JOHN C. FIGHT, Ed. D.
BOX 5341 VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA 23455

Miss Lorene McClintock
853 Seventh Avenue
New York, New York 10019

Dear Lorene:

It has been a pleasure to work with the McClintock Piano Course over the past few months. These self-instructional materials are, without doubt, a most sig-nificant achievement in the field of Education. I have personally found this course to be most stimulating and have thoroughly enjoyed the lesson material.

You may be interested to know that my previous accomplishments in music were virtually nonexistent. After a few years of mediocre clarinet training, I was labeled as “musically untrainable.if This evaluation of my previous musical aptitude was later substantiated by a less than average performance on the Seashore Test of Musical Ability.

Working with Volume 1 of the McClintock Piano Course has proved to be a marked contrast to previous music training. After reading your self-instructional materials and practicing the music illustrations, I found that I had acquired such musical skills as sight-reading, phrasing, rubato, and improvisation. It is my understand-ing that this is comparable to several years of study with a conventional piano system.

In my opinion as a psychologist, this rapid speed of learning can be attributed to your unique Hsignal-and-responseft system which allows the learner to circumvent unnecessary mediating learning processes and, thus, quickly establish the desired motoric responses. Through the use of the McClintock Keyboard Concealer and Interval Keyblocks, the student quickly learns to recognize the feel of different intervals and chord shapes. This kinesthetic learning experience which is provided in the course is most helpful in learning to sight read music.

I would recommend your course to educators regardless of the individual discipline. This course provides a splendid model in lesson planning in which each lesson is logically built around stated behavioral objectives. The McClintock Piano Course and its approach is con-sistent with the educational philosophy of Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner who emphasize in their individual writings the active role of the learner. You have accom-plished in fact what psychologists have known in theory. You have succeeded in providing a course which allows the learner to draw upon his inner resources while learning to play the piano.

My sincere best wishes as you continue your most important and interesting work.

Sincerely yours,
john C. Ficht, Ed. D.