On Your Way to Succeeding with the Masters®: Piano Book

Purposeful and structured without feeling rigid. Each piece has a clear musical reason to exist, grounding abstract concepts like dominant harmony or whole steps in actual sound and movement under the hands.

Elementary and late elementary students working through the Succeeding with the Masters repertoire collection who need focused, concept-based theory reinforcement. Teachers who want theory to emerge from the music itself rather than abstract exercises.

• Start with the concepts your students find most challenging in the repertoire collection. Use these pieces to reinforce what they're already working on rather than treating theory as separate material.
• Encourage improvisation activities as a chance to hear students apply concepts in real time. Their attempts reveal whether they truly understand the concept or are just following notation.
• Reference the Glossary when students get stuck so they develop the habit of self-checking before asking for help.

Assign theory pieces alongside their corresponding repertoire selections during regular lessons; the two reinforce each other. Use composition and improvisation activities as warm-ups or cool-downs to shift engagement without losing focus on the day's technique work.

• Identifying and playing whole and half step intervals
• Building and recognizing five-finger patterns across the keyboard
• Understanding tonic and dominant function in harmonic context
• Creating simple melodies through guided composition
• Improvising within given harmonic frameworks