Frances Oman Clark (March 28, 1905 – April 17, 1998) was an American pianist, pedagogue, and academic who authored, co-authored and edited many widely used piano method books, most notably The Music Tree series.
[1] 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.
[2] Clark received a bachelor's degree at Kalamazoo College in 1928 and also completed graduate work at University of Michigan, The Juilliard School, The Paris Conservatory, and The American Academy at Fontainebleau.
[3] 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.
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