Wouldn’t it be great if there were never any misunderstandings between teachers and parents? Wouldn’t it be amazing if everyone was on the same page re things like practice, missed lessons, budgeting for music? In this blog post I
At the end of last year, I announced to my students that everyone would be participating in the 40-Piece-Challenge, the origins of which are explained by Elissa Milne in her excellent blog. They were excited at the thought of participating in something official, and I spent a good deal of my time over the holidays […]
When it comes to playing piano – in fact any musical instrument – I think there are enormous similarities between sport and music. For example: 1. It is a physically demanding activity that takes hours of practice/training each week to do it well; 2. It is not possible to ‘cram’ – that is, ignore practice […]
I have recently inherited a student from a colleague. Luke (not his real name) is a tall, mature and very friendly adolescent, and seemed happy to be coming to the lesson. He had had a break from piano for about six months after his previous teacher moved away, and had decided to come back to […]
Technique is an incredibly subjective issue. Get 10 piano teachers in a room and you will have 10 different techniques. Dare to criticise someone else’s and you’re in for a long night. I’d like to start this article by describing three personal experiences, all to do with comments on technique. Many years ago when I […]
Wilhelm Backhaus: (Germany, 1884-1969) Backhaus was a most highly esteemed pianist. One of the greatest Beethoven exponents of his generation, he regularly toured the music centres of the western world, and his brilliant performances would often leave audiences open-mouthed. Asked about his remarkable command of the keyboard and his practice program for the concert stage, […]
Being the co-author of the said Blitz Sight Reading books, this might be interpreted as rather a strange title for an article by me. You may ask, shouldn’t I already have KNOWN that the Sight Reading books work? Shouldn’t I have held off publishing them if I thought for a second they wouldn’t work? Well […]
In an effort to stimulate more practice and a fairer competition, I decided to refine the House Points system I described in December last year. No matter how I’ve tried to mix up the students and houses, for the last couple of terms one house has clearly run away with the House Cup. This makes […]
My daughter recently came home from her flute lesson with a great little system for correcting mistakes, which she called ‘IRC’. IRC stands for Isolate, Rhythms, Connect. Her flute teacher, Emma Sholl (of SSO fame), discussed with her that ‘Isolate’ means to figure out exactly where the mistake is. ‘Rhythms’ means to go over and […]
For all those of you who have embraced even the idea of offering the 50-piece challenge to your students, I’m here to tell you that it’s the best thing I have ever done with my students. Each week they come along to lessons eager to get more ticks on the chart, or at least more […]