Baylor Piano Basics Baylor Piano Basics is an open educational resource for experienced musicians who are beginners at piano. Designed to support students through the class piano sequence at Baylor University, the book is divided into four main sections—one each for Class Piano I, II, III, and IV:

Class Piano I: 6 units, Chapters 1–47
Class Piano II: 4 units, Chapters 48–85
Class Piano III: 4 units, Chapters 86–112
Class Piano IV: 3 units, Chapters 113–134

Appendices:

  1. Major Scale Fingerings

  2. Harmonic Minor Scale Fingerings

  3. Chromatic Scale Fingerings

  4. Major Arpeggio Fingerings

  5. Minor Arpeggio Fingerings

  6. Dominant 7th Chord Arpeggio Fingerings (White-Key Roots) and Fully Diminished 7th Chord Arpeggio Fingerings (White-Key Roots)

  7. Critical Commentary on Works by Price

  8. Repertoire Index (Alphabetical by Composer)

  9. Repertoire Index (In Order of Appearance)

Appendices 1–6 include keyboard graphics and overhead video performances for each musical vocabulary item.

Musical Vocabulary

Musical vocabulary concepts in Class Piano I begin with five-finger patterns in all major keys and expand to triad inversions, primary chords, one- and two-octave scales with white-key tonics, one-octave arpeggios with white-key tonics, major triad chromatic chord crawls, and diatonic chord crawls. Class Piano II explores parallel topics in minor keys, as well as the blues scale. Class Piano III introduces scales, arpeggios, and chord crawls in the remaining major keys with black-key tonics. Class Piano IV features dominant and fully diminished seventh chord arpeggios and introduces students to various modes, as well as chromatic, whole-tone, and octatonic scales.

New scales and arpeggios are introduced in groups of keys that share similar fingering patterns, with explanations of how keyboard topography affects fingering. Blank keyboards accompany the notated scales and arpeggios so that students can draw the fingerings on the keys, strengthening their understanding of the connection between staff notation and keyboard layout.

Harmonization

Across the four levels, the book contains 78 distinct melodies for harmonization and transposition, including the Memorable Melodies introduced in Class Piano I and II and the melodies provided for the Accompaniment Project. These materials encompass folk songs, children’s songs, spirituals, hymns, popular songs, and melodies by named composers from a range of cultural traditions. Familiar melodies recur throughout the curriculum so that students can apply increasingly sophisticated skills to material they already know.

Harmonization begins with chord roots and progresses through chord shells, blocked triads in closest position, and two-hand accompaniments with primary chords. Class Piano III introduces waltz-bass, Alberti-bass, and broken-chord patterns and expanded diatonic harmony. Class Piano IV expands to chromatic harmony and keyboard-style harmonization and emphasizes the improvisation of two-hand accompaniments with primary chords.

Reading

Class Piano I and II feature 78 sight-reading excerpts. 24 were composed by the author for this curriculum, while the remaining excerpts were selected from public-domain piano methods and pedagogical works by Ferdinand Beyer, Cornelius Gurlitt, Karl Merz, and Christopher Meineke. The excerpts progress from simple melodies and alternating-hand textures to more continuous two-hand writing in major and minor keys, varied meters, expanded registers, and increasingly active accompaniments.

The book also contains 29 score-reading excerpts. Score reading begins in Class Piano II with two independent, non-transposing lines, before expanding to three- and four-part vocal scores. Chorales and hymns receive special attention in this curriculum: Class Piano III introduces preparatory exercises and 10 short hymn excerpts that isolate common harmonic and contrapuntal patterns. Class Piano IV culminates in 12 complete hymns, through which students apply four-part reading, harmonic analysis, pedaling, and voice redistribution, as appropriate.

Repertoire

Baylor Piano Basics includes 40 solos and 5 two-piano duos by 18 composers, including 6 women. The collection spans early-elementary through intermediate levels, beginning with nineteenth-century pedagogical works by Gurlitt, Beyer, and Ludvig Schytte. Later units broaden the selection to include Baroque, Classical, Romantic, twentieth-century, and contemporary music. Five new repertoire pieces were commissioned by the Baylor School of Music specifically for this text:

Baylor Piano Basics also features premiere publications of 6 works by Florence B. Price, including 1 solo and 5 two-piano duos that Price composed for use in class piano. Critical commentary on these works can be found in Appendix 7.

Video performances of all repertoire selections are available in the online version of the book.

Projects

Class Piano II and IV each conclude with an individual project that synthesizes multiple skills in a practical performance. Students in Class Piano II complete the Accompaniment Project, preparing a two-hand accompaniment to a folk song in various keys and styles and performing it with a peer singing or playing the melody. Students in Class Piano IV complete the Capstone Project, with a menu of options specific to each student’s major.

Beyond Baylor

My hope is that Baylor Piano Basics will be a valuable resource to teachers and students beyond Baylor University. The book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, allowing readers to copy, share, and adapt its contents for noncommercial purposes. Users must provide appropriate attribution, and any adaptations must be distributed under the same license.