By FACETIME or SKYPE, Quicktime recorded snippets assist piano students

My amazement grows in big spurts when I discover new options to aid piano students who take lessons over Skype or Facetime. Two of mine, have poor SKYPE transmission, while FACETIME hums along with clarity. This circumstance motivated me to explore the FACETIME Record option, whose SKYPE analog I'd mastered as CALL RECORDER. Last night,…

Everyone’s obsessed with the fall-off in piano students

I evade the firing squad at any number of piano ped. forums by sticking to my guns. I say, in some parts of the world there may be a strong Classical music tradition bound up with a formidable work ethic. In remote parts of Romania, for example, and into the hills of Slavic countries, the…

The Biggest Challenge for Adult Piano Students (Video)

While I underscore the adult student population in this discussion, it's not meant to omit students of any age who study piano. Almost universally, those coming back to the piano after a significant hiatus, or those just beginning lessons in adulthood, have big expectations to "succeed" and progress at an imagined rate of "speed." Such…

Piano Technique: balance and bearings on the black notes (Video)

One of my adult students confided that her five-finger warm-up in F# Major made her feel shaky and insecure. "It's like I'm going to slip off the key when I play my 5th finger," (pinky)--C# (Notes in F# Major penta-scale position are F# G# A# B C#) Such a distress call like this one stimulates…

Pianists, back pain, and my personal rehab bundled into a BALL

Eight weeks ago, as I started my scale warm-up routine, I felt sudden, excruciating, spasmodic pain in my lower back, and I couldn't move in any direction without feeling a knife deeply embedded in my spine. It was an "e-m-e-r-g-e-n-c-y!"that I registered by text message. My Nokia cell was thankfully beside me on the piano…

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…

Birds invade the Piano/Skype universe, but this one on You Tube stands out!

An adult piano student who continued her lessons by Skype after I relocated to Berkeley from Fresno, brought along her choir of parakeets. Despite a muddy transmission last night, they registered cackles of chagrin and chirps of approval through Burgmuller's "SORROW." But their intuitively musical avian responses were trumped by Frostie the Parrot's feather-ruffling, SHAKE…

Overscheduled Piano Students

Here's a snapshot of overloaded kids FOLLOWING their Friday afternoon piano lessons. MOM: "Shiloh, Get ready for swimming. Your towel is folded into your backpack.... Math Club reminder. Your cubic folder is on top of your cups. (athletic protectors), and grab your Ukelele for choir. (The private school purchased 150 ukeleles so each over-booked kid…

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…

A Documentary about Murray Perahia is an ear-grabber

http://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/111 I'm grateful to my UK-based student for sending me this link to a German-produced documentary about Murray Perahia. Having watched back-to-back Lang Lang and Kissin mega-tributes, this one stands out as a tone poem, with Murray descending from the heavens to bless humanity with his music. (Murray plays generously throughout the film, and provides…