Music Tree

Teachers keep coming back to The Music Tree: Student's Book, Part 1 and Time to Begin as their go-to foundations for beginning students. The paired Activities Books for each level reinforce concepts from the student texts, making lesson planning and practice assignments straightforward. Solo Flight (for Time to Begin, Part 1) gives early students performance material that builds on what they're learning in their method book.

Elvina Pearce studied with Isabelle Vengerova in New York and became a pedagogy student of Frances Clark herself. She helped found the New School for Music Study and the Frances Center for Keyboard Pedagogy in Princeton, bringing that lineage directly into the Music Tree materials. Her work on supplemental pieces like Solo Flight reflects her deep understanding of how young pianists learn and what engages them at each stage.

Frances Clark shaped modern piano pedagogy through her method books and her influence on generations of teachers. The Music Tree stands as her most widely adopted series, used in studios and schools across multiple countries. Her collaborative work with Louise Goss and Sam Holland on the student books established an approach that balances structured skill-building with musical expression from the very beginning.