Piano Technique: Be a Blockhead when learning Bach

Blocking techniques can help to solidify tricky passages in Bach's A minor Invention (13), especially if intelligent decisions are made about landscaping broken chords with thumb shifts weaving through them. Examining measures 9 through 13 for example, I devised a blocking routine that helped me gain note security while contouring phrases with a supple wrist.…

Learning Two Chopin Nocturnes (Eb and F minor) with a framing bass line/treble perspective

One of the biggest challenges in playing the Eb Major (Op. 9) and F minor (Op. 55) Nocturnes is preserving awareness of the fundamental bass note movement against the melody while after beat chords provide a harmonic enrichment in the overall voicing. Too often, however, these chords on the off beats (following the downbeat) somehow…

Experimentation and refinement are the ingredients of music teaching and learning

One of the joys of teaching piano is to experience awakenings with our students as we experiment with phrasing, and refine original perceptions. And while a piano teacher is considered a mentor to a student, he/she clearly realizes that roles are easily reversed when a pupil inspires further experimentation and clarification. In exploring the Romantic…

A common chorus among adult piano students

As decades pass, and each adult piano student on his personal journey chimes in with a greeting at the start of a lesson, I've noticed a synchronized choir of commonly expressed thoughts. The riveting idée fixe that resonates LIVE and through SKYPE channels, is like the redundant motif of Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique. "I really want…

Piano Instruction: Burgmuller, The Storm, “L’Orage” Op. 109 No. 13 (Expect turbulence)

Don't let this be a one-night stand piece but rather a long-term relationship. I dared to overnight it as prep for a new student who tossed it my way, but upon reflection, I sat down at the piano, and produced an instruction (both helpful to myself and those diving headlong into this "stormy" composition) L'Orage…

Revisiting Bach’s Fugue form (BWV 847 in C minor)

Bach's Fugue in C minor, BWV 847 is analyzed and taught

Piano Practicing: The hands alone/hands together debate (Videos)

A lively Linked-in discussion is percolating about ways to practice piano and develop technique. Ardent defenders of a Hands Together approach insist that hands alone playing fits only elementary level students. (Deprecation is noted) The Hands Together contingent misses the mark. A solid supporter of ground-up/layered learning, I can draw on my interview with George…

Growing piano technique in baby steps: Rina, 5, advances to hands together five-finger positions (adding in 10ths)

Rina may not know the words "pentascales" and "tenths," but she has the intelligence to notice when her fingers move up and down together, playing the same notes an "octave" apart. With a sound knowledge of the music alphabet in both directions, she has good cognitive reinforcement. (She also knows "running notes" or 8ths, "long…

Piano Technique: Playing beyond the fingers to sculpt beautiful phrases (Debussy Arabesque no. 1)

Many piano students who practice Debussy's Arabesque no. 1 tend to grab and articulate notes, rather than let them flow from energy streaming down relaxed arms into supple wrists. Reliance on fingers-down playing becomes the panacea for accuracy, while it sacrifices poetic musical expression. In the video below, I demonstrate how phrases can be sculpted…

Piano Instruction, Part FOUR, Beethoven’s “Tempest” Sonata in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2 (measures 55-93)

This tutorial references measure 55 to 93. The composer settles into A minor through these measures and reinforces the A minor tonic to Neapolitan progression. (A minor to Bb Major chord) He elaborates, varies, and introduces a beautiful contrapuntal interplay of voices between treble and bass in measures 69-87. (All in A minor) With a…