Curriculum Development for an Undergraduate Piano Major Functional Piano Skills Course

Abstract

In an effort to prepare undergraduate piano majors for a diverse career in music, some undergraduate institutions elect to provide coursework for piano majors dedicated to the development of functional piano skills. Research shows that curriculum content of these functional piano skills courses varies considerably among undergraduate institutions. This document presents curriculum activities for a course in functional piano skills for undergraduate Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Musical Arts, Bachelor of Music Education, and Bachelor of Arts piano majors. The curriculum activities here are limited to four core functional piano skills: harmonization, accompanying, score reading, and transposition. Twenty-four skill activities, six activities for each of the four core skills, are presented in this document as a reference for instructors of functional piano skills courses. Content suggestions and sequencing found in leading secondary keyboard skills and skill-specific textbooks serve as a reference in the creation of activities intended for undergraduate piano majors. For each of the twenty-four activities, the author included the following features: a learning objective, a description of the activity, suggestions for instructional sequence, musical notation of the activity, suggestions for level modification, and a list of supplemental musical examples in public domain.