Category: keyboard technique

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Piano Gym routines with my 10 year old student

arioso7: Shirley Kirsten

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuAWQM4qK44 This is a fun romp through the keys of F# Major and minor with some diminished 7th and Dominant 7th arpeggios cruising across the keyboard in legato, followed by detached, "ping pong ball" rendered staccato. Parallel and contrary motion scales/arpeggios are a pianist's preliminary gymnastics. They're great for the warm-up phase of each practice… Continue reading Piano Gym routines with my 10 year old student

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About Regulation and Tuning: My piano cried out for help!

arioso7: Shirley Kirsten

This is such a sticky area, and the pun is intended. How frustrating to imagine a delicate pianissimo, want to produce it, and find that a note or notes won't spring forth with the beauty that a player had intended. For me, it had become painfully obvious that my Steinway M grand, 1917 which had… Continue reading About Regulation and Tuning: My piano cried out for help!

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From Chords to Gym and Back: You Tube Video

arioso7: Shirley Kirsten

This video tells all. It was one of my hair brained ideas to embed a trip to Bally's Gym in my piano tutorial on the subject of playing blocks of robust chords using upper body weight transfer -- energy streaming down the arms, through supple wrists into the fingers. Naturally, warming up on the Gravitron… Continue reading From Chords to Gym and Back: You Tube Video

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Scales and Arpeggios with videotaped replay

arioso7: Shirley Kirsten

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji_7tJyJ9JQ I often think of piano technique as in the same league as sports. Why not? I practically grew up in the bleachers at Ebbets Field watching the Brooklyn Bums battle their adversaries. And not to forget that I was a tomboy who copied everything my big brother did. I even tried to break the… Continue reading Scales and Arpeggios with videotaped replay

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Teens, popular music then and now, Taylor Swift, throw in Five for Fighting “100 Years”

arioso7: Shirley Kirsten

Today was by no means a first for me, a long-haired musician raised on Bach, Beethoven and Brahms teaching a teen some pop tunes by John Ondrasik and Taylor Swift while I sailed through the universe of "Liz on Top of the World" with another student. Videotaping portions of piano lessons was the natural result… Continue reading Teens, popular music then and now, Taylor Swift, throw in Five for Fighting “100 Years”

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A Day in El Cerrito and my return to Fresno

arioso7: Shirley Kirsten

To El Cerrito and back, and what happens in between, in greater detail.

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Musings of a Piano Teacher

arioso7: Shirley Kirsten

My journey as a piano teacher from California's Central Valley to the East Bay, and what happened before, in a distant place like New York City.