Tag Archives: Piano Technique
In the Technique Box – Part 3
In the box marked Advanced: 1. Essential Daily Exercises for Piano (Boris Berlin, pub Alfred). My go-to book for transfer students; a systematic approach to fixing or developing every aspect of technique. Organized in 20 sets (increasing in difficulty) of 14 … Continue reading
In the Technique Box – part 2
Intermediate technique books sitting on my shelf. May or may not ever be used … 1. Technic is Fun, Books One and Two (compiled, edited and arranged by David Hirschberg, pub. Alfred). Classic studies that cover a wide range of … Continue reading
In the Technique Box* (part 1)
There are three boxes of technique books sitting on the shelf, organized according to the level: Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced. These are used books. Stuff that I pull out for students as needed. My beginner and elementary students use the … Continue reading
Posted in Studio News, Practice Tips, Piano pedagogy, Rhythm, Technic, Method Books
Tagged Piano Technique, Finger exercises, Pianist, Piano, Piano Adventures, Piano teaching, piano teachers, Music, Alfred, piano technic
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Grouping backwards
The summer of 1995. My daughter was just a few months old. Mothers remember significant events by their pregnanices or ages of their children. I went to my first ever Piano Pedagogy workshop. Until that point my musical focus had … Continue reading
Every truly cultured music student knows…
… You must learn your scales and your arpeggios. And how to make the learning of those scales and arpeggios less of a drudgery? I have a list – first posted in April 2011 – of a few creative ways … Continue reading
Posted in General, Inspirational, Piano pedagogy, Practice Tips, Technic
Tagged arpeggios, piano practice, Piano teaching, Piano Technique, Practice Tips, scales
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Chromatic Scale Fingerings
Students love them. The chromatic scales. Once they get that 1-3-1-3 fingering going they can whip up and down the piano playing every single note at an uncontrollable, unstoppable speed. It’s even more fun doing them hands together in contrary … Continue reading
Posted in Piano pedagogy, Practice Tips, Technic
Tagged chromatic fingering, Chromatic scale, fingering, Piano pedagogy, Piano Technique
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Small Hands
I’m no expert on this topic. My hands, while not large, are not so small that I can’t get around a lot of stuff (I can reach a 9th comfortably enough). I do somehow end up with a lot of … Continue reading
It’s all about the brain
After looking at numerous incentive programs, and rejecting many because they’re more complicated than I’d like them to be, I’ve decided to use Jennifer Fink’s This is Your Brain… on Music! (Pianimation) I like this because : (1) It’s easy. It’s … Continue reading
Burgmuller – Opus 105
Love it when I catch myself making the same mistakes that I bag at my students about! It keeps me grounded, and human, and laughing. Sight-reading my way through the “B”s I played through my collection of Burgmüller today – … Continue reading
Posted in Sight Reading A to Z, Technic
Tagged Burgmuller, Piano Studies, Piano Technique, Sight Reading
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No advantage for lefties
Almost everyone struggles more with the left hand (LH) than the right hand (RH) – especially in technical passages, and especially when the LH line is descending, moving from the stronger to the weaker part of the hand, “backwards” in … Continue reading
Posted in Piano pedagogy, Rhythm, Studio News, Technic
Tagged Left-handedness, Piano Performance, Piano Technique
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Technique Plan
I remember hearing Edward Parker, author of Piano Pedagogy: A Practical Approach, say the following at a workshop a few years ago: “The only thing worse than a bad technique plan is no plan at all.” For the first few … Continue reading
Arpeggios are Fractals
A fractal is a math thing – apparently a relatively recent concept – where the bits of something look the same as the whole. The easiest example to understand is a tree or leaf – the shape of the leaf … Continue reading
Posted in General, Inspirational, Theory
Tagged Chaos and Fractals, Piano Technique, Theory
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