Perfect Alignment: 5 Tips

My latest article for Pianist Magazine’s newsletter focuses on hand alignment at the keyboard. Much has been made about this important facet, but it’s easy to overlook a few basic concepts. I hope you find these suggestions of interest. One of the most noticeable aspects when learning to play the piano is wrist, hand and…

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12 Ideas to Help Reignite Motivation at the Piano: Lewis Kesterton

Pianist, teacher and writer Lewis Kesterton is my guest writer today. He focuses on that very important topic – finding your motivation. I hope you find it of interest. This article was originally published on Pianist Magazine’s website. The first few months of the New Year can be an odd time for pianists. Often we…

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First Repertoire For Little Pianists

I first started teaching the piano at the age of fifteen – far too young, many would say, and they’d be right! But, encouraged by my teacher, who ran a piano school, I often taught the school’s younger students, and I was always interested to discover various beginners’ methods. My first teacher used her own…

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Compose Yourself! by Alison Mathews

Compose Yourself! is an excellent educational project. It’s an annual online competition for children encouraging them to compose their own piano music. I’m delighted to be involved with this project as one of the selected composers, the panel of which consists of an impressive group of renowned educational writers who will be providing their music…

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Women Composers – A Graded Anthology For Piano

I’m delighted to introduce my new three-book piano series: Women Composers – A Graded Anthology For Piano (published by Schott Music). I’ve been working on this for the past three years, and the intention was to publish it much earlier last year, but, of course, the Pandemic had other ideas! Over the centuries, women have…

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Finding Their Voice: Progress Through Composing by Jeni Warder

Today’s guest post has been written by Jeni Warder who is the founder and creative director of the Keys Piano School in Bolton (UK). Jeni is writing a series of posts for this blog focusing on using composition as a helpful learning tool for younger students. Over the Jeni… Composing our own, original music is…

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10th Birthday Celebrations and The Classical Conversations Series

This blog celebrates its tenth birthday today! As many would imagine, keeping a blog alive and well for ten years takes much time, effort, and a large amount of writing. And I’m sure there are still many piano topics I have yet to cover. When this website took shape back in 2012, I had no…

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Attuning Our Listening Skills

My most recent post for Pianist Magazine’s newsletter focuses on our ability to ‘hear’ what we are playing. I hope you find it of interest. 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…

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Snapchats Duets & Trios: New recordings by Christopher Norton

Snapchats was originally a collection of short piano duets which was published a few years ago. The volume was republished and updated in 2019, with the inclusion of extra duets and piano trios. This new version has proved popular with both children and adult students, and I always enjoy using them in my own sight-reading…

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