The Enterprising Pianist: The Magic of Spontaneous Creativity
Pianists are disciplined and focused people, and most of us spend a great deal of time planning for the ; Let’s face it, “stuff” ; As musicians, we work to…
Artist Portrait: Nathan Williamson
Nathan Williamson is a pianist, composer and conductor with ties to both the UK and the US. We chatted via email about his musical growing up, his musical mentors, balancing…
Yummo! Taste & False Assumptions
Last week, when I was talking with Reuel Meditz, our discussion took a surprising turn as I suddenly found myself asking him about his reactions to musicians who can be…
PA Shorts: Working the System
We musicians are creative people. We are used to pushing boundaries and thinking for ourselves. We generally object to rules and regulations on principle. So, I decided to share some…
Guest Post: Sara Zanussi, A Tanzanian Adventure
In this post we adventure vicariously with Sara Zanussi. Sara is just back from a year spent teaching piano and music in Arusha Tanzania. When I asked her how she…
Gaps, Crevices, & Canyons
I have posted a lot about filling in what is missing from our student’s backgrounds, but, this week I got to thinking about our own gaps, crevices, and canyons. We…
Creativity, Luck, and Inventional Wisdom
There was a super post on creativity by Wendy Stevens at Compose Create this week. In it, she linked to the article, 10 Creativity Tips by Donald Miller and highlighted the…
Becoming a Non-Commissioned Piano Teacher
The tweet said, "Make time for non-commissioned work." I thought, Non-commissioned??? Have I ever even been given a commission??? This week, thanks to a post by Richard Byrne of Free…