Often when people call me inquiring about lessons, one thing they want to know is what method or curriculum I use or recommend. I have taught from many different methods including Alfred’s, Bastien, and several others (usually because the new student already has these books at the recommendation of previous teachers), but I always try to quickly switch them over to the Faber’s Piano Adventures at the first opportunity.
And here’s the reason why. In almost every method, young students begin with the concept of finger numbers, ie. thumb=1, index=2, middle=3, etc. However, most methods keep the hand positions locked for weeks or even months into lessons. The problem is that younger students automatically begin to think that C is always finger one, D is always finger two, E is always finger three, and so on. With that, they become overly dependent on the finger numbers, which, in my opinion, makes it more difficult when they actually begin reading notes on the staff or learning different hand positions.
With Piano Adventures, the student begins putting the hands in different positions very early on. On one song, finger one may be on C, but two pages away, there will be a different song that will have finger one on E. This makes the students more “note dependent” as opposed to “finger number” dependent. As they progress in lessons, the concept of hand positions is mute because most music requires the pianist to move their hand constantly into different positions to accommodate the movement of the piece. Thus, Piano Adventures starts preparing for this early on, giving the students a method that is more conducive to expanding hand positions quickly and efficiently.
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