Piano Technique: Split-Screen, rolling 4-note arpeggios (C# minor; B minor)

I love to work with students on 4-note arpeggios through inversions, prompting them to ROLL into horizontal, curvaceous groups of notes to avoid up and down finger poking. The elements of visualization ("imagining" motion SHAPES); kinesthetic translation (counterclockwise arm motions) attentive listening, CENTERING, and relaxed, natural breathing, all work in harmony to produce a smooth,…

Piano Teacher Stories from the War Zone! (Part One)

So many of us in the field of teaching can hearken back to our earliest piano student years and flesh out a particular individual who was the "worst" teacher to ever come our way. In my case, it was my second teacher who earned the distinction of being the most inept mentor on record, though…

J.S. Bach Invention No. 13 in A minor: A Continuing Journey

Students who embark upon learning the beautifully woven Invention 13, have new awakenings about the Subject and its thread of sequences and development through three pages. And as they explore two independent, though complementary voices in counterpoint, they discover that the Subject and what pieces of it are borrowed as the music plays out, have…

Piano Technique: Psychological and physical approaches to staccato (Video)

Today's romp in F# minor (melodic form) brought new awakenings in the universe of bouncy staccato through scales and arpeggios--(in big Forte projection, followed by a soft, piano range rendering) Within the psychological universe where mental images abound, catchwords like "THINKING UP" through rapid fire 32nds, kept the notes percolating without falling down FLAT with…

Piano Technique: Respiration NOT perspiration

My students remind me to breathe long, natural breaths when playing through scales and arpeggios from moderate to brisk tempos. Through a selective process of elimination, we've collectively come to the conclusion that SWEATING it out, or driving technique to the ground, gritting teeth, or otherwise fighting a noteworthy terrain is counter-productive. In the final…

Shaping a J.S. Bach Two-Part Invention

Many students play J.S. Bach's music with a typed out, articulated approach, forgetting to shape and contour phrases. In Bach's F Major Invention, BWV 779, the tendency is to overemphasize every element of broken chord F, A, C, F, in a perfunctory detachment, when musically the line tells us otherwise. Because the very first note…

Pianist, Seymour Bernstein is the subject of an Ethan Hawke produced documentary

It's about time a pianist, teacher, composer and author made it to the big screen. Seymour Bernstein is the star of a 81-minute documentary that's drawing critical acclaim in early Festival showings. On the East Coast, Seymour: An Introduction is slated for two important fall screenings at the prestigious New York Film Festival at Lincoln…

Performance Anxiety and Pressure Relievers

The symposia at Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute brought three top flight performers together to share thoughts about performance-related issues. Leon Fleisher, Yo Yo Ma, and Pamela Frank, all fine musicians in their own instrumental cosmos, agreed that the Ego can be an impediment to anxiety-free music-making. Zeroing in on "performance pressure," Maestra Frank, a…

What happened during the Earthquake!

From Berkeley, California At 3:19 a.m. I had just revisited my recently posted video of Bach's Sarabande (French Suite in G)--a foreboding? http://youtu.be/hL3XnZosZ-E ... when suddenly the wall I was leaning against, ( while seated at the piano), started swaying from side-to-side. (somewhat like swells to crescendo < with releases >) Next, I felt a…

The shrinking world of music

To put it lightly, degrees of separation in our musical cosmos are melting rapidly. By example, a Facebook post to my profile page from my 1960s era Orchestra teacher, led to a long lost neighbor who was the youngest member of the New York Philharmonic. To backtrack a bit, Herbert Gardner, a time-honored music director…