Piano Lessons for Adult Piano Students
Having my studio robbed has confirmed many of my piano teaching principles
I know this is strange way to make lemonade out of lemons, but being burglarized this past weekend has served to validate many of the ideas I have used successfully when teaching adult piano students. Weird, but wonderful. (more…)
“…to advance the value of music study and music making to society…” seems to me a worthy goal. This is a direct quote from the website of the MTNA, the Music Teachers National Association. I agree completely. The question is HOW to achieve this. I suspect my answer is a bit different than that of some MTNA members. (more…)
Predicting the Future is Usually Dicey but I Do See the Trends
I’ve been teaching piano now full-time since October of 1987. I began as most teachers do – traveling to my students’ homes. Later, I found space to teach at a local piano dealership. A few years ago I decided to limit my practice to adult and teen-aged students. This year I’m focusing my attention to the Internet. I give you this history to convince you that I might just be able to see “the handwriting on the wall” regarding piano education. (more…)
Understanding one’s preferences regarding art is always difficult
I’ve boiled it down like this. (more…)
Who Decides What Is or Is NOT Music – and Why You Should Care
I teach piano to adults. They love many different kinds of piano playing from show tunes and ballads to the classics. One thing many of them say when the subject comes up is “Rap is not music.” Most are then surprised when I explain why they should change their opinion – for their own good. (more…)
An easy, but highly interesting timing “trick” every pianist should understand and master
Few words seem more mysterious than “syncopation.” Most piano students are given syncopated pieces at some point When these are presented, however, the pianist too often just plays what the composer or arranger has written. They can hear the interesting sounds and fascinating timing but don’t really understand how that sound and timing is produced. They are just following orders, so to speak. I’d like to explain syncopation in the way my adult students, both live and online, have found useful and successful. Funny thing, it has always been my observation that the adult who understands what they play does a better job at it than the adult who only follows orders. (more…)
A few basic instructions can make learning this music much more efficient
I presented in my previous post the basics of ragtime piano and said that understanding those basics was important to being able to play this music well. I’m now going to use the concepts I presented earlier to help you teach your hands the “tricks” that make up ragtime. (more…)
This fun style of piano music continues to interest piano learners
The music called ragtime was invented in the late 1800’s, fell out of public favor, but was revived with the movie The Sting way back in 1973. Piano teachers of the era (I was a student myself back then) were probably deluged with requests to learn to play the movie’s big theme song, composer Scott Joplin’s ragtime masterpiece The Entertainer. Today, almost 40 years later, this style of music keeps the interest of piano students, quite a number of whom tell me learning to play it is one of their reasons for “taking up piano.”
Piano improv is simply piano composing music done on the fly
The upside is that any mistakes are gone in an instant (unless you are so silly you call some attention to them.) The downside is that it requires some ability to play PLUS some measure of creativity. If your entire piano training has been “how to properly follow directions” then you are unused to exercising your own musical creativity. Perhaps some of this will help you “unleash the beast” of your “inner music monster!”
This Popular Piano Style is Easy to Understand and Totally Fun to Play
The Blues is a chord progression, a “form” every bit as formal as “sonata-allegro” form for a symphony. Any person at all familiar with western popular music has encountered this form many, many time, usually without knowing that it was form that defined “blues.” That form is 12 measures long and goes like this: (more…)
