Four Star: Sight Reading and Ear Tests (Introductory through Book 10).(Book Review)

by Boris Berlin and Andrew Markov. Edited by Scott McBride Smith. The Frederick Harris Music Co., Ltd (Unit 1, 5865 McLaughlin Rd., Mississauga, Ontario L5R 1B8), 2002. 32-64pp. per book, depending on level; $5.95-10.50 per book, depending on level. Elementary-advanced.

The eleven books in the series Four Star: Sight Reading and Ear Tests by Boris Berlin and Andrew Markov provide a wealth of materials, as well as a practical outline for incorporating sight reading and ear training into piano lessons and daily practice. Berlin and Markov's goal is to develop students visual, tactile, aural and analytical skills and abilities in equal measure. The musical examples in this series were chosen to develop each of these skills.

The series begins with pitch identification and simple patterns. By the end of the series, the user will have encountered intervals within an octave, major and minor triads in root position and inversions, seventh chords, major and minor key signatures, accidentals, and increasingly complex rhythmic patterns involving sixteenth notes, dotted rhythms and triplets.

Each book is organized into ten units (weeks) with daily assignments to play, clap, sing, analyze and play/sing back, followed by testing materials. The beginning page(s) lists the concepts encountered in that volume. In the introductory volume, daily practice involves identifying single pitches and playing short (five- to ...