Melanie Spanswick

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Studying at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam: Yuki Negishi

The first guest post of 2022 has been written by Japanese concert pianist Yuki Negishi. This is the third article in Yuki’s series for this blog, reflecting on her training, and, specifically, her time spent studying at various music conservatoires around the world. The first two posts explored her experiences studying in New York, at…

Happy New Year: 10 Years Blogging

I hope you have enjoyed a relaxing festive holiday and I’d like to wish you all a very Happy New Year. Tenth Anniversary 2022 is an important year for this blog, because on January 28th, it will celebrate its tenth anniversary. When I started this ‘project’ back in 2012, I was in a very different…

Happy Christmas 2021

We’ve almost come to the end of another year. For most, 2021 will surely be one to forget, marred with lockdowns and financial uncertainty. We can only hope that 2022 may offer us all a safe pathway out of this dreadful pandemic. As always, I am grateful to you for your support, and for reading…

The Thinking Pianist: David Jones

My guest post today has been written by David Jones who is Head of Keyboard Studies at Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Earlier this year, David inaugurated a new piano course held at Cheltenham Ladies College; The Thinking Pianist. After an extremely successful pilot course in July 2021, The Thinking Pianist, will now offer a more expansive…