Sound imagination and tactile, tonal expression at the piano for diverse compositional eras

Often a posted comment about a You Tube video inspires a blog topic that is of interest to pianists and teachers. One such public addition to my Channel quickly streamed into a comparison between two well-known compositions in the piano repertoire. The commenter was asking about the grade "level" of Debussy's The Girl with the…

Piano Technique: Selective, MINDFUL repetition to avoid overuse injury

After decades of observing students practicing their scales, arpeggios, five-finger positions, and myriads of permutations (parallel/contrary motion, longs strands of 10ths, 6ths, etc) I've observed many jumpstarts, anticipations, and anxious out-of-synch doubling of tempo on the turnarounds in scales, that if repeated over and again in haphazard ways will put a student at risk for…