Music by Me, Book Three: Early Intermediate Piano Book

This book moves students beyond playing what's written into understanding how music actually works. The progression from upbeats and downbeats through theme and variations gives students real agency in the creative process, while modern scales broaden their harmonic palette beyond traditional major and minor.

A shift from passenger to pilot. The exercises build genuine compositional thinking, combining the satisfaction of creating something new with the grounded skill-building that comes from working within established frameworks.

Students ready to take ownership of their musical choices, typically in their second or third year of piano study. This book works particularly well for younger composers or anyone whose curiosity about how music is constructed outpaces their ability to read advanced repertoire.

• When introducing upbeats and downbeats, have students physically conduct or tap the underlying pulse while playing to internalize where each measure begins and ends.
• Ask students to play the original melody alone first, then add their harmonization in a separate hand or layer; this separation clarifies the relationship between melody and harmony.
• For theme and variations exercises, encourage students to mark or label which variation they're playing before starting, so they stay conscious of what changes and what stays the same.
• Experiment with modern scales on their own before attempting compositions using them; improvisation builds comfort faster than written exercises alone.

Assign chapters throughout the year as complementary musicianship work alongside your standard lesson repertoire. The theme and variations concept also translates beautifully into group activities where students compose variations on a shared melody, then perform them for each other.

• Distinguishing upbeats from downbeats in melodic phrasing
• Creating sequences that extend and develop initial melodic ideas
• Harmonizing melodies with chord choices and voice leading
• Understanding theme and variations as a compositional form
• Recognizing and composing with modern scales beyond major and minor tonality