5-Minute Piano Lessons

Once the basics are well learned, this method gives excellent results

I’ve written often about HOW to practice piano effectively. You should follow my guidelines – for the simple reason that they work. Once you have done this and know the fundamentals of the piece, you may want to polish it up. One way, not particularly efficient, is to play the piece over and over and over and…. There is a better approach to polishing piano pieces and here it is. However, use it ONLY after the majority of the music is already well learned. (more…)

There are Valuable Reasons for Most Pianists to Learn to Play the Proper Scales

There are three benefits for most piano students from “learning the scales”:

Training the hands to make the scales so that scalar passages in actual music come easily

Improvement in general dexterity and technique

Assimilating, both mentally and manually, which notes go together in Western music

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Speed of Practice is Crucial to Successful Piano Practice

Much improvement in playing piano pieces is lost because adult piano too often students  practice their music at whatever pace (tempo) they believe that piano music should be played in performance.This almost always means that mistakes are common and linger long.  If you only such piano students knew and used this motto:

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Adult Piano Students Need to Keep Things in Perspective

Dissatisfaction

…is a natural human state but it’s a problem when we are TOO dissatisfied, such as when we have the musical sophistication of an adult and the piano playing ability of a 7 year old. (more…)