AGLC4 Citations
Randall Faber, Hanon‑Faber: The New Virtuoso Pianist: Selections from Parts 1 and 2 (Faber Piano Adventures, 2017).
Hanon‑Faber, The New Virtuoso Pianist — Online Support (Faber Piano Adventures) https://pianoadventures.com/qr/ff3035/ accessed 3 November 2025.
Annotated Bibliography — 50‑sentence descriptive and evaluative annotation (Nigella Lawson cadence, student age 13, ACARA v9 links)
1. Randall Faber's Hanon‑Faber: The New Virtuoso Pianist: Selections from Parts 1 and 2 (Faber Piano Adventures, 2017) is a focused collection of technical studies arranged for developing pianists.
2. The printed volume gathers short exercises and etudes that are drawn from the longer New Virtuoso Pianist series and curated for practical use in lessons and practice sessions.
3. On first sight the book is attractively prepared, with clear notation, fingering suggestions and progressive difficulty that feels friendly rather than forbidding.
4. Each piece is compact, making it simple to set achievable practice goals for a 13‑year‑old who needs quick wins to build confidence.
5. The selection emphasises scales, arpeggios, hand independence and rhythmic clarity, which are the technical spices of good piano playing.
6. Hanon‑Faber's exercises are less about glittering virtuosity and more about steady, daily nourishment for technique—like a nourishing broth that strengthens the bones of musicianship.
7. The collection is excellent for short, focused warm‑ups before repertoire lessons and for targeted technique weeks when a teacher wants to isolate a skill.
8. Randall Faber includes pedagogical notes and suggested practice patterns that guide both student and teacher towards incremental improvement.
9. The musical language of the exercises is simple, which is useful for younger players because it lets them attend to touch, tempo and articulation without complex harmonic distractions.
10. Although the pieces are mainly technical, they still invite musical expression through dynamics, phrasing and tempo rubato when appropriate.
11. For a Year 7–8 class, these selections can be used to demonstrate how the elements of music—pitch, duration, dynamics, timbre and texture—work together in a short study.
12. This links directly to ACARA v9 Music outcomes for Years 7–8, which emphasise performing with increasing technical control, creating short musical ideas, and responding to music.
13. Teachers can build assessment tasks from single focused performances of an etude, combined performance‑and‑reflection tasks, or a comparison journal where students track technical progress over weeks.
14. A simple performance task could ask a student to perform an etude twice: once without metronome at expressive tempo and once with a metronome at a set technical target, and then write a short reflection.
15. This assessment format aligns with ACARA's expectation that students both perform and reflect on improving skills and musical choices.
16. The book's progressive layout supports formative assessment because teachers can set clear, incremental technical goals and note steady improvement.
17. For aural assessment, teachers can use short exercises from the book as stimuli for listening tasks—students can be asked to identify rhythmic patterns, articulations or dynamic contrasts after hearing a phrase.
18. For notation and theory ties, an exercise may be transcribed into a short melodic dictation or harmonic analysis appropriate to Year 7–8 learning objectives.
19. The Faber approach encourages daily, bite‑sized practice and the use of varied tempos and articulations—an accessible routine for a busy teenager.
20. Practically, teachers should recommend practice logs, brief recordings and milestone targets—strategies that turn repetitive study into measurable learning.
21. The online support page (Hanon‑Faber, The New Virtuoso Pianist — Online Support, Faber Piano Adventures) hosts audio examples, backing tracks and printable accompaniments, which richly complement the book.
22. Recorded audio tracks allow students to hear ideal tone, tempo and phrasing, which is particularly helpful for learners who benefit from auditory models.
23. Backing tracks transform technical studies into ensemble‑style practice, adding the joy of playing with accompaniment and improving timing and listening skills.
24. Downloadable PDFs and teacher resources speed up lesson preparation and make it easier to provide differentiated parts for mixed‑ability classes.
25. The QR link provided with the book connects directly to these resources, which is handy for classroom tablets, BYOD and home practice setups.
26. For assessment, teachers can record student performances and compare them to the provided audio support, generating evidence of improvement across weeks.
27. The online materials also allow for flipped‑learning: students can prepare at home with the recordings and come to lessons ready to apply focused feedback.
28. In terms of inclusivity, the exercises can be slowed or simplified for less experienced students, or accelerated and ornamented for those seeking stretch tasks.
29. A possible Year 7 assessment sequence is: technique warm‑up (from the book), short performance, written reflection on practice strategies, and a listening test using the online audio.
30. Rubrics could emphasise accuracy, rhythmic stability, expressive shaping and evidence of deliberate practice, matching ACARA's emphasis on performing and reflecting.
31. One pedagogical limitation is that a heavy diet of etudes risks students seeing technique as an end rather than a means to expressive music making.
32. Teachers should therefore always pair technical studies with short pieces of repertoire so students experience the real‑world application of their technique.
33. Another caveat is that not all students find repetitive exercises motivating; creative variation—changing dynamics, adding melodic ornaments or composing a short ending—helps sustain interest.
34. For teenagers who respond to goals and data, tracking metronome speeds, error counts and weekly recordings turns practice into a measurable challenge.
35. The book's clarity also makes it suitable for remote learning, where parents or older students can supervise practice with the help of the online audio.
36. From a classroom management perspective, the short length of each study means teachers can circulate quickly and offer pointed feedback to many students in a single lesson.
37. In ensemble contexts, pairs or small groups can use the backing tracks to practice synchronization and listening, which ties into curriculum outcomes about collaborative music making.
38. In relation to ACARA v9, these activities support the strands of performing and creating, listening and responding, and the practical application of musical language.
39. Assessment tasks that combine performance with a reflective journal map neatly to ACARA's expectation for students to appraise their own progress and make plans for improvement.
40. The online support's audio can also be used for aural tests: teachers can play snippets and ask students to notate rhythmic patterns, describe articulation, or identify hand distribution.
41. A realistic weakness is that commercial editions like this can be less adaptable than teacher‑created resources for culturally diverse or cross‑genre classrooms.
42. To mitigate this, teachers can contextualise the exercises with repertoire from different cultures or popular styles that resonate with students' lives.
43. The Faber approach pairs well with technology: screen share the online audio, show slowed recordings, or use recording apps for student self‑assessment.
44. For assessment moderation, teachers can collate student recordings over a term and compare them against the book's recommended technical benchmarks.
45. The cost and access are modest—most schools can afford a class set or ensure shared copies with online access via QR—making it a practical inclusion in a departmental resource list.
46. Overall, Hanon‑Faber: The New Virtuoso Pianist selections act as a reliable pantry of technical exercises: not glamorous on their own, but essential ingredients for healthy musical growth.
47. Paired with the online audio and teacher creativity, the exercises become musical morsels—small, delicious opportunities for steady progress.
48. I recommend teachers use the book for structured warm‑ups, targeted technical blocks, short summative performances and formative listening activities that map to ACARA v9 outcomes.
49. For a 13‑year‑old student, the combination of printed exercises, supportive recordings and clear practice goals makes this resource both effective and encouraging.
50. In the mellow cadence of practice and reward, these studies offer the comforting, slow simmer of skill building—patient, fragrant and ultimately rewarding.