Here at Martucci Music, we have streamlined our piano curriculum to using our favorite Alfred’s piano books.
We have found this piano curriculum to be the most thorough in teaching a traditional piano technic that also includes a solid approach to music theory.
That being said, we also supplement materials with this piano curriculum at times in order to create a more custom piano lesson experience for individual piano students.
While other piano curriculum may have “prettier compositions”, we have found them lacking in their progression of music theory and the necessary time and exercises spent on developing note-reading skills.
With the Alfred series, we have found students to be more ready and equipped to progress to more advanced music and be less frustrated with feeling like the music becomes too difficult, too quickly.
If you are curious to learn more specifically about which series of Alfred’s piano books we use for our different age groups, continue below!
That’s ok! I’m Ready For Lessons!
Ages 2-5
For our youngest of piano students, we play a lot of music games to teach music theory and fine motor skills. This will help transition students into a more and more formal musical training experience.
We have created our own mini transition course curriculum that prepares young music students to transition more smoothly into their first piano books series.
This curriculum teaches students to put their theory and motor skills together with a couple of learn-by-number songs such as “Mary Had a Little Lamb”
Ages 4 or 5 & Up
Keeping in mind that every student is unique and different, depending on the child’s readiness, we transition them into their first piano series.
We take into consideration a student’s initial level of musical interest as well as personalities and match them with curriculum to meet them where they are.
There are two main series that we consider using at this point. Below we describe a little bit about each option.
Music For Little Mozarts Series
This adorable series includes characters and stories along with the piano lessons. The protagonists, Mozart Mouse and Beethoven Bear, interact with each other in learning the piano together.
With this series, students automatically get a little introduction to some of the great piano composers of history.
From this series, we use the following books: Lesson, Workbook, Recital, & Notespeller
Optional: Coloring book
Prep Course for the Young Beginner
This option advances students a little more quickly than The Little Mozart Series. We typically use this with students closer to age 6 or 7.
Again, we take student personalities into consideration before choosing one of these series over another.
This series doesn’t include the composers of history, but we love the thoroughness of it’s approach to note-reading!
At times, we will use our own prep course as a smoother transition into this piano curriculum series.
In this series, we use the following books: Lesson, Theory, Notespeller, & Solo
Ages 8 or 9 & Up
This series is by far our most popular series. It has a great selection of songs for our young piano students. Again, we love the approach of teaching music theory and the kinds of activities this series includes.
Sometimes we will use our own prep course curriculum as a smoother transition into this piano series.
From this series, we use the following books: Lesson, Recital, Notespeller, & Theory
Ages 12 or 13 & Up
For our young teens, the Alfred series has a curriculum series that is the perfect middle ground between Level 1A and the adult series.
Don’t worry, this piano curriculum is not as “cutesy” as the others on the inside even though the cover looks similar to the younger series.
This series also introduces other genres like jazz much earlier than the younger series.
From this series, the following books are used: Lesson, Recital, Notespeller, & Theory
Adult Piano Curriculum
For our beginning adult piano students, we use this series. It is similar to the teen series, but advances a little faster.
There is an all-in-one book related to this series but we have found it to move even faster than most adult students feel comfortable with. Therefore, we stick to the individual books of this curriculum series.
From this series, the books we use are: Lesson, Notespeller, & Theory
In the Level 2 series we do not use a notespeller book.
Ready to Take Piano Lessons With Martucci Music?
Hopefully you have found this page to be insightful on our favorites among the different series that Alfred Publishing Company has to offer! Feel free to contact us if you have other questions about our piano lessons at Martucci Music!