One of the biggest weaknesses that present in soft dynamic range staccato scales, is a lack of projection. Students often snuff out notes, play them in a whisper without a tenacious spring UP character, or a necessary rebound effect from note to note. Instead, they become inhibited and constrained. Yet even at the Forte level,… Continue reading Piano Technique: Soft staccato scales with projection, springboard energy, resilience, and shape
Jeannette Haien is rarely recognized for her role in Murray Perahia's musical development, though it's clear through her own words, (rekindled posthumously) that she must have had a profound effect on him. (She was Perahia's mentor from age 4 to 18.) Reminiscences I knew Murray as a classmate at the NYC High School of Performing… Continue reading Murray Perahia’s earliest piano teacher and her influence on him
It's easy for piano teachers to inhabit a comfortable space, teaching mainly repertoire that they've well learned, put away and brought back for review. It can perpetuate a stale process of retreading "old" pieces without posing a refreshing self-made challenge to learn a complex "new" work from the ground up side-by-side with a pupil. About… Continue reading Learning a new and challenging piece along with a student
It's easy to assess a student's difficulty with navigating scales in progressive tempo framings from quarters to 8th notes to 16ths, etc. as being the result of shortcomings in rhythmic perception, when a larger cosmos of awareness is lacking. I think immediately of the Eurhythmics course I took at the Oberlin Conservatory, taught by the… Continue reading Piano Technique: Working with the character of rhythms
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