The Study on the Analysis of Boogie-Woogie Style Repertoires in Piano Method Books

Abstract

Boogie-Woogie has influenced popular music, jazz, poetry, art, and classical piano works in various art areas. This study began with the discovery of the author's perspective, who is a piano educator, that Boogie-Woogie is scattered sporadically in each volume in common among the representative piano method books in the United States. It must be meaningful to find and classify only the Boogie-Woogie genre in a comprehensive piano method books composed of vast amounts of music. Furthermore, we tried to analyze the classified Boogie-Woogie to find out their educational implications and their usage. "Piano Adventures" and "Alfred Premier Course", representative American piano method books, were the subjects of this study. First, the fact that Boogie-Woogie influenced various art genres is that it is based on the aesthetic attributes of art given by patterns. Second, furthermore, the attributes of patterns in terms of pedagogy as well as aesthetics are important. Gordon(1927-2015)'s "Pattern learning" demonstrates this. Third, Boogie-Woogie's study can also be expected to provide practical help to piano educators who want to compile piano textbooks in the future. Boogie-Woogie was worth using in the piano method books. In addition to Gordon's "Pattern learning", it was also linked to the concept of Gordon's "Audiation", "Multisensory learning". Fourth, the explanation of the Boogie-Woogie in the piano method books is insufficient. Some Boogie-Woogie pieces were specified as "Boogie" in the title, but many did not. The method of study, related contents such as the dictionary meaning of Boogie-Woogie and the music history and characteristics of the United States will be reviewed in literature. Piano Adventures and Alfred Premier Course were also classified by collecting only sporadic boogie pieces among more than 1,000 pieces. By analyzing the classified pieces, the educational implications, usage, and effectiveness of the Boogie-Woogie genre within the comprehensive piano method books were revealed, and conclusions were drawn.