces. Students are asked to echo the patterns with the voice. Each unit begins with a "Song to Sing" that will become a performance piece later.

CDs are also included with Keyboard Games, Books A and B, Christmas Music, and the Supplementary books.

The separate Pattern CD includes sequenced tonal and rhythm patterns for the whole series.