Piano Study: Exploring the full gamut of emotions on the way to mastering a new piece (Videos)

Taking piano lessons should be a deep-level growth experience with a metaphorical tie-in to life. This means that pieces studied and technique applied should be interwoven to realize emotions of sadness, happiness, grieving, elation, disappointment and whatever comes to mind in the full panoply of human feelings. This is why hearing the word “fun” tossed…

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…

For Intermediate Level students: A joyous way to improve piano technique while savoring the Romantic genre (Videos)

Piano students in the Intermediate range don't need to plod through method books to grow technique. In addition, they shouldn't be subjected to arrangements of the masterworks reduced to painful copies of the original. As example, "Fur Elise" often appears in dumb-down form, with a mid-section excision. What's left is the bare-bones beginning, usually transposed…

Piano Technique: Practicing a C# minor arpeggio, in rolled four-note groupings (Adult student lesson-in-progress)

We start by blocking out the Right Hand with a good fingering, reinforcing depth into the keys, and follow-through motion. The arpeggio is then unraveled with curves of energy assisted by relaxed arms, fluid wrists. The turnaround at the top comes with a rotation. http://youtu.be/Cx3M2aAMbmM Related: Practicing a C# minor scale http://youtu.be/bXKU2qKdaMw

When a beginning adult piano student wants to learn popular music….(Video samples)

I have no problem indulging the musical appetites of my adult students, as long as they keep up their technical routines, and balance their intake of popular servings with Classical. Same applies to my younger pupils who are up to the task of reading music well enough so they can tackle music in various genres.…

Piano Practicing: The hands alone/hands together debate (Videos)

A lively Linked-in discussion is percolating about ways to practice piano and develop technique. Ardent defenders of a Hands Together approach insist that hands alone playing fits only elementary level students. (Deprecation is noted) The Hands Together contingent misses the mark. A solid supporter of ground-up/layered learning, I can draw on my interview with George…

Ena Bronstein, pianist, plays Debussy’s “Feux D’artifice” (recorded “live” in concert)

A further blend of music and seascapes, not to mention muted swans. Ena Bronstein was my former teacher in Fresno before she departed for the East Coast. Currently, she's on the faculty of Westminster Choir College of Rider University, Princeton, N.J. http://youtu.be/SB6PyiyShtc LINK: https://arioso7.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/virtuosity-and-poetry-in-motion-hallmark-ena-bronsteins-musical-return-to-fresno/

Piano Technique: Focusing on Rotation in arpeggios, and building up a scale (Videos)

These are two supplementary videos that I created for adult students between lessons. As previously mentioned, they clarify and reinforce the content of our class, and map out ways to practice. I. ROTATION at the turnaround of a B minor Arpeggio Exploring the curve at the very top of the figure with an energy boost…

El Cerrito “Sushi” cat is a match for Aiden (Videos)

Aiden took the prize for his mini-choreography of Chopin's C# minor Waltz, http://youtu.be/v38sPHrPSP0 but "Sushi" outdistanced him with an impressive break dance routine on the kitchen floor. http://youtu.be/Z76zHeM2Qwk "Sushi," the house cat in El Cerrito, is always on the move--resistant to stay on the grand piano, or to teeter by the bathroom sink. Aiden, however,…

Kabalevsky’s “A Game” is a delightful way to practice staccato (Videos)

Dimitri Kabalevsky (1904-1987) composed a winner for late elementary and early intermediate level students. While playing "A GAME," they learn a bouncy staccato with light interspersed accents on downbeats. How refreshing to weave technique into a musical romp that moves along with a "feeling of one main impulse per bar." According to notes found in…