PianoMath^® Home Page

PianoMath is a cross-disciplinary curriculum intended to do two things at the same time - teach elementary grade students music literacy through the rudiments of piano skills and simultaneously improve their mathematical comprehension. In a computer lab equipped with small music keyboards teachers use activities that relate new music principles to their mathematical equivalents.

PianoMath helps students integrate mathematical principles through more than just their mind. Solving problems in a musical context adds manipulative and auditory means to students’ strategies, and does so through the delight of producing tunes and rhythms on electronic keyboards. This is particularly useful for auditory and kinesthetic learners. The software-based PianoKids® keyboard methodology speeds up the acquisition of playing skills, and acts as a motivating incentive in both mathematics and music.

PianoMath and the PianoKids software were developed by Peter Taussig, a former concert pianist and director of music technology at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. They are being implemented in a three-year pilot project at the Lorain, Ohio school district near Cleveland. At the Washington Math and Music Magnet school where students start their keyboard and PianoMath training in the first grade.

Teaching math through music adds a new role to elementary musical instruction, augmenting its traditional importance as an Arts subject. Making music an important component of the preparation of young minds for scientific and mathematical thinking and creative problem solving brings it closer to core subjects. This in turn has the potential to raise the value of music in the eyes of school councils, help secure music in beleaguered districts, and foster a spirit of greater collaboration amongst the teachers in a school. The high profile accorded our Lorain pilot school by the district, and the greater team spirit we have observed at the school bode well for the future of the math-through-music concept in other schools.

The Lorain, OH Magnet project is jointly assisted by PianoKids - Piano Lessons for the Computer Age, a music education research and development institute in Lenox, Massachusetts, and EDC (Education Development Center), an international curriculum development company in Newton, Massachusetts.

Peter Taussig, director

PianoKids

PO Box 2394

Lenox, MA 01240

USA

Tel. 413-637-1168

pianokids100@gmail.com