Vintage Post: A Romantic Accusation
“You’re a romantic!” said my teacher in a surprised voice, as though this explained everything he found perplexing about me. I had never been accused of being anything but a…
PA Shorts: Opportunity Knocks
One of my Facebook friends recently shared a few words of advice to aspiring musicians by pianist, singer, songwriter, and producer, Ben Folds. This earthy collection of thoughts struck a…
Guest Post: Dennise Ontiveros Rivera
In this post, Dennise describes her journey to music and teaching. When Dennise came to me at EAC, she told me that there were few teachers in the area of…
PA Shorts: Practice, Perfection, & Personality
Lately, cyberspace has been full of posts and articles dealing with practice and perfection. Together, they have all got me thinking hard about both myself and my students. We can…
Playing With Wolfgang: Fliszt
I was a practical child. I always needed to know what something was for. My favorite question was why? My Dad sang a popular nonsense song to me when I…
Six Onions & 10,000 Hours: Redux
Recently, I came across a post on the blog Musical Resources which discussed the 10,000 hour principle as it applies to music, music teaching, and musical talent, a podcast from Music is…
Playing With Wolfgang 1.1: Clara & Robert Sitting In A Tree
I have always secretly had it in for Clara Schumann. There was that Trio that I was forced to work on for an entire semester and then there is the…
PA Shorts: Hard Work
How often do our students (and occasionally ourselves) end up banging against a brick wall (figuratively speaking) because we need to change our game plan and gain the knowledge and…