The Musical Looking Glass: Note-Reading & Early Piano Fluency Through Singing, Guided Discovery, and Creative Play

The Musical Looking Glass is designed to build musical understanding for musicians of all instruments through solfege singing and piano keyboard fluency.

Novice musicians without a piano background face a variety of apparent puzzles:

- Why is B to C a half step, when F to G is a whole step?

- Why are there two note names between G and A, but only one note?

- How is an arpeggio the same as a chord? (And what exactly is a chord?)

The piano offers a visual clarity for understanding music theory which is unrivaled by any other instrument. Even a basic piano knowledge brings transparency to concepts such as note names, intervals, and chords. This understanding is essential for players of not only melody instruments - e.g. strings and winds - but also of other harmony instruments such as guitar.

In this method, young players journey into the heart of music as a language. Rather than confronting the math and memorization of traditional theory instruction, students enjoy a rich playground to explore sounds, discover the hidden relationships of melody and harmony, and begin speaking the language of music.

The Musical Looking Glass equips musicians of all ages for a lifetime of joyful and creative music-making.

ALL INSTRUMENTS

76 full-color pages 25 full-page illustrations

Hollie Thomas is an award-winning composer, pianist, and educator dedicated to helping musicians deepen their musical understanding and chord prowess through creative play on the piano. Hollie's compositions have received several awards, most notably the International League of Women Composers Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Award for her setting of Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice." As a pianist, Hollie has performed worldwide in classical and modern chamber groups; for cabaret, theater, and dance; and as with eclectic pop/rock artists and bands including David Garza, the Kevin McCormick Ensemble, Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat, Deep Edward, The Jellydots, and Future Clouds & Radar. Hollie holds a Bachelor or Arts in Music Composition, studying composition with Dr. Michael Woods and Dr. Jerry Hatley; and studied classical piano performance in the studios of Dr. Betty Kirk, and Dr. Timothy Woolsey, and Hugh E. Thompson, Sr.Following a life-changing trip to Kiev, Ukraine in 1990, Hollie obtained her Masters of Education in the field of Linguistic Acquisition, and spent 10 years as an intensive English as a Second Language instructor and a curriculum developer for the English Language Center at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2003, Hollie made the decision to focus full-time on her private music teaching studio. Little did she imagine that her experience teaching language would exert a decisive influence, providing the vision for a piano teaching methodology which would more closely mirror language acquisition, crafted over the next two decades. Her teaching process transforms traditional technique teaching into a creative process that is fundamentally sourced from an understanding of harmony and composition.

Elise is the author of Kaleidoscopes series for violin, viola and cello, which was developed over two decades and blends Montessori and Kodaly principles within a Suzuki framework. Her teacher trainings in this ground-breaking method have received rave reviews from teachers in the United States, Canada, England, and Australia. A graduate summa cum laude from Rice University and holding a Master of Social Work from the University of Texas, Elise's training extends to developmental psychology, linguistics, cognition, communication, biomechanics, and contemplative dance. She has extensive training in both Kodaly and Suzuki methodologies. Her diverse background has placed her in a unique position to write an inter-disciplinary, child-focused instrumental method. As a violinist, Elise has performed as a member of the Austin Symphony, Austin Lyric Opera, and the Grammy Award-winning Conspirare choir. She has been featured as a soloist with Austin Chamber Music Center, the Victoria Bach Festival, and as guest concertmistress of La Follia Austin Baroque.Elise composed the original, whimsical piano accompaniments for the first two volumes of Kaleidoscopes, and is director of the Music Theory program of Enchanted Wood Suzuki Studio in Austin, Texas.