Presto! It’s Piano Magic, Book 1, is designed as an all-inclusive, holistic approach to teaching piano to beginning students.

This approach to teaching piano can be used successfully for children, youth, and adults. It can be used successfully for students who have never had a piano lesson, and for students who have had some lessons but are missing background information, are unable to read music, or have other gaps in music theory, musical understanding, or technical skill development.

Presto! It’s Piano Magic, Book 1, is comprehensive. It contains lessons, theory, technique, and performance pieces, all in one book. One supplement you might consider as you work through Book 1 is the The Holiday and Special Occasion Studio Packet. This add-on contains songs and pieces at all levels of student ability (through Book 1 and Book 2) for use during holiday seasons and special occasions. The Holiday and Special Occasion Studio Packet is a teacher or studio supplement – you can hand out individual songs and pieces to students. This can be great for student recitals.

Lessons are sequenced in a way that makes logical sense to a beginning learner. Each topic is introduced using clear, straight-forward, easy-to-read words, while using the language of music. Concepts and skills build on each other in a careful structure that is coherent and purposeful; they are not thrown out haphazardly, and students are not overwhelmed with too many new ideas at once.

Lessons are designed so that students develop technical facility while they learn to read music. Efforts to learn to read music will not hinder a student’s ability to learn to play music on the piano. Arrangements of songs and pieces are developmentally appropriate, interesting, drawn from diverse cultures, genres, styles, and they sound good.

Lessons strive to teach the whole student as a well-rounded musician, in order to facilitate thorough musical development at the piano. Book 1 introduces the piano keyboard and traditional music notation, and also embarks upon ear training, sight singing (including solfege), and rhythmic understanding – skills that will become more and more useful as students advance in reading, playing, improvising, and even composing music.

Best wishes to you and your students as each one begins their musical journey!