Happy Birthday, IRMA!

Today I posted a musical tribute to a dear friend who provides her acoustically divine living room for my weekly teaching journeys in El Cerrito, California. The space soars with resonance and complements a vintage Baldwin 1929 grand that lavishes its home in the Hills. Irma happens to be a student of mine for 4…

Piano Technique Tips: Leaning toward the piano in contrary motion

One of my wise colleagues tipped me off about moving toward the piano when playing scales and arpeggios in contrary motion. After trying it, I integrated the leaning forward motion into my own practicing and naturally, it trickled down to my students in the lesson environment. Here's a demonstration using the E minor arpeggio in…

In Perfect Harmony: Steinway grand and Yamaha Arius digital

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDersM94DbE These two music-makers are currently close companions. I moved Arius out of isolation to a more socially and musically compatible locale well after Steinway Upright 1098 was sold. The space-saving that accrued was particularly beneficial. Now that both grand and electronic live in side-by-side harmony (A 440-wise), I can slip under my acoustic and…

Building a piano lesson around J.S. Bach Invention 4 (d minor)

The scale of D minor (Harmonic form) feeds nicely into the study of Bach's Invention 4, BWV 775, and within this Baroque inspired universe, Alton, (Life Begins at 77) continued his musical journey. First my play through of the Two-Part Invention http://youtu.be/jZ5jbiLUhHQ A capsulized compositional analysis http://youtu.be/LTtM2DsJsk8 And a Summary of lesson goals for the…

Chopin’s Nocturne in E minor, Op. 72, No. 1: Rotation, voicing, phrasing

Many students believe their hands are too small to navigate the E minor Nocturne. Seeing awkward intervals inside of broken chords that often span beyond an octave, they have a fixed mindset that the Left Hand (in this composition) must pre-stretch the distance between the lower and upper most note to insure ACCURACY, at least.…

Adoption in the old piano universe

Today's good deed was my hands on effort to place a gorgeous sounding old upright in a deserving home. And judging by the attention this Emerson vintage piano eventually received after I played it for well past an hour at a Berkeley thrift store, there may be hope that an old veteran like this, can…

A Romp through F# Major scales and arpeggios

F# Major, from a certain perspective, happens to be one of the easier scales to play because it falls into patterns of triple black and double black keys with thumbs meeting in between. In fact, both hands have mirror fingers on the black notes. That's why piano teachers will often introduce the F# Major scale…

Piano Technique: Practicing Arpeggios in 10ths, and in Contrary motion

I've selected broken chord chains or arpeggios (harp-like figures) that have symmetries between the hands when played in 10ths, and separately in contrary motion. Taken together, these are not pedantic exercises, but expressive romps over many octaves culminating in a rotation at the turnaround to the descent in pleasing contour. In the second instruction, my…

Piano Technique: How to organize and practice a Major scale in 6ths

I chose the Ab Major scale as my springboard for this demonstration. Its KEY SIGNATURE has the mnemonic BEAD (Bb, Eb, Ab, Db) I recommend practicing the scale hands alone at first in its Root position to clarify fingering. Then by playing up the scale in the Right Hand to the sixth note, we land…

Piano Technique: A styled staccato with a dipping wrist

I find that adding supple wrist dips to staccato within any dynamic range helps to style and shape lines, phrases, etc. Here's it's first executed within a scale framework. A cat cameo appearance is the opener. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXKU2qKdaMw Now a sample of shaped staccato in the soft range, played after a nicely contoured legato. (just snip…