It's hard to believe how far "Liz" has come in her musical journey. With a half year's exposure to the piano, she composes, transposes, and approaches her practicing draped in the singing tone. In a repertoire-based phase of learning (with a primer method book tossed asunder) the student is embedded in relaxation techniques, with supple… Continue reading A nine-year-old Piano student at the six-month juncture of study
"GET THIS!" A piano with sleekness and significant musical dimension: an eye and ear-catcher with a respectable pedigree among keyboard giants. Who can gloss over the Name Bluthner? I won't say more lest I spoil the uniqueness of the LOOKING and LISTENING experience. So UP and AWAY with alacrity! https://youtu.be/uiHX4GDW1NM
It's common for piano students to tense a hand that is not actively engaged in playing during measured rests. Beethoven's "Fur Elise," an aspirational piece for so many, is the perfect representation of interactive, woven hands, that flow across from Left to Right, with a spacious margin of relaxed breaths. (as rests are notated) This… Continue reading Piano Technique: Energy-saving, Relaxed, Resting hands
Some piano students view playing a choir of voices with a rich bed of sustain pedal as an un-delayed gratification. It's an icing on the cake indulgence that often eludes the main course of diligent, attentive, and analytical practicing. A case in point is Beethoven's hauntingly beautiful, Adagio movement of the "Pathetique" Sonata, Op. 13,… Continue reading Patient voice-parceling in practicing Beethoven’s Adagio Cantabile (Sonata “Pathetique”)
Most piano students are familiar with Friedrich Burgmuller's set of Twenty-Five Easy and Progressive Studies, Op. 100, that are tasteful Romantic era miniatures with appealing programmatic titles. "Tender Flower," "The Little Party," and "The Wagtail," to name a few, are far from dripping with the excesses that one might encounter in the manuscripts of Romantic… Continue reading How to stay calm in the Eye of “The Storm”- Practicing Burgmuller’s L’Orage, Op. 109, No. 13
Over decades of teaching, and with relocation being the norm for students and mentors, it would have taken a bit of research to track down all my beginner, intermediate, and advanced students dating back to 1968 (NYC); and from 1979 (Fresno CA) to 2011, before my 2012 move to Berkeley, California. What I discovered in… Continue reading My Piano Students of Yesteryear: Where are they now?
Creative music mentors know innately that NO Primer Package with its sequence of red, blue, and purple levels, A, B, C etc. will meet the needs of most piano students. That's because each pupil is an individual with unique talents, abilities, strengths and weaknesses which demand a flexible, singularized plan of study. By example, my… Continue reading The Piano Primer transition to early repertoire selection
I'm safely nestled, if not sequestered, "Under Surveillance," in my all-purpose, webcam-wired piano room following a two way Mega-BUST ride between West Oakland and Union Station, L.A. Quite unexpectedly, my daughter and I were stranded on the Freeway, 20 minutes from destination, with our bulging baggage, roadside, after a double decker demise. (Transmission shutdown) And… Continue reading Scenes from MTAC Los Angeles! What you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask!
In a few days, I'll find myself at the MTAC Statewide Convention in L.A. sharing my Online Music Lesson journey in a LIVE high-tech universe exploration. (I gave a comparable program to the Alameda Branch last May 2015, but I was not hemmed into the impending ONE HOUR space.) The scope of this event begs… Continue reading Lights, Camera, Action in Los Angeles!
While most traditional piano lessons include a tedious focus on CONTROL with premeditated, prescribed planning in a layered learning sequence, a hyper-methodical approach that aims for note-perfection, will often impede a liberated, whole arm gesture that can emancipate boxed-in, tight-squeezed playing. (Once activation of uninhibited physical energy is harnessed, then centering is easier to achieve… Continue reading “I don’t care” means letting go to bigger physical energies
Arioso7's Blog (Shirley Kirsten) 