Presto! It’s Piano Magic
A Complete Curriculum for Piano and All Music Students
Presto! It's Piano Magic
A Comprehensive Piano Curriculum Built on the Dennis Frayne Approach to Music Education
For more than three decades, Dr. Dennis Frayne has developed, refined, and taught a comprehensive piano curriculum designed to help students become confident, creative, and complete musicians.
Presto! It's Piano Magic is the flagship piano curriculum of The Dennis Frayne Approach to Music Education and serves as the primary instructional curriculum of The Dennis Frayne Association for Music Education's teacher certification program.
Rather than simply teaching students how to play the piano, the curriculum helps them develop comprehensive musicianship through thoughtful sequencing, joyful learning, creativity, performance, ear training, music theory, composition, improvisation, singing, and even conducting.
More Than a Piano Method
Presto! It's Piano Magic was never intended to be just another piano method. It was designed to embody an entire philosophy of music education. Every lesson, activity, song, worksheet, and musical experience reflects principles that have been developed through decades of teaching, continual refinement, educational research, and careful observation of how students naturally learn music.
The result is a curriculum that helps teachers teach with greater confidence while helping students experience meaningful, joyful, and lasting musical growth.
The Dennis Frayne Approach in Practice
The curriculum reflects educational principles found throughout The Dennis Frayne Approach to Music Education.
Sound Before Symbol
Students first experience music through listening, singing, movement, imitation, and exploration before learning traditional music notation.
Singing from the First Lesson
Students sing throughout the curriculum because singing develops audiation, musical understanding, expression, pitch awareness, and memory. Many students can play with hands together, a melody plus a two-note-chord harmony, while singing their first song during their first lesson.
Sequential Learning
Every concept builds naturally upon previous understanding so students experience consistent success and genuine confidence.
Comprehensive Musicianship
Performance, technique, theory, ear training, improvisation, composition, creativity, sight reading, conducting, and listening develop together rather than in isolation.
Student-Centered Learning
Students are encouraged to think, explore, discover, and create. Teachers adapt instruction to individual learners rather than expecting every student to fit a rigid sequence.
Developmentally Appropriate Teaching
Children, teenagers, and adults each learn differently. The curriculum respects those differences while maintaining meaningful challenge and high expectations.
Inclusive Repertoire
Students experience music from many cultures, historical periods, traditions, and styles while building appreciation for the richness and diversity of musical expression.
Joyful Learning
Music education should be engaging, meaningful, challenging, and rewarding. Joy is not the absence of rigor—it is what gives learning purpose.
It’s a powerful, inclusive, holistic approach to teaching piano and complete musicianship to beginning students of all ages.
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Scope and Sequence - Piano Book 1
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Scope and Sequence - Piano Book 2
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A Look Inside the Holiday Book
What Makes the Curriculum Different?
Teachers often tell us that Presto! It's Piano Magic gives them something they have been searching for: a curriculum that combines thoughtful educational philosophy with practical, everyday teaching. Students develop strong musical foundations while enjoying familiar songs, creative activities, meaningful performances, and a steadily expanding understanding of music. Teachers gain a clear instructional sequence without sacrificing flexibility, creativity, or responsiveness to individual learners.
Who Can Use the Curriculum?
It’s Available Through Teacher Membership
The complete Presto! It's Piano Magic Curriculum is available exclusively to eligible Teacher Members of The Dennis Frayne Association for Music Education. Because the curriculum is closely integrated with The Dennis Frayne Approach to Music Education and supported through professional learning, community, coaching, and teacher certification, it is reserved for teachers participating in the Association.
Teacher Membership provides access not only to the curriculum itself, but also to a growing professional community, ongoing educational support, certification opportunities, and additional teaching resources.
Many other publications from Presto! It's Music Magic Publishing, including sheet music, repertoire collections, games, teaching aids, classroom materials, printables, and educational resources, remain available for purchase by everyone.
Part of a Larger Educational Community
Presto! It's Piano Magic is not a stand-alone curriculum. It is part of a connected vision for music education in which philosophy, curriculum, professional learning, and community strengthen one another.
Teachers are not simply given a set of books and left to figure everything out alone. They are invited into a larger educational framework that helps them understand why the curriculum is designed as it is, how its principles can be applied in real teaching, and how they can continue growing as musicians, educators, mentors, and leaders.
The Dennis Frayne Approach to Music Education
The Dennis Frayne Approach to Music Education provides the educational philosophy behind Presto! It's Piano Magic.
It brings together principles of sound-before-symbol learning, thoughtful sequencing, singing, creativity, comprehensive musicianship, student-centered teaching, meaningful challenge, and joyful musical growth. These ideas guide not only the curriculum, but also the courses, publications, teaching practices, and professional conversations that surround it.
The Approach helps teachers move beyond simply following pages in a book. It gives them a deeper understanding of how students learn music and a clearer framework for making thoughtful decisions in everyday teaching.
Explore the Dennis Frayne Approach
The Dennis Frayne Association for Music Education
The Association gives teachers a professional home in which they can continue learning, exchange ideas, receive encouragement, and grow alongside colleagues who share a serious commitment to music education. Through membership, teachers gain access to professional resources, group coaching, practical guidance, collaborative discussion, and a growing community centered on thoughtful teaching and sustainable, fulfilling careers.
The Association helps ensure that Presto! It's Piano Magic is not used in isolation. Teachers are supported as they learn the curriculum, apply the principles of the Approach, solve real teaching problems, and continue developing over time.
Teacher Certification
Teacher Certification provides a structured and comprehensive course of study in The Dennis Frayne Approach to Music Education.
Through guided coursework, musicianship development, teaching practice, reflection, discussion, and direct engagement with the Presto! It's Piano Magic curriculum, teachers learn not only what to teach, but why, when, and how to teach it.
Certification helps teachers develop greater clarity, confidence, consistency, and professional judgment. It transforms the curriculum from a collection of materials into a living and responsive approach to teaching real students.
One Connected Path
Together, the Approach, the Association, the curriculum, and Teacher Certification create something much more powerful than any one of them could provide alone.
The Approach offers the philosophy. Presto! It's Piano Magic brings that philosophy into daily teaching. The Association provides community and ongoing support. Certification helps teachers study, practice, and apply the work with depth and confidence.
This is not simply a way to teach beginning piano. It is an invitation to become part of a growing educational community devoted to helping students become musical and helping teachers build meaningful, joyful, and enduring careers in music education.
From Dr. Dennis
For many years, students and families have known me simply as “Dr. Dennis,” and that has always reminded me why I began writing these books in the first place.
Presto! It's Piano Magic grew out of everyday teaching —watching students learn, asking better questions, discovering clearer ways to present musical ideas, and continually refining the curriculum one lesson at a time.
My hope is that these books will not only help students learn to play the piano, but help teachers experience the joy that comes from seeing students become thoughtful, confident, and lifelong musicians.
Thank you for taking the time to explore the curriculum. I hope it encourages you as much as it has encouraged me to create it.
