Where Piano Playing Retirees Get Information and Encouragement
I am no authority on Musical Dyslexia and I am certainly no researcher of this topic, so the thoughts I express here are just simply my own thoughts. Now I have gotten the all important disclaimer done, I think this topic is an interesting one and as a piano teacher, I think that it is … Read more
I haven’t thought that I am overly opinionated, in fact I pride myself on being a fair and reasonable person, but I must confess that every time I see an ad on Facebook for a ‘Learn to Play the Piano’ course, I get really irritated and automatically assume that it is probably not that good. … Read more
From time to time, I meet someone who will tell me that they the piano by ear and because they claim to not be able to read music, they don’t consider themselves to be real piano players. I’ve even experienced people that have almost seen to be apologetic about playing the piano by ear, which … Read more
I have heard and read, particularly on social media that reading music is hard if not impossible. Clearly it is not actually impossible otherwise literally no one would ever be able to read it and interpret it. I’ve heard the opinion that it is really hard to read music from people who have never actually … Read more
Learning to read music is an important skill unless you only ever want to play the piano by ear. It doesn’t matter what style or genre of music that you prefer to play, learning to read music is a very useful skill. If you want to learn to play classical music, then learning to read … Read more
If you are learning or playing jazz on the piano, then the answer to how important is it to play a piece of music as written, is an easy question. The answer is that it is not important. Jazz music values improvisation and reinterpreting pieces of music. Exploration and adaption of keys, chords, notes and … Read more
Rests are one of those things that are really undervalued in western music and piano players, in my opinion, are the worst at valuing the function of rests. So rests are an indication of nothing that makes them truly something. I know that it seems like I have contradicted myself here, but I have not … Read more