A Phrase loving exchange between Teacher and Student (Mozart Sonata in C, K. 545)

Tonight's lesson with Judy had inspiring moments within a phrase sharing interplay. We started out singing the opening measures of the composer's charming masterpiece, emphasizing a singing line supported by harmonies cresting and dipping into resolutions. The vocal lead-in, threaded through the whole lesson, often rippling into supple wrists, relaxed arms --but it deepened in…

Mozart played on an acoustic and digital piano

If an acoustic piano is well-voiced and regulated, one can attempt to make a timbre and touch comparison with a "hammer-weighted" digital piano by playing a side-by-side excerpt from the repertoire. In this instance, my Steinway grand is in the process of undergoing hammer filing and regulation, so the two instruments are not perhaps justly…

Never say never to a finger-trapping passage (Mozart Rondo: Allegro K. 545)-Video

While we all experience head on collisions with tricky measures despite our best efforts to avoid repeated catastrophes, (through careful, methodical practicing) there comes a time, to let go, and give the whole undertaking a rest. In my case, it was at least a year before I revisited the last part of Mozart's Rondo: Allegro,…

Piano Technique: Practicing Trills

It's amazing how one can fill a whole page rhapsodizing about trills. But for me they are more OPERATIC, as if a splendid soprano were singing a Mozart aria, producing the most artfully beautiful alternation of two notes. These would be undulating, and grouped in such a way, that their lilt would be apparent. In…

Should a piano student be a carbon copy of the teacher?

The whole universe of music teaching and learning became crystallized when I found myself bouncing ideas back and forth with two parents of Suzuki-trained children on a blog COMMENTS forum. First, I questioned the purist form of the Japanese imported "method" to the piano that delays note-reading to conform with the acquisition of language. Babies,…

Comparing performances of Mozart Sonata in C, K. 545, Movement 1, Allegro (Tempo, alone can make a big difference)

Over time, when we return to a piece that is well-learned, and in some cases has become a bit too predictable without a touch of inspiration, a revitalized, updated version might be worth a try. In this regard, I'm always re-recording time-honored pieces periodically, to refresh them. To broaden my perspective, I search You Tube…

Practicing on a Digital Piano (Video) PROS and CONS

My Casio PX 110 sits on the second floor of my townhouse because there's no room for it anywhere else. Haddy Haddorff stole the space that Cassy formerly inhabited. In truth, the digital is not on the high priority activity list of instruments here but it has a role in technique-based toning and conditioning In…

Piano Instruction: Second Movement, Mozart Sonata in C Major, K. 545 (Video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0i-2t9-4yI In this middle movement of Sonata, K. 545, Mozart emulates the opera with a spun out cantabile (singing tone) melody against a rolling, rippling broken chord bass line.  The tempo, Andante, should not be played too slowly because "Andare" in Italian means to "walk," which suggests a certain internal motion. Slower tempo designations in…

Piano Lesson: My 10 year old student plays Mozart Sonata in C, K. 545 (Video)

This ten year old student has been studying piano with me from age six. She is currently working on Bach Inventions 4, 8, and 13 along with the complete Mozart Sonata in C, K. 545 in C. In this video she is practicing the first movement of the Mozart composition behind tempo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EODtPfT_ygQ The student…