Pianist, Stephen Hough talks about growing a piece over time

In this excerpt from Lara Downe's San Francisco Classical Voice interview with Stephen Hough, the universe of growth and musical ripening is explored. Lara Downes: Your teacher, Gordon Green, was a great influence and inspiration to you, and you’ve quoted him as saying to you, when you were a young student: “I don’t care how…

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…

Good phrasing: listen for the decay, and psyche out your piano

The theme of today's Online lesson beamed from North Carolina was following the decay of a note from the end of a phrase into the next measure with a thread of continuity. To have good conjunction between phrases one has to listen in two directions: from the before to the after, without forgetting the BEFORE.…

An afternoon with piano student, Judy and her Steinway ‘A,’ in nature’s paradise

How many piano teachers are invited to a student's lakeside home nestled in verdant beauty?! It was a splendid display of trees, including pines, cedars, spruce, casuarina, maples, birches, poplar, locusis, and sycamores, as well as native oaks. River otters, deer, and exotic birds, such as egrets and herons are known to inhabit an awe-inspired…

Domenico Scarlatti’s music that’s within reach of the Intermediate level student

Margery Halford via Alfred publications has compiled a nice assortment of Domenico Scarlatti's Menuettos and Sonatas (essercizi) that's a satisfying "Introduction" to the Baroque era composer's music. (Scarlatti, An Introduction to his Keyboard Works) In fact, I snatched at least five of these binary form sonatas for my two-part disc in 2007, combined with the…

J.S. Bach Prelude No. 1 in C, Voicing and Harmonic Rhythm (my ideas and Seymour Bernstein’s)

A musician's understanding of a masterwork is a composite of ideas derived from many sources. In the course of piano study, perceptions change and grow, enlarged by a combined theoretical and musical examination of a composition that invites mentors into the mix. In this tutorial, I realized how I synthesized the contributions of harpsichordist, Elaine…

Approaching a brand new piece with spirit and emotion

When piano students first encounter a fresh page of music, they will often wade through the notes as best as they can, fumbling here and there without an adjusted framing pulse or investment of animated interest in what the notes are saying beyond their humble, accurate identity. In this early stage "reading," tempo is usually…

Judy, Seymour, and Ludwig

It was no surprise that Judy, one of my adult piano students came to her lesson yesterday gushing about Seymour: An Introduction. And naturally, in the nick of time, I grabbed my super-charged, helium packed iPhone and added the latest film rave to my growing collection. Need I say more?... or is it SEE MORE?..…

Piano Technique: When an adult student is in the Zone!

It's always valuable to snatch a lesson segment when a student gets it just right and has the equivalent of a runner's high at the keyboard. It's certainly instructive for both teacher and pupil to observe what conditions predisposed a pupil to a level of ONEness of body, mind and spirit. Last night, Jocel displayed…

A tribute to the late, Robert DeGaetano, classmate, NYC High School of Performing Arts

"Bobby" as I remember him at "P.A." (nickname for the FAME school that hadn't yet acquired Broadway, TV, or movie status) was a shining light among stage-struck students, some of whom swished down the hallway in first position, ballet style, while others in the drama department audibly cajoled each other, wise-cracking their way through academics.…