Piano Technique: A Legato to staccato arpeggio with “rolls and snips”

When playing a three-note (root, third, fifth) arpeggio over a spread of 3-4 octaves, the ROLLING motion that permeates a Legato rendering in triplets, can nicely snip into a buoyant staccato, if the arm, wrist and fingers are unimpeded by tension. I've found the wrist, in particular, to be pivotal in sculpting a satisfying legato…

J.S. Bach Invention No. 13 in A minor: Early learning phase Deep Key Connection

Many piano students tiptoe through a parceled voice reading of a new composition instead of choosing a relaxed, behind tempo approach that allows a deep, dead weight COMMITTED connection into the keys. Thinking that the notes are strange and unfamiliar they distance themselves from phrase shaping, and tend to breeze quickly through a score in…

Adult Piano Instruction: Exploring weight transfer and supple wrist motions for improved phrase shaping

A new adult student is working on Beethoven's Sonatina in F, one of the composer's less played works, but nevertheless quite a musical gem. While the composition has a Mozartean flavor, the abrupt shift in dynamics in the opening theme, for example, offers a glimpse into Beethoven's later development of his larger Sonata form, where…

Going Solo with the Schubert Fantasie for 4-hands

I found the perfect solution to practicing the Schubert Fantasie in F minor without my duet partner, since she's absent for 6 days of the week. While we rehearse on Thursdays, the piano bench literally shrinks putting us both at risk for hand collisions and body blows. In truth, the pushes and shoves have more…

Piano Instruction: Allemande from J.S. Bach French Suite no. 5 in G Major

Andras Schiff, known for playing Bach "purely" without pedal, encourages piano students to indulge J.S. as actors cultivate Shakespeare. It's our daily "bread," he insists. Regardless of his mixed metaphor, I concur that studying the works of Johann Sebastian Bach builds a solid foundation for exploring music of all historical eras. And to pore over…

Does practice make perfect?

WQXR F.M. (NYC based) has posted its latest set of meta-based analyses of "deliberate practice" studies. (A mouthful of confusion to begin with!) Three researchers teamed up to discount the wise old adage that "practice makes perfect." (In their probings, they were "virtuosity" centered) The trio concluded that a much smaller percentage of so-called high-powered…

An adult beginning piano student helps to shape his musical journey

When a newbie knocks on my door, not knowing how to read music, but is starving for a connection to the great "Classical" piano masterworks, I have to figure out a way to engage his interest in the earliest phase of learning without losing him along the way. One approach is to go the "method"…

An adult piano student floats a Chopin Nocturne

The E minor Nocturne Op. 72, No. 1 has a redundant flowing broken chord bass that becomes intensified through melodic climaxes. Still, the binary division of each measure, with some relief on the second half of each, preserves a relentless rocking motion throughout the composition. In this lesson-in-progress, an adult student who returned to the…

Staccato scales: Staying on the PLANE without a bumpy ride

Most students become very disconnected when traveling through a staccato scale so their journey from lift-off to landing is often bumpy. In the E minor Natural form, for example, a redundant E, F# occurring in every octave will fool a player into thinking he's got to brace for ELEVATION that makes his hand jerk forward…

Two side-by-side approaches to Schubert and ONE wins a prize

The BACKDROP Over in Fairbanks, Alaska the awards ceremony that capped a prolonged Internet channeled e-competition was dragged out mercilessly. Every sponsor under the sun had to be acknowledged, including Yamaha International that put its Disklavier center stage, UP-staging the old-fashioned way of delivering music to audiences. Would you believe, laudatory performances were memorialized on…