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…
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…
Playing With Wolfgang: My Dog Ate My Minuet
The first time I ever worked on a Bach dance movement I felt like I had encountered an alien landscape. I had grown up on Bach chorales but somehow those…
Vintage PA: Yodeling Puff The Magic Dragon
It started with a performance of a method book piece with the word Yodel in the title. “It sounds weird,” said my young student, “and I don’t understand why that…
PA Shorts: Boundaries
"You can’t fill up when you’re holding your breath. And writing is about filling up, filling up when you are empty, letting images and ideas and smells run down like…
Smart Choices
Do you judge yourself as you practice? Those negative inner thoughts are human nature. Sometimes voices from the past echo in our heads. Sometimes, the thoughts have nothing to do…
Playing With Wolfgang: Bach’s Groove
“I just can’t get the beats to this song. Where is the groove?”, said one of my college class piano students. I had a moment of panic. My eyes must…
Vintage PA: Six Onions & 10,000 Hours
Will 10,000 Hours really get you to elite status? This article in The Wilson Quarterly, on the research of Michigan State University psychology professor David Z. Hambrick and five other…