Going Solo with the Schubert Fantasie for 4-hands

I found the perfect solution to practicing the Schubert Fantasie in F minor without my duet partner, since she's absent for 6 days of the week. While we rehearse on Thursdays, the piano bench literally shrinks putting us both at risk for hand collisions and body blows. In truth, the pushes and shoves have more…

Piano Instruction: Allemande from J.S. Bach French Suite no. 5 in G Major

Andras Schiff, known for playing Bach "purely" without pedal, encourages piano students to indulge J.S. as actors cultivate Shakespeare. It's our daily "bread," he insists. Regardless of his mixed metaphor, I concur that studying the works of Johann Sebastian Bach builds a solid foundation for exploring music of all historical eras. And to pore over…

Does practice make perfect?

WQXR F.M. (NYC based) has posted its latest set of meta-based analyses of "deliberate practice" studies. (A mouthful of confusion to begin with!) Three researchers teamed up to discount the wise old adage that "practice makes perfect." (In their probings, they were "virtuosity" centered) The trio concluded that a much smaller percentage of so-called high-powered…

An adult beginning piano student helps to shape his musical journey

When a newbie knocks on my door, not knowing how to read music, but is starving for a connection to the great "Classical" piano masterworks, I have to figure out a way to engage his interest in the earliest phase of learning without losing him along the way. One approach is to go the "method"…

An adult piano student floats a Chopin Nocturne

The E minor Nocturne Op. 72, No. 1 has a redundant flowing broken chord bass that becomes intensified through melodic climaxes. Still, the binary division of each measure, with some relief on the second half of each, preserves a relentless rocking motion throughout the composition. In this lesson-in-progress, an adult student who returned to the…

Staccato scales: Staying on the PLANE without a bumpy ride

Most students become very disconnected when traveling through a staccato scale so their journey from lift-off to landing is often bumpy. In the E minor Natural form, for example, a redundant E, F# occurring in every octave will fool a player into thinking he's got to brace for ELEVATION that makes his hand jerk forward…

Two side-by-side approaches to Schubert and ONE wins a prize

The BACKDROP Over in Fairbanks, Alaska the awards ceremony that capped a prolonged Internet channeled e-competition was dragged out mercilessly. Every sponsor under the sun had to be acknowledged, including Yamaha International that put its Disklavier center stage, UP-staging the old-fashioned way of delivering music to audiences. Would you believe, laudatory performances were memorialized on…

Pianist, Beth Levin weighs in on Competitions

Beth Levin is more than a pianist. She not only concertizes, records, presents symposia and teaches, but devotes quality time to arts commentary. At La Folia.com, she critiqued Schumann's Kreisleriana in tribute to an era she embraces in her spread of LIVE performances and recordings. http://www.lafolia.com/schumanns-kreisleriana/ *** http://youtu.be/m8SL7ub1VJI (Imported photos and video produced by Randolph…

Piano Technique: Spot checking for relaxed arms, wrists, and hands (Video)

I think of a whole arm/wrist/hand continuum when playing the piano, and I urge students to alleviate tension anywhere in the spectrum by lifting arms off the keys with a feeling of buoyancy. In this gesture a pupil can monitor the sensation of hanging, dead weight arms in space, and then gently practice lift-offs and…

Going into the Finals at the Alaska International Piano-E-Competition, and thoughts about COMPETING

Neither memory lapses nor occasional note slip-ups impeded any of the five selected Piano Finalists from forging ahead to the Chamber Music and Concerto Rounds of the Alaska-based E-Competition. My two particular favorites, Marianna Prjevalskaya and Alexey Chernov honored Schubert with gorgeous performances of the composer's A Major (D.959) and C minor Sonatas (D. 958),…