PIANO PRACTICE
A selection of articles and features on all aspects of practising the piano.
Preparing a new piano piece – Part 2
Today’s article featured in Pianist Magazine’s most recent newsletter. It focuses on basic practice suggestions and ideas for when learning a new piece. This article is part 2 of the process and you can read the Part 1, here. In my last article, Preparing A New Piece – 5 Tips Part 1, I offered several…
5 tips on preparing a new piano piece: Part 1
In the latest Pianist Magazine Newsletter, I focus on preparing a new piano piece. This is a three-part series. Part 1 looks at the periphery and early stages of preparing your piece. When learning a new piece, there are so many considerations. How will you start? Do you like to listen to several performances? Or…
5 Tips For Breath Control
My latest article for Pianist Magazine’s newsletter focuses on breath control. I hope you find it of interest. Breath control. It might be a topic more closely associated with singing than piano playing, but developing secure breath control can by a most helpful asset, especially for those who regularly perform. Once this useful skill has…
Exploring the Key Bed: 5 Tips
My latest article for Pianist Magazine’s newsletter explores the tonal possibilities found in the ‘key bed’ or the area of the key beneath the double escapement action. I hope you find it of interest. The key-bed can remain a mystery for many, lurking, as it does, beneath the only part of the key that is…
5 Tips To Help Develop Finger Control
My most recent article for Pianist Magazine’s newsletter focuses on honing firmer fingers for clear and crisp articulation. Rapid passages. They require extra practice, don’t they? You sit down at the instrument, ready to start a practice session, and begin at the same quaver, semiquaver or demisemiquaver passage which caused some grief at the previous…
Perfect Alignment: 5 Tips
My latest article for Pianist Magazine’s newsletter focuses on hand alignment at the keyboard. One of the most noticeable aspects when learning to play the piano is wrist, hand and finger choreography. As soon as a student starts to play, it’s possible to determine any physical difficulties which they are experiencing, just from how they…
Attuning Our Listening Skills
My most recent post for Pianist Magazine’s newsletter focuses on our ability to ‘hear’ what we are playing. One of the most important piano playing skills that we need to assimilate is the ability to listen. I spent my college years struggling with aural tests, especially the atonal ones! But, years later, when I decided…
Tricky Corners: Tension Breaks
Students often find the concept of tension breaks challenging. What do I mean by this expression? Most pianists understand the idea of tension and release: we need a certain amount of tension in our bodies to play a note or a group of notes, but the second (or millisecond) the note or notes have been…
Sweet Dreams from Album Pour Enfants Op 39 No. 1 by P. I. Tchaikovsky
A very popular and beautiful piece from a set which Tchaikovsky wrote for children. ‘Sweet Dreams’ appears on List B of the current ABRSM Grade 5 piano exam syllabus. It is also on the Grade 5 piano exam syllabus for Trinity College London. As many will be preparing this piece, this article offers a few…
5 Tips for Perfecting That Silence
My latest Pianist Magazine newsletter article focuses on perfecting that silence! We sometimes forget the importance of observing rests, fermatas, or even creating dramatic pauses. Here are a few tips and reminders. Rests, as we know, indicate a place in the score where we literally stop playing. An actual rest is generally a specified length,…
Spot Finger Practice
Pianist Magazine is currently celebrating its twentieth year, and it has been a delight to write for the magazine since 2014. I write a ‘How-to-play’ article in every issue and a ‘5 Tips’ based article for the bi-monthly newsletter. The following piece first appeared in the magazine’s most recent newsletter. What do I mean by…
Teaching Fast and Slow
Over the last few weeks I have been preparing for what will no doubt be the highlight of my year; directing the Piano Teachers’ Course at Chetham’s International Piano Summer School. This preparation has prompted a reflection on my own teaching, hence the subject of this blog post. There is often a general perception that…