Melanie Spanswick

5 Tips for Secure Coordination and Quick Movement

This month’s 5 tips for Pianist magazine’s newsletter focuses on the issue of moving quickly around the instrument. I hope it’s useful. Moving quickly and accurately can be tricky. Especially if fast passage work is involved. There are many ways to alleviate this conundrum, but one which can be really beneficial is octave displacement. Yes,…

Pro Corda at 50

Turning 50 is a special occasion. I celebrated my 50th birthday earlier this year, and on Sunday I had the pleasure of attending the 50th Birthday of Pro Corda, which was marked with an afternoon concert held at the Purcell Room on the South Bank in London. Pro Corda Trust is a music and educational…

Piano Workshops and Summer Adventures

I’ve come to the end of a very busy Summer. It has been stimulating and enjoyable on so many levels, and it’s a privilege to travel to interesting parts of the world, meeting and working with different piano students, teachers, music lovers, and (hopefully) spreading the love for the piano. Music courses, particularly piano courses,…

A Grade 7 Journey

Today’s guest blog post has been penned by my student Becky Flisher. Becky is a typical adult piano student who has a full-time job and many other hobbies and interests. She has been learning the piano for a while and attends several piano courses every year, including my course at Jackdaws Music Education Trust, and…

Piano Courses 2019/2020

Tutoring piano courses is certainly a lot of fun. I’ve been doing more and more of this work, and it’s a great way to connect with a variety of different piano students. Jackdaws Music Educational Trust offers a wonderful selection of piano courses with superb tutors. You can view them here. My course takes place…

The Joy of Duets: a guest post by Eleonor Bindman

I’ve been teaching at PIANO WEEK for the past two weeks. Held at Moreton Hall School in Shropshire (UK), it’s been a rewarding experience and a lot of fun, but also very hard work, involving six hours of teaching and coaching per day over a six day week. Therefore, today I’m handing over the ‘blog…

An Interview with Anna Sutyagina

I first met Anna Sutyagina (pictured below) several years ago on Facebook. I greatly admire the way she has built a successful career performing and recording Contemporary piano music, and sharing it with her growing legion of fans. Anna is the artistic director of Moving Classics TV , a website which highlights her own recordings,…

Touring in Singapore and Malaysia

If you’ve been following my social media sites, you’ll know I’ve been working in Singapore and Johor Bahru (in Malaysia) over the past week. I aim to organise several overseas book tours per year as I love to travel, and I also enjoy meeting teachers and students from different parts of the world. I’m extremely…

5 Top Tips for Hand Coordination

My latest article for Pianist Magazine’s newsletter focuses on coordination between the hands. A perennially tricky but important subject, there many ways to improve this facet. I hope my suggestions are useful. Coordination between the hands can be a sticking point for many pianists. How do we play rapid passagework in both hands, ensuring each…

A Master Class with Jonathan Biss

It’s time for a master class. I haven’t posted one for a while, but we can learn so much from observing the classes of others, and I enjoy highlighting public lessons for this reason. To complement his series of concerts at Carnegie Hall in 2017, devoted to the late style, Amercian pianist Jonathan Biss gave…