using songs to teach beginners

[pianistimo]

was looking through repertoire in the west chester library and happened upon the vocal section first.  being curious, i looked through some schumann, brahms, faure, copeland (looked great for rhythm learning) etc.  and thought to myself.  i could transcribe these for beginning students in tetrachord form (lh 5432 rh2345) and make them simple pieces to learn music as well as play in duet form.  teacher plays accompaniment, student plays song.  this would get students to #1 hear a melody (phrase) #2 to shape the phrases like they were singing #3 to gain experience with sightreading notes #4 to learn rhythms

i worry about progressing too fast to chordal playing (as many method books push).  somehow, when chords come in too soon, we lose the musicality.  agree?  disagree?

chick corea has some interesting stuff, doesn't he! 

[abell88]

I think it's a nice idea; certainly it's good to get them playing beautiful music from the beginning.