It has been a wish of mine to compile the professional methods that I encountered through my involvement with the Russian School of piano-playing as well as to share my own teaching experience in a book that would be interesting and useful to teachers, parents, and of course, students.

A book cannot replace a teacher, but it can provide readers with an essence for a pedagogical approach. I trust that my essays on music and pianism will help parents delve deeper into the world in which their child is immersed during a piano lesson. Much of the advice will also be helpful to musicians that are just beginning their teaching careers, as well as to experienced teachers, who will hopefully find some new ideas in my book. 

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The Magic Link includes music scores for all 24 pieces of P.I.Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album and 18 selected pieces from R. Schumann’s Album for the Young.

While providing an excellent Romantic repertoire, its scope is much further-reaching than conventional sheet music publications. Formatted as a lively dialogue between a teacher and her students, The Magic Link provides essential instructional material that teachers can use with their students. The Magic Link explores the composers’ inspirations and explains how the music was created. It shows the thematic links between the two albums and demonstrates the compositions’ connections to composers of previous periods, highlighting how Tchaikovsky and Schumann were influenced by earlier masters.

This first-of-its-kind book helps teachers and parents to introduce their students to an in-depth process of musical education. It guides students towards understanding the basics of piano literature and musical text analysis, touching on serious issues accessibly and enjoyably. The book boasts delightful illustrations. Atmospherically related to the musical piece to which they are attached, these illustrations contribute to the learning process by inspiring new students’ imaginations.

While being a completely standalone publication, The Magic Link employs the best traditions of celebrated Russian teaching methods to exhaustively explore the children’s albums that Rada Bukhman also addresses in "Discovering Color behind the Keys: The Essence of the Russian School of Piano Playing." As such, The Magic Link can also be seen as an indirect sequel to this landmark publication.

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