BOOK Piano TechnicPiano Technic Book 5 Frances Clark Library for Piano Students Music by David Kraehenbuehl Planned and correlated by Frances Clark Edited by Louise GossPreface The six volumes of the Piano Technic series are designed as techni- cal preparation for the piano literature which the student will play at each of the corresponding levels. Of course, no book can teach technic. But a book can organize the presentation of technic into the most logical and concise order of development and, at the same time, provide musical situations so appealing that they encourage concentrated and repeated tech- nical practice. This is the purpose of the Piano Technic series. As you study this book, you will see that: 1. Every etude rehearses a specific technical point. The purpose of each etude is explained at the top of the page. But notice especially that: a) the technical point is not obscured by other technical points; b) the technical point occurs over and over throughout the piece; ‘¢) the technical point occurs on various combinations of white keys and black keys; there is always as much experience for left hand as for right hand, and equal experience for all ten fingers. 2. The Index shows in which etudes any of a variety of technical points may be practiced. 3. The book is divided into four chapters, each of which is de- voted to one of the four basic positions which the hand as- sumes as it plays any piece of music. (See Table of Contents, page 4.) The organization follows the same general plan as that used for Piano Technic Books 1, 2, 3 and 4. Any technical problem which the student finds too difficult in Book 5 can be studied in a slightly simpler setting in Book 4. 4. All technical practice is done in musical context, not in finger exercises. Many of these technical etudes are written in the musical style of our own day. Czerny, Heller, Burgmiiller, Streabbog wrote etudes in the idiom of their day for students learning to play the piano in the 19th Century. But that was a hundred years ago! Today’s young people have different rhythms, different harmonies, different sonorities in their ears, and respond with enthusiastic delight to technical etudes written in the idiom of their own time. d ~~ FRANCES CLARK