Functional Skills for Pianists addresses the need for a comprehensive anthology of musical examples in a wide variety of styles (Baroque through Modern) for keyboard majors (performance, pedagogy, collaborative pianists), keyboard principals (music education, music therapy, music business, church music, liberal arts majors), and composition/theory students. Its Topical structure allows teachers the freedom to design lessons that meet varied abilities and needs of students. It is Comprehensive on two levels: 1) it includes introductory guidelines on fundamentals followed by numerous examples that are sequenced from beginning through advanced levels and 2) while it covers the development of skills found in beginning texts, it extends to more demanding sight reading material and substantive sections on figured bass realization and jazz/popular music harmonization. Currently, there is not a book on the market that covers such a wide variety and range of functional keyboard skills.

Valerie C. Cisler, Christopher C. Fisher, and Kenon D. Renfrow