Lights, Camera, Action in Los Angeles!

In a few days, I'll find myself at the MTAC Statewide Convention in L.A. sharing my Online Music Lesson journey in a LIVE high-tech universe exploration. (I gave a comparable program to the Alameda Branch last May 2015, but I was not hemmed into the impending ONE HOUR space.) The scope of this event begs…

“I don’t care” means letting go to bigger physical energies

While most traditional piano lessons include a tedious focus on CONTROL with premeditated, prescribed planning in a layered learning sequence, a hyper-methodical approach that aims for note-perfection, will often impede a liberated, whole arm gesture that can emancipate boxed-in, tight-squeezed playing. (Once activation of uninhibited physical energy is harnessed, then centering is easier to achieve…

Don’t Choke through peak sections of a Chopin Nocturne

Many adult students get bent out of shape when a piece of "night music" blooms with "improvised," decorative passagework at peak expressive levels. Add in prolonged trills with lower notes tied (held down) leading to a decisive crescendo through a tricky chromatic scale, and many players will shrink from the challenge. They'll prefer to skip…

Creating a seamless, singing tone legato through arpeggios and scales

My students are often amused by my prompts that frequently include "oohs," "ahhs," and "wah's," among other spaced out sounds, to prevent consonant sounding notes or hard-liners from interrupting a smooth, "sighing" stepwise descent to the tonic. And from this universe of impromptu effusions, I've created a self-styled language, that, at times, has incorporated barnyard…