Pianodao

The Easiest Gillock Pieces

Pianodao Music Library
Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales

When I compiled the Graded Gillock series for The Willis Music Company, a decision was made early on to focus on three books covering Grades 1-6, two grades per selection. You can read about those collections here, which have already become popular with teachers and students alike.

William Gillock (1917-1993) also composed a wealth of music for beginners, so it is a special joy to welcome a new collection from Willis Music. The Easiest Gillock Pieces brings together a careful selection of 31 of his pieces for pre-Grade 1 players.

This new collection complements the Graded Gillock series by covering the earlier stages of learning and opening up the prospect of players discovering the composer’s beginner music.

Better still, it includes brand new duet parts: optional accompaniments which have been newly composed by Gillock’s famous protégé Glenda Austin, whose own music I have reviewed here. So is this now an indispensable book for younger beginners?

Pianoworks • Meditations

Pianodao Music Library
Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales

Janet and Alan Bullard’s Pianoworks series of older beginner books have long been a staple within my teaching studio. The two method books provide a solid introduction to musical understanding, piano technique and creative musicianship, while the supplementary repertoire collections are among the most popular I have ever used, whether alongside the method or independently.

It’s been a while since the series expanded, but the Bullards are back with a new collection, sporting a fresh new look which I am told will be adopted by the whole series as each title goes to reprint. According to the publishers,

“Pianoworks Meditations is a brilliant collection of gentle and reflective pieces for the older beginner. Written with a focus on playing for enjoyment, these 24 original pieces guide the player through a range of styles, while aiding in relaxation and mindfulness.”

Having played through the collection I am happy to confirm that they are as beautifully crafted as the original music which the Bullards previously sprinkled throughout the Pianoworks series, but let’s take a closer look…

Adaptive Teaching and Metacognition

The Pianodao Guest Book
Interviews • Opinions • Guest Posts

I’m happy to welcome back KAREN MARSHALL with a new piece for Pianodao’s ADHD Insights series. Karen’s writing again reflects our shared focus on inclusive, practical, and thoughtful piano teaching…

Supporting neurodivergent pianists

Adaptive teaching has become an established principle across education in recent years and is widely recognised as an effective way of supporting neurodivergent learners. Rather than creating entirely separate lesson plans for pupils with additional needs, the aim of adaptive teaching is to adjust in the moment, or plan ahead so that every child can access a rich, rewarding curriculum.

But let’s be honest: as instrumental teachers, we’ve been doing this since the year dot! One of the great strengths of one-to-one music teaching is that we already provide every student with a bespoke learning experience.

Having spent years bridging the gap between classroom experiences and my private piano teaching, I often ask myself: how do we take these academic ideas and make them truly work in an instrumental lesson?

Dora Pejačević • Early Pieces

Pianodao Music Library
Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales

The Schott Student Edition series continues to expand, offering outstanding new collections of pedagogy classics and rediscovered gems. I have reviewed several previous titles here, and was delighted to recently receive a superb addition to the set: Dora Pejačević: Early Piano Pieces.

By happy synchronicity, I was teaching at The Thinking Pianist course just a few days after the Schott Music volume landed in my postbox, and during the week my faculty colleague and friend Ivana Gavrić gave an illuminating lecture recital introducing Dora Pejačević.

Having commercially recorded and performed the music of her famous compatriot, Ivana has a natural affinity with Pejačević’s music, promoting it with sensitivity, balanced enthusiasm, and retelling the story of this formidable Croatian cultural icon. Having packed Dora Pejačević’s Early Piano Pieces for the trip, we were able to discuss this new volume, and I am indebted to Ivana for her insights.

Meanwhile, introducing the Schott Music book, its editor Monika Twelsiek (who has previously brought us many outstanding publications in the Schott catalogue) tells us,

“Dora Pejačević (1885-1923) is a star in Croatia: streets, schools and cafés are named after her, there is a perfume and a sparkling wine bearing her name, and a statue named ‘Dora’ is awarded at the Croatian national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. Outside Croatia, however, the composer only became known late. After having been forgotten for many years, her works did not reach the public until the 1980s…
Who is this woman?“

Arise and Shine

Pianodao Music Library
Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales

Back in 2023 I reviewed two collections of Piano Music of Black Composers compiled by the American performer, scholar, and educator Leah Claiborne for Hal Leonard’s Expanding the Repertoire series.

The two books offered a varied and engaging, if in hindsight slightly inconsistent, potpourri of little-known music by Black composers, and at the time I concluded,

“It’s a great pity that this fabulous pedagogic repertoire hasn’t been a standard feature of our piano education culture, and Leah Claiborne has done us a superb service in providing these slender volumes. We must hope more will follow.”

More has indeed followed, and I was delighted to receive Claiborne’s latest anthology, Arise and Shine, which offers 28 piano solos by Black composers suitable for intermediate to early advanced players (I would estimate UK Grades 2-8).

Jason Sifford • Here Be Dragons

Pianodao Music Library
Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales

Jason Sifford has established himself as one of America’s most respected composers of educational piano music, and a jewel in the crown of music publishers The Willis Music Company.

Promoting his music more widely, I wrote a rave review recommending his two KEYBOP books when they appeared, and subsequently selected three of his pieces to appear in my Willis Student Recital Collection.

Introducing Sifford’s lavishly illustrated new collection, Here Be Dragons, Willis Music write,

“Cultures from around the world tell of thrilling tales and legends about magical flying creatures. This intermediate piano collection was inspired by these fantastical beasts and aims to provide performance material and adventurous music-making for all pianists with vivid imagination.”

This new collection is billed as suitable for Intermediate to Early Advanced players, and sounds exciting, so let’s brave ourselves and take a look…

The LOTR Piano Anthology

Pianodao Music Library
Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales

Faber Music have now been producing their series of deluxe piano anthologies for around a decade, with one or two new titles appearing each year, each volume generally bringing together an eclectic but appealing mix of music grouped around a specific theme: Christmas, Jazz Standards, Women Composers, and so on.

You can explore my reviews of the series here.

A previous title in the series broke the usual pattern by focusing on a specific movie series. The Harry Potter Piano Anthology was produced in association with the US publishers Alfred Music, who own the rights and arrangements, and in my review of that title, I concluded that it was “an exceptional publication which is unlikely to disappoint”.

Revisiting that partnership, Faber Music now bring us The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit Piano Anthology, again in partnership with Alfred. The cover announces that the book includes:

“The best-loved themes from Howard Shore’s landmark scores along with other featured songs, arranged for intermediate piano solo.”

The anthology is as lavishly presented as ever, and likely to tempt all those who appreciate Shore’s superb movie scores, so let’s take a look…

ADHD and ‘micro-breaks’

ADHD • Insights for Pianists
Andrew Eales with Louise Eales RMN, NMP

Everybody seems to be talking about Molly Gebrian’s book Learn Faster, Perform Better (OUP 2024, available here) and rightly so: it is a superb read, well argued, engagingly written, and filled with brilliant tips and advice on how musicians can practise more effectively.

Author Molly Gebrian holding a viola, with the book 'Learn Faster, Perform Better' displayed next to her. — Molly Gebrian with her book ‘Learn Faster, Perform Better’

We all want to improve, and Gebrian offers insights from neuroscience that back up many of our well-established strategies for effective practice, along with some interesting newer nuggets of advice, including what has become one of her signature suggestions: incorporating “micro-breaks” between repetitions when perfecting technical passages.