Letting Distraction Go
There are times when all of us are easily distracted by bright and shiny objects—diamonds, texts, emails, the slip of a finger, the person sitting in the front row, your…
Taking My Own Medicine
Last Wednesday evening I played a recital with Soprano Cynthia Sanner. It was a privilege to play the repertoire she had chosen—some works were new to me and others I…
PA Shorts: On Forging A Personal Musical Connection
I'm always encouraging students to find something personal in their music—something from their own lives and experience. Often, they look at me like I have lobsters crawling out of my…
Interference: No Penalty 2
The universe is conspiring to make me think hard about practicing. Coincidenza? I think not. I’m up to my eyeballs in Lieder and Art Song in preparation for a recital…
PA Shorts: Interference! No Penalty.
Last week I found myself focusing on practice strategies again and again—specifically how to change up passages and scales/arpeggios etc. when practicing with repetitions. I have quite a few new…
Scales. What? Double Thirds
I loved hearing about how you all teach scales and your plans to incorporate the paired fingerings from Scales. What? into your personal practice and teaching. JP and Marie, among others,…
Resolutions: Salvage & Recycle
It happens to all of us. We set goals and start out with such good intentions. Then, the world gets in the way and, little by little, we lose our…
Piano Pride
“I’m so proud of myself!,” said Marty. She has been taking class piano since August. Before that, she had a few lessons, played the violin, and taught herself the basics.…