Selected and Reviewed by ANDREW EALES
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Penelope Roskell’s Essential Piano Technique series has already established itself as a benchmark resource for introducing healthy piano techniques in an imaginative and musical way.
The first three books appeared in 2023. Primer A, Primer B, and Level 1 publications take the beginner up to around Grade 1 in the UK, and in my review here I concluded,
“I cannot overstate how highly I recommend these three volumes. Beautifully presented, but modestly priced, they establish a new benchmark for teaching children the foundations for a healthy piano technique.”
With the latest two additions to the growing series, Roskell provides a similarly useful and significant resource for players progressing through Late Elementary to Intermediate level, Grades 1-4.
In this review, I will look at these Level 2 and Level 3 books in turn, and consider what part they might play in piano lessons and the development of learners…
Level 2 • Late Elementary
The 64-page Level 2 book supports the player’s technical development up to around UK Grade 2. As with the previous books, the author begins with a friendly welcome in which she outlines the learning intentions to be found at Level 2:
- New warm-ups
- How to create a wide range of sound through sound explorer activities
- How to play expressively with rounded movements
- Arpeggios and harmonic minor scales in lots of new keys
- Coordinating the hands with mixed articulation
- Left-hand melodies and Alberti bass
- Legato pedalling
In her separate introduction for teachers, she explains,
“Much of the focus of Level 2 is on awareness of piano sound and playing expressively. Students are encouraged to listen carefully, develop sensitivity of touch and play with gestures that bring out the expressive quality of each exercise or piece.”
At the start, Roskell’s Circle Warm-ups provide a welcome physical routine for waking up the shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands and fingers, before even sitting at the piano. The illustration of good piano-playing posture that follows is both a useful reminder, and serves as a correction to some of the rather unhelpful illustrations I have seen elsewhere.
This leads directly to the main content, loosely divided into sections covering new topics, but without grouping material into fixed lessons or stages. Here, the explanations of specific techniques are always clear, and often use imaginative imagery, making them memorable and fun to apply.
Roskell’s approach emphasises well-developed finger independence, hand position stability, wrist mobility, rounded gestures, and engagement of hand weight with soft wrists. I should mention that when introducing scales, she advocates for fingering patterns that deviate from the more established ones, which might confuse some users.
Short exercises are interspersed with longer pieces, solo and duet, many of which are newly composed by Aaron Burrows. While essentially studies, these again stimulate the player’s imagination and are enjoyable, although in a few cases they seem more ambitious than might typically be expected for their grade level.
The book also includes older classics such as Samuel Arnold’s Gigue and Roskell’s own arrangements of music by Clementi, Mozart, Gurlitt, and Beach. These add to the musical breadth as well as illustrating how the techniques taught in the book should be integrated into the player’s repertoire and general music-making.
Overall then, I think that the Level 2 book is an outstanding follow-up to the previous volumes. Whether used as core learning resource or as a book to dip into for its superb musical content and exercises, this is superior material that is bound to elevate the quality of piano teaching and learning.
Level 3 • Early Intermediate
The bumper 80-page Level 3 book covers an even wider range, which is cited on the cover as Grades 2-4. In the introduction, Roskell says,
“You will study many new techniques which will give you a solid foundation in healthy piano playing and help you progress quickly and enjoyably. You will also learn how to play many beautiful new pieces expressively and with artistry.”
Though not listed as explicitly here, these new techniques include playing fluent semiquavers, larger chords, accents in a variety of musical contexts, melodic minor scales, two-octave arpeggios, exploring pianissimo cantabile, balancing hands and voices, mastering wider leaps, rapid repetitions, ornaments including trills, and direct pedalling (interestingly coming later than the legato pedalling in Level 2).
Once again, all aspects of physical movement are explained with clarity, and supported with short exercises, longer pieces (similarly a mixture of pedagogy classics and Aaron Burrows originals), and creative extension activities (which often include improvisation).
This is a level at which learners will hopefully be developing their knowledge of a wider range of scales and arpeggios (whether taking grades or not), and using study material by such stalwart favourites as Czerny and Burgmüller. The material in Roskell’s book doesn’t render those redundant so much as take an entirely new and innovative approach to technical development.
What I especially love about the material here is the groundbreaking combination of up-to-date expertise, which takes equal account of medical insights and musical development, with a far wider than expected range of holistic, creative activities which support three-dimensional learning.
Using this material
With so much to pack into these books, they perhaps inevitably have a chunky textbook feel. The quality cream paper of the first three volumes has (sadly) been replaced by bright white paper. There are fewer illustrations for these more advanced books, which seems to me appropriate and more in keeping with the other resources used at Grades 1-4 level.
Overall however, the graphic design retains the friendly style and visual appeal of the initial books in the series. Attractive though this is, teachers should bear in mind that some neurodiverse learners may find the busy page design distracting, and there is little space for making additional notes.
Supporting the material in both the Level 2 and Level 3 books, the author has produced an excellent array of videos demonstrating each of the techniques introduced. These can be accessed using a QR code from the book, which means that teachers, learners, and parents can all access and benefit from the superb additional support these provide.
Bearing in mind how comprehensive the overall material is, there are a variety of ways in which teachers will want to incorporate the Essential Piano Technique books into their existing curriculum, and the extent of their use is also likely to vary from one learner to another according to their needs and interests.
At the most basic level, I believe all piano teachers should evaluate this important resource, and consider how it might inform and help their teaching of healthy piano technique.
Many teachers, though perhaps not choosing to use the books as core learning material, will nevertheless use ideas, imagery, creative activities, and targeted exercises from throughout the series. The Essential Piano Technique books make a brilliant studio resource for use in lessons, and I believe their assimilation will improve all our teaching.
Some will want to follow the material methodically, encouraging students to purchase copies for home practice. I certainly anticipate doing this with a number of my younger students.
The Essential Piano Technique books methodically build skill upon skill in a progressive way, and the music included in the series is sufficiently interesting and varied to inspire enthusiasm, although most will want to supplement it with repertoire of theirs and their students choosing.
Teachers using the material extensively may also wish to join The Roskell Academy, which offers additional training, resources, support and advice for pianists and teachers who want to learn more about the author’s approach to piano playing and teaching, and about delivering this material themselves. You can find out more here.
Closing Thoughts
Penelope Roskell has a long-established expertise working with injured pianists to fix their technical problems. Her analysis of piano technique and her methods for imparting healthy practice are very well tried and tested, and personally I have high confidence in them.
I should again advise all piano players and teachers to get a copy of her superb The Complete Pianist, reviewed here, the phenomenal and authoritative text book underpinning the Essential Piano Technique series.
As practical teaching and learning resources which build on that very solid foundation, these new books in her growing series add to what must be described as an extraordinary legacy. I am thrilled to welcome these books, having concluded my review of the earlier volumes thus:
“The introduction to this new series hints that these three books are the start of a growing project, and we must certainly hope that Edition Peters’ new owners, Faber Music, continue to support Roskell’s vision. Her continuing publications are, to my mind, among the most significant of our times.”
I haven’t changed my mind at all. The Essential Piano Technique series is an essential piano education resource, and it belongs in the studio of every piano teacher.
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