Piano Study: Learning in deep layers and loving it

Deep-layered learning should occur at all levels of piano study because it enriches the music-making experience. Taking shortcuts, and constantly reading through a composition, skimming the surface, deprive the player of being in touch with himself and the composer at the moment of creation. One particular masterwork, that draws so many pupils into its gorgeous…

Piano Practicing: Taking the robot out of fast passages

It's easy to stare at a Presto Rondo from the Classical era, and wonder how to navigate scads of notes that can end up on the assembly line, pumped out with no sense of individuality. And while herds of them might be corralled with a sensible fingering, their shape and direction often remain out of…

Piano Technique: Playing BEYOND the fingers

Many students get finger-trapped playing the piano, hammering away at tricky passages with tight wrists and stiff, plunky fingers. The more glitches they encounter, the tenser they get, which sets up a vicious cycle. I always advise these harrowed pupils to think bigger than smaller movements, and let arms, especially drive their motions. In this…

Top FIVE Piano Lesson by SKYPE Interruptions! (Videos)

Group web cam lessons on Bow-wow ( Iowa, Michigan, and Minnesota) Top Notch Tone Tutorial Class 1) out-take http://youtu.be/fONbHGw8zXM 2) out-take http://youtu.be/Fy-6SkVFqMQ 3) Cat jumps out the window (United Kingdom) http://youtu.be/df7Pfg0Fcnc 4) 5 month-old Baby on lap (Alaska) http://youtu.be/D1HDoNAI75A 5) Earthquake! (Brazil) http://youtu.be/I-dbDgapMmA

A Journey down memory lane

A timely posting in advance of my Big Apple touchdown

The Most Heavenly Piano Music?

Mozart's Theme from his A Major Sonata, K. 331, and Beethoven's Adagio from the Sonata "Pathetique," Op. 13, for me, have two of the most hauntingly beautiful melodies in the piano literature. In particular, Mozart's opening theme that threads through the composer's innovative first movement in Variation form, is a lilting lullaby, played in TWO,…

Piano Maintenance Teaser: Graying ivories and a squeaky note

This is a video preview of what will follow later today when several uploads related to my Baldwin piano's weekend "regulation" are lined up on You Tube. As a start, one of the problems plaguing my recently acquired Hamilton grand 1929, a.k.a "blind date piano," was a grayish discoloration on every ivory key. In my…

Burgmuller’s “The Return”–like a light opera, with interspersed drama (videos)

"The Return" from the composer's Twenty-Five Progressive Pieces, Op. 100, is ear-catching. Like an Offenbach opera replete with an Overture, it delights in a set of lighthearted staccato chords that spill into a passionate MINOR sequenced interlude, setting the heart afire. Extinguished by the revisit of Eb Major punctuations, the music drifts off by authentic…

Piano Lesson: More intensive work on J.S. Bach Fugue in C minor, BWV 847 (phrase shaping, voice balancing and form/theory analysis)

Claudia, 11, and I refined our work on measures 9 through 21, with special attention to Episodes. She practiced shaping voices, balancing them, and creating a gradual crescendo where needed. (form and theoretical analysis were woven into our Fugue exploration) We concluded by playing the Fugue from the opening to measure 18. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5shZxgti0s

The complete WEIGHT VARIED, WEIGHT CONTROLLED Piano workout with Cardio benefit (Video)

Here it is! The latest approach to building a full-bodied piano technique without taking Protein supplements, or gagging on raw eggs. You might even shed a few pounds if you're committed to the regimen. But don't run scared when you see me going into fast forward. That's the AFTER, not the BEFORE. I did my…