Integration of musical literacy and fundamentals of piano playing. Seven pitches to seven notes and from an image to a sound.

This final paper focuses on researching the phenomenon of musical literacy and its connection to the nowadays basics of Finnish piano playing through the lenses of learning, teaching and the home support.

The concept of musical literacy was examined in the theoretical literature review that served as the base for development of a new conceptual model for the musical literacy and its dimensions designated as circumference of musical literacy. In the empirical phase of the research three primary piano teacher were interviewed (semi-structured interview and expert interview method).

The analysis of interview data showed that the primary piano pedagogues experienced musical literacy unanimously as a holistic phenomenon. The direct connection and benefit of musical literacy to the piano playing and musical learning of primary piano learners was also explained. In turn, this lead to a statement of the integration need of musical literacy and primary piano playing. In the expert interview the primary piano teachers offered the pedagogical solutions as well as the exact assessment of the primary piano player's learning challenges.

The research results reflect the discourse of today's Finland about the meaning of general literacy and encourage to the follow-up research on the phenomenon of musical literacy.

The whole master thesis was published in Finnish in the Sibelius Academy's Library in May 2020 and graded with the mark 5/5 "exceptionally good work".