Music master C.W. Reid’s legacy lives on in Reading Keyboard Music.
“I have invented nothing new, but have merely pointed out the way every sight reader eventually learns to play.” -C.W. Reid
For C.W. Reid, piano music was truly the love of his life. From the age of eleven until his death in 1959, Reid dedicated himself to sharing that love by teaching others to play.
Playing the piano wasn’t always a joy for Reid. As a young student, he had great difficulty learning to read music, especially the bass clef. At one point, he even stopped taking lessons. He started taking them again and went on to become an accomplished musician and Professor of music. Once Reid began to teach, he was determined to spare his own students that frustration. He experimented for eighteen years to find a better way to teach beginner piano lessons.
During the 1930’s, Reid expanded his method of easy piano lessons with beginning pieces, technical exercises and written drills on staff and keyboard note placement. As his grassroots enterprise grew, he produced books on a homemade printing press and distributed them through students and friends.
C.W. Reid, considered a master music educator of the 20th century, was chairman of the music department at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah and later a professor of music at the McCune School of Music in Salt Lake City. Throughout his life, he continued to develop and perfect his method of teaching–a method that is now available through music education videos (with Reid’s original work intact) through Reading Keyboard Music, LLC. Reid’s love of music and teaching still shine through in these piano instruction videos.