Piano Instruction: Teaching a good hand position and technical skills to very young children

Teaching wee beginners a natural approach to the piano, that includes a relaxed hand position, flowing arms and supple wrists allows the birth of beautiful music-making while it promotes injury avoidance. Irina Gorin is one of the best teacher models in this universe. A dedicated proponent of early exposure to "weeping willow" arms, and "rainbow"…

Piano Practicing: Infusing repetition with imagination

A popular discussion on Internet Piano forums is how to approach repetitions in the context of piano study. For many students the very act of going over a passage, scale, or five-finger position more than once, amounts to meaningless drudgery. In the same vein, “boring” is a rampant description children apply to warm-up routines. But…

A Piano Student Practices his own Musical Creation (Video)

A composing activity stimulates a 9-year old student's mind and imagination

What to do in a 90-minute piano lesson? ( A 9-yr. old meets the challenge) Videos

Fritz is a bundle of energy. He comes to his 45-minute lesson each week before soccer practice and has an additional roster of sports activities that keep him in tip- top shape. Into his third year of piano study, his favorite pieces include: "Bear" by Rebikov, which requires a rotation of the Left Hand to…

Irina Gorin’s Tales of a Musical Journey is reviewed in the FALL 2012 Statewide MTAC Magazine

Here's the link rather than copy/paste. The article is ONLINE! The you tubes are nicely embedded within the writing. http://www.mtac.org/cmt/CMT2012FallTalesMusicalJourney.pdf Now the icing on the cake: Irina needs to make the rounds to branches around the State to sell her stuff and give "live" presentations. Keep the phone lines open!

Rina, 5, practices “The Hunting Call” by Gurlitt

Rina grabbed an opportunity to sit at the "big" piano yesterday afternoon to practice Gurlitt's "The Hunting Call." A sparkling little piece, Gurlitt's gem is the third in a sequence that I pulled from Faber's Developing Artist series, Preparatory Piano Literature. The others have included Reinagle's G Major "Minuet," and Turk's "Little March" that primed…

Piano Technique: The Spongy Wrist is a great shock absorber and singing tone supporter

Rina, age 5, and Emily, 13, both learned about the supple wrist and how it nurtures a beautiful singing tone at the piano.

Piano Technique: Turning a door knob helps a 9-year old piano student in her practicing (Videos)

I use various motions extracted from daily life to teach fluidity in piano playing. In this particular example lifted from a lesson-in-progress, Ilyana, 9, applies a door knob-turning gesture to smooth out a passage from William Gillock's "Splashing in the Brook." It's also helpful to enlist mental imagery to capture the mood of a composition.…

Rina, 5, moves right along in her piano studies (Videos)

Rina takes to piano like a duck in water. Yesterday, she began her lesson with a five-finger romp through D Major and minor, adding chords to her repertoire. Did I say "chords?" It's every child's dream to play more than one voice at a time, to fully appreciate the piano as an orchestral instrument. I…

Piano Lessons: Catching up with Rina, age 5

Rina has reached a turning point in her piano studies, just 10 months into them. She's playing the Reinagle Minuet, coordinating bass and treble lines. This is NOT ROTE playing, or any Suzuki variant. Rina knows the music alphabet forward and in reverse; understands up and down, steps and skips, and plays LEGATO five-finger positions…