Stay LONGER with a piece for higher levels of learning and awareness

All too often piano students give up on a piece after so many weeks of exposure, thinking the fingering is settled, the beats are well-measured, and the notes have fallen into place. At this juncture, a Big STOP SIGN must impede the restless from plunging into a new musical journey despite their belief that the…

Playing a Bach Invention: Say what you mean, and mean what HE said

My latest awakening occurred during a piano lesson last night with a student who loves Bach and nearly dotes upon his compositions exclusively. And that's fine with me who's a companion traveler sharing a comparable love for the composer and his diversity of keyboard works. Invention 1 in C, BWV 772 is one of my…

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…

A Music Packed Saturday and Sunday! (Video) and NEW PHOTOS!

The MTAC Baroque Festival and Daniil Trifonov's recital at Fresno State cap this weekend's events, giving our city a warm cultural embrace amidst its Bulldog-driven sports fever! First on the line-up, Claudia, 11, will play the Yamaha concert grand piano at the University's recital hall today.(The Steinway is sequestered) She'll offer two Bach selections: Invention…

Performing a piece–Getting it right (all the notes) OR really getting it right (the phrasing and nuance) VIDEOS

For many pianos students, playing 100% perfect notes, with no clunkers is goal in itself. They breathe a sigh of relief looking back on a video of a recital, where they managed to "get it right," counting correct notes from beginning to end. One even managed to play note perfect while intermittently eyeing her family…

Tutorial: Shared ideas about practicing J.S. Bach Invention 13 in A minor (BWV 784) Videos

As I observed an 11-year old student work on this Invention at lessons, I came up with some ideas to improve the performance landscape. These included an awareness of the dualism of rolling arpeggiated 16ths and detached 8th notes in the opening. More often than not, the arpeggios can sound too flat if the whole…

Another Bach Invention 1 added to the list–The Morning After (Video)

I'm in my Bach phase for reasons unknown. A musical flight of fancy can turn in any direction. Since performances of a composition will change as new ideas filter in, one might as well try them out on the You Tube stage, picking the brain and soul about what needs to happen the next time…

Revisiting J.S. Bach’s Invention 1 in C, BWV 772 (Video)

Yesterday I had the novel experience of working on Bach's Invention 1 in C Major, via long distance transmission. Beamed to Sydney, Australia, by way of SKYPE, I found myself having gained new insights about a piece I had temporarily tabled. While I had always been aware that the Subject, or main idea, had been…

A piano student’s milestones and memories in photos and video

Today, September 5th, is Claudia's 11th Birthday! She started lessons with me in 2006 when she had just turned 6 after coming to California from Hawaii. I remember her as a shy but wide-eyed child who had studied piano for a year or so. Students who begin piano lessons at a tender age and stay…

Letting my hair down with a snatch of “Let It Be!” (VIDEO)

The piano room was a mess yesterday with music strewn about. Two '60-'70's era Beatles albums were excavated from a pile of sheet music, hard bound theory texts, and Urtext editions of Beethoven's sonatas. Foraging a big carton of stuff like this was a trip down memory lane. My very old Yamaha guitar, a prized…