I’ve published articles in Piano Professional, which is the magazine published by EPTA UK (European Piano Teachers Association), for the past 8 years. My latest, which was published in Issue 54, focuses on the thumb. Thumbs. We know they form an important part of our hand, but how often do we focus on all four…
Tag: Piano Practice
Studying at a Japanese Music Conservatoire: Yuki Negishi
Today’s article has been written by Japanese pianist Yuki Negishi. Following on from her very popular first post, in this second instalment, Yuki continues her piano journey, offering her thoughts and experiences on studying at the renowned Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, Japan. You can read the first post in this series, which…
Lost in Thought: Practice Tips
The following post was written for Schott’s magazine üben e musizieren, where it’s been published in the most recent edition. The article is a veritable ‘How-To-Play’ of my little piece ‘Lost in Thought’, which is the first piece in a collection entitled No Words Necessary. I’ve published the English version below, but you can click on…
Tricky Corners: Wrist Circles & Finger Articulation
Speed isn’t always synonymous with clarity. My work as an adjudicator can testify to the fact that’s it’s quite common to hear semiquaver (or demisemiquaver) passages played in a ‘garbled’, unstable, or just plain unrhythmical, manner; either too fast, with the tendency to rush through technically challenging sections resulting in the inevitable slips, errors and…
5 Tips For Your Left Hand
My most recent post for Pianist Magazine’s newsletter focuses on the left hand. The left hand can pose problems for many a pianist. If you examine some beginner method books, you might notice that a significant number focus on the right hand and right-hand music for pages – sometimes half a book! This is a…
Tricky Corners: The Leaping Fifth Finger
September heralds the start of a new academic year and is therefore an appropriate time to begin my new monthly series, ‘Tricky Corners’. Those who read this blog will know that I particularly enjoy developing a student’s technique. This is all about re-training bad habits, transforming them into good ones, which takes time and care….
Reverse Learning
My latest article for Pianist Magazine’s newsletter, published in June, focuses on a seemingly counterproductive concept: ‘reverse learning’. But this can be a surprisingly useful tool, and I hope you might find it of interest. Chances are that when you start learning a piece, you open the score, and begin at bar one. When learning…
5 Tips to Help Develop the Fourth & Fifth Fingers
This post was first published in Pianist Magazine’s April 2020 newsletter. The fourth and fifth fingers can be tricky to control. They require patience to develop. If left to their own devices, they will assume all kinds of weird, sprawling positions. Here are a few ideas to tame them. Most pianists know only too well…
Creating Even Passage Work
The following article was recently published in Pianist magazine’s newsletter. I hope it might be a useful practice tool for creating nice, even passages. Creating even passages, devoid of lumps, bumps, and rhythmic jerkiness, can be a demanding challenge. How can we practice fruitfully, encouraging fingers to work optimally? Here are my 5 tips: 1….
10 Motivational Practice Tips
It’s no mean feat keeping children, especially younger children, interested, not just in the piano and during the lesson, but for the practice sessions throughout the week, too. In my experience, very young children require constant parental guidance during piano practice, if progress is to be made. I don’t teach young students, but one interesting…
Twiddling Your Thumbs
Recently I’ve been working with several students, aiming to develop strong, active thumbs. This may sound rather strange, but we tend to take the thumb for granted. They protrude at the side of each hand and we just expect them to support the fingers. I’ve written several times, here on this blog and in various…
Fruitful Fingering Part 2
This is the second article in my series for Piano Professional Magazine, published by EPTA (of the European Piano Teachers Association): a teacher’s publication, for which I currently write the technique feature. You can read the first article by clicking here, and in Part 2, I look at different methods of applying certain fingerings, offering…