Frances Oman Clark (March 28, 1905 – April 17, 1998) was an American

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, j ...

pedagogue Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...

, and

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...

who authored, co-authored and edited many widely used piano method books, most notably The Music Tree series. Her 1955 publication, ''Time to Begin'', introduced the concept of teaching music reading by pattern recognition, thus pioneering the "intervallic method," which "revolutionised" the teaching of music reading.

Biography

Clark received a bachelor's degree at Kalamazoo College in 1928 and also completed graduate work at

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, The Juilliard School, The Paris Conservatory, and The American Academy at Fontainebleau. She went on to serve on the faculty at Kalamazoo College from 1945–1955, before joining the faculty of Westminster Choir College and eventually co-founding The New School for Music Study in 1960, the first graduate school devoted to the study of music pedagogy.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, Frances 1905 births 1998 deaths 20th-century American women pianists 20th-century American pianists