Facing the Music on FACETIME

  https://youtu.be/hFHhwQPP2Jw Burgmuller's "SORROW" received a BOOST on FACETIME where it was the PITS on SKYPE. The latter sometimes mimics jet landings with a whoosh sound, while an echo chamber effect causes unwanted tremolos. In this "FACE"-beamed environment, a formerly LIVE student who turned VIRTUAL, experienced a musical FACE-lift. With a new media spotlight, where…

Piano buzzes can wreak havoc!

We all know about the note zinging nuisance that plagues students and teachers at inopportune times. Like getting ready to perform on the big Spring recital.. A run over the 88's has a MIDDLE C blockade. The noise has infiltrated the most celebrated note in the method book cosmos, making the BLACK ones feel cheated…

Lettin’ go to Presto without crashin’

First, here's my good luck charm: a keyboard bracelet that a former adult student made for me. I have a pic when it looked spiffier but time has taken its toll. Perhaps wearing this wrist trinket helped me advance my Haydn Sonata finale to Presto without a crash and burn, but it's more likely that…

The divine musical comedy of Sid Caesar

Most people associate Victor Borge with comedic antics at the piano, but few know of Sid Caesar's artistry at the grand in pantomime. A devotee of TV'sYour Show of Shows, starring Sid, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, and Howard Morris, I recently took a journey down memory lane, revisiting three of my favorite musically framed skits…

Comparing tempos and interpretation, Schumann’s Kinderszenen, Op. 15, no. 1

"Of Foreign Lands and People," is the lyrical opener to Schumann's Kinderszenen, Op. 15 ("Scenes from Childhood,") but the composer's metronome marking, 108 to the quarter, makes it a challenge to spin poetic lines, though Seymour Bernstein rises to the occasion in his memorable reading. http://youtu.be/7Ao7DHfCNvY Seymour's comments: "Concerning Metronome indications, I personally never observe…

Piano Study: Learning in deep layers and loving it

Deep-layered learning should occur at all levels of piano study because it enriches the music-making experience. Taking shortcuts, and constantly reading through a composition, skimming the surface, deprive the player of being in touch with himself and the composer at the moment of creation. One particular masterwork, that draws so many pupils into its gorgeous…

Piano technique is about flexibility not finger strength

I remember my days at the Oberlin Conservatory pumping out meaningless Schmitt finger exercises, often holding notes down, while a selected persecuted finger had to brave the pain is gain ritual. (tap, tap, tap, tap, and move on to the next unlucky digit) Looking back, it was a wasted effort which had NO relationship to…

Piano Practicing: Taking the robot out of fast passages

It's easy to stare at a Presto Rondo from the Classical era, and wonder how to navigate scads of notes that can end up on the assembly line, pumped out with no sense of individuality. And while herds of them might be corralled with a sensible fingering, their shape and direction often remain out of…

Comparing two performances Of Chopin’s Nocturne in Db, Op. 27, No. 2

I had a reunion with a childhood friend over Skype this past weekend, and our conversation drifted to concerts we both attended in the 1970's at Carnegie Hall. For me, one was memorable, the other, not. Horowitz had made a historic return to the concert stage that trumped Maurizio Pollini's scheduled performance in the same…

Video supplements for piano students assist practicing

Whether giving piano lessons LIVE or by SKYPE, sending students video excerpts of their lessons-in-progress, or creating a short film that zeroes in on a particular technical challenge, is always helpful. In the old days when I studied with Lillian Freundlich in NYC, a reel-to-reel tape recorder was the standard for memorializing lessons. No tripod…