Experience, Background and Method
Robert Pace
A note from Adrienne:
I use the Robert Pace method of instruction. In combination with private lessons, it incorporates dynamic group lessons. Group instruction offers a naturally supportive environment where students learn to listen openly and play without reserve, as well as a context in which to see themselves as developing musicians. Further advantages are:
1. Music fundamentals – rudiments, harmony, ear-training, etc. – are basics to be taught to all. Covering these in a group setting leaves more time in private lessons for higher level, individualized learning.
2. Through peer interaction in groups, teachers get feedback on what students are actually comprehending.
3. Students learn how to help each other by making direct, positive and thoughtful criticism.
After attending and later becoming faculty at Julliard in New York City, Dr. Pace was a composer, concert pianist, lecturer, and music educator at Teachers College, Columbia University from 1948 to 1969, eventually becoming chairman of the music department. During those years, he developed this method from the desire to enable all students to achieve their musical potential by becoming musically literate and independent. Pace piano books emphasize mastering music. They present four musical aspects simultaneously: repertoire and sightreading, variation and composition, music theory, and piano technique. This foursquare approach provides a full musical background whether the student continues to study piano or branches off to other instruments. Even if the student discontinues study at a future date, she or he will have acquired a musical education that will greatly enhance every subsequent musical experience, active or passive.
My resources stem from my own Pace music education, beyond which I draw upon extensive dance experience and a degree in K-12 education. Music and movement are interrelated. For young children especially, but even for older children, learning is greatly enhanced when they use movement as a pathway to understanding music. For this reason, I incorporate whole-body activities into nearly every lesson.
I began learning music from my mother, who pioneered the Pace method in the Pacific Northwest in the early 1970s. She taught a sizeable community of students in her three-piano studio in north Seattle. Being her student gave me the basis for years of enjoyment in the performing arts. Since then I have had two other private piano teachers and have played in various chamber, folk and accompanist settings, currently as accompanist to Gaye Detzer and her violin students. I am the pianist for Vashon’s own The Portage Philharmonic jazz/swing band. My musical background also includes diverse vocal training and performance and I sing back-up vocals for Loose Change R&B band.
I earned a Washington State Teaching Certificate with endorsements in K-12 education and French, as well as BA degrees in both Education and Linguistics. I earned a living teaching elementary music and middle school French as a regular substitute in the Highline and Edmonds School Districts. I then spent five years creating new music and dance, first in Cornell University's performing arts department and then in New York City. Returning to the Pacific Northwest, I continued post-baccalaureate university studies in dance composition and performance. I occasionally teach dance at the Vashon Dance Academy and Blue Heron Dance.
Incidentally, but of significant note, by participating in my four children's Suzuki violin instruction since 2003, I have researched and have personal insight regarding parents' concerns and children's perspectives when learning a musical instrument. Also, as a regular volunteer at Chautauqua Elementary School, I have on file current WSP background clearance.
From an interview with Robert Pace
What do you see as the "philosophy" behind the Pace books? What distinguishes them from other method materials?
Today there are many piano methods on the market, each with its own rationale for why it is superior to the others. Realistically, no approach is any better than the understanding and sensitivity of the teacher using it. The "philosophy" of the Pace Approach is to develop, from the beginning, a real musical independence, based on understanding what you are learning, and being able to think musically. Above all, rote memory, and learning without understanding what you are doing should be avoided. To develop independence, students must become acquainted with music fundamentals, rudiments, harmony, ear-training, etc. from the very very beginning, since these are the "foundation" of musical understanding. Students in the Pace Approach learn to teach themselves, since, in reality they must be their own teachers 6/7ths of the time during their practice between lessons. The ability to sight-read at the level of the repertoire being studied and being able to improvise and create one's own music are both essential skills. To accomplish this, the Pace Method stresses being able to play in any key with a good and responsive technique which will enable the learner to get the right note at the right time with the right intensity. Students must never practice pieces in a repetitive, mechanical way--rather they must play musically even as they sight-read the piece. The goal is to play both accurately, and musically from the beginning, albeit under tempo.
In short, the multi-key approach with the integration of music fundamentals at every level are two distinguishing features of the Pace Approach.
--West Mesa Music Teachers Association Interview with Dr. Pace, August 2004