Rediscovering Piano Time
Rediscovering <em>Piano Time</em>
It’s an eventful time in the OUP Music office, as we’ve just sent to press the latest editions of the Piano Time method books by Pauline Hall. It’s always exciting to see the publication of a new title, but these books feel extra special.
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Rediscovering <em>Piano Time</em>
It’s an eventful time in the OUP Music office—we’ve just sent to press the latest editions of our Piano Time method books by Pauline Hall. It’s always exciting to see the publication of a new titles, but these books feel extra special. We last updated the method books in 2004, with Pauline Hall herself spearheading the changes and providing new material. Sadly, Pauline passed away in 2015, but her books have remained consistently popular with teachers and students alike. We wanted to honour her vision and approach, while giving the books the update they deserve, both visually and pedagogically.
The journey to new editions
Pauline’s family have been fully supportive throughout the process of creating the new editions and, importantly, felt sure that Pauline herself would have been thrilled to see her books living on in this way.
From the beginning, I was lucky enough to work with two fantastic content consultants—Janet Bullard and Dr Jeanette Gallant—who advised on the areas that required a fresh approach to suit today’s market.
We wanted to introduce a handful of new pieces to each of the method books and together we identified which of the existing pieces we felt could be replaced. We were well aware that many teachers have their favourites and tried to avoid losing any Piano Time ‘classics’ if we could! We also discussed other proposed changes to the books for reasons of pedagogy (changing the order of some material or introducing a technique more explicitly) or context (adding short background notes to explain certain terms or the history behind a piece).
Commissioning new works from composers
This is always one of the most exciting parts of my job, and our new contributors—Reena Esmail, William Chapman Nyaho, and Kristina Arakelyan—did not disappoint! While the pieces themselves may be simple, the process of writing to such a specific pedagogical brief is certainly not; the composers did an incredible job of creating pieces that ticked all the educational boxes while, most importantly, being great fun to play. All three composers were completely collaborative and happy to adapt their work to suit the precise requirements of the books, which made for a really wonderful end result—exactly what we were hoping for.
Editing and proofing the books
Once the manuscripts were finalised, I handed the books over to our brilliant in-house editorial team, led by Managing Editor Laura Jones, who oversaw the process of editing and proofing the books, keeping to the original design where possible.
Working with the illustrator
Perhaps the most transformative aspect of the new editions was working with the illustrator Rosie Brooks. We’d all fallen in love with Rosie’s style of illustration and couldn’t wait to see the characters she would create for our new books! We worked through stages of pencil sketches before Rosie delivered the final colour illustrations, which were set into the proofs by our typesetter Julia Bovee.
A musician as well as an artist, Rosie was such an enthusiastic and talented partner to work with, and the process really was a joy. I am sure her artwork will brighten the practice sessions of many generations of pupils to come.
Rosie’s cover illustrations were sent on to our in-house designer Marten Sealby, who had the tricky brief of updating some very well-known covers so that they felt fresh but also recognisable. I think he did a great job of achieving that balance.
Recording the pieces
The final piece in the puzzle was, for the first time, recording all the pieces in the method books. Naturally, we wanted to make sure that what we recorded reflected exactly what was written in the scores, so this was left until the end of the process. We asked the renowned pianist Michael Higgins to make these recordings for us—he did a wonderful job of bringing the pieces to life. I hope they will inspire many young pianists as they work through the new editions.
The thing that I’m most proud of is how much these new books have brought the whole team together. We all understand the importance of continuing Pauline’s work and I know every single member of our publishing team (as well as many others) contributed to the books in one way or another—a real team effort. I hope they are enjoyed by many new learners, and that teachers appreciate the updates to the new editions—and also what we chose not to change.
Please do let us know!
Featured image by Rosie Brooks.
OUPblog - Academic insights for the thinking world.