Comparative Research on Children Elementary Piano Teaching Materials

Piano,"king of musical instruments", is no longer beyond reach to many families, since people’s living standard and living quality are being constantly developed, which has led to the constant rising enthusiasm in piano learning. At the same time when people are paying more and more attention to children’s sentiments cultivation, piano education is no longer regarded as the only road to the cultivation of special music talents, but a way to the development of children’s all-round qualities in morality, intelligence, physical fitness and aesthetic appreciation ability. While piano learning is gradually becoming a social hotspot in China, there appear a lot of problems in piano education, of which children elementary piano teaching material has increasingly become outstanding. In order to be adapted to the new piano teaching situation, the variety of children elementary piano teaching material has become richer. Some foreign classic piano textbooks, such as John Thompson’s Easiest Piano Course, continue to occupy the market, and at the same time some new ones, like Bastie’s Piano Basics and Piano Adventures, have been introduced into the country one after another. A lot of domestic self-compiled children’s elementary piano textbooks appear, all emphasizing conducting piano teaching activities to stimulate children’s interest in piano learning spontaneously. All these teaching materials have added the degree of difficulty in the right choice while they have enriched the choices for the teachers.This thesis adopts as research objects John Thompson’s Easiest Piano Course, a traditional main entry teaching material early introduced to the Chinese market, Bastie’s Piano Basics, introduced to China in2004, advocating the idea of "happy learning", and Piano adventures, introduced in2012. It conducts a comparative study and analysis in four fields:the way of entry, pianism structure and arrangements of fundamentals of music, cultivation in comprehensive music accomplishment and the compiling of textbooks, demonstrating the influence and significance of entry point and teaching ideas to children elementary piano teaching and learning, and showing some thinking aspects of some domestic children elementary piano textbooks in developing trend, interest orientation, reasonability and nationality of teaching schedule and combination of textbooks and pedagogy.