In this podcast, Roger Humphrey talks with piano teacher Tanya Ulsh about the change to online lessons due to social distancing. This is a good episode to listen to for anyone who takes online lessons or expects to take online lessons in the future.
[Read more...]Piano is the best instrument to begin with for anyone interested in learning music. Students who start with piano learn how to read music and understand both bass and treble clefs, as well as important concepts of music theory. It is the easiest instrument for seeing and understanding music theory because of the linear way that it is laid out. Shapes on the staff look the same on the piano, this helps to visualize the intervals and chords. Music students who begin with piano can easily go on to playing any other instrument they desire.
[Read more...]This article was published when I opened a piano studio in Bulverde. I am not teaching there anymore but the article has good information about why learning in groups is so beneficial.
[Read more...]When children learn to play a musical instrument, they strengthen a range of auditory skills. Recent studies suggest that these benefits extend all through life, at least for those who continue to be engaged with music.
[Read more...]Mayron Cole interviewed me for her newsletter on techniques used for theory games in piano class…
[Read more...]“Music students continue to outperform their non-arts peers on the SAT, according to the 1999 “Profiles of SAT and Achievement Test Takers” from The College Board.
[Read more...]Question: Why do I need to have my acoustic piano tuned?
[Read more...]An acoustic piano can last 100 years or more, while a digital piano may be obsolete in 5 years. An outdated keyboard is often difficult to sell. The tone and touch of an acoustic piano is usually far superior to a digital piano and it will hold it’s value much better than a keyboard. The disadvantages are the size, the cost and the tuning expense.
[Read more...]Piano fingering is your finger placement on the piano keyboard. Good fingering is an important skill that should to be used to allow your fingers to master difficult passages. Some things that you can play at a slow speed are impossible at the finished tempo, unless you use the best fingering. Practicing fingering may seem tedious at first, but stick with it; your fingers will adjust quickly.
[Read more...]As a teacher, I find myself repeating these words over and over,
[Read more...]When you start a new piece, what do you do first? If you try to concentrate on all the things that go into learning a new piece to perfection, it is overwhelming. Here is the order of what I believe is a good plan for learning:
[Read more...]Before the recital, I train my students to be performers. This is a sample of what I teach students:
[Read more...]This is a question that all students ask when beginning piano lessons. In my contract that all new students sign when starting lessons, it states that the requirement is to to play each piece two times per day. This is for a beginning student, usually 7 or 8 years old. As you progress through the study of music, it becomes more challenging and demands more practice time to master the musical skills. The amount of time should grow longer as you begin to play more advanced music. The rewards are very fulfilling when a student can play well. It is a full circle, as the student practices more, they get better, and as they get better, they want to play the piano more, etc. Let me end this post with an appropriate quote, “Piano is like life, you get out of it what you put into it”.
[Read more...]Playing the whole piece from beginning to end and continuing to pause at the same place or making the same errors over and over is not productive. Play each hand separately and then play them together SLOWLY. Very slowly at first and then gradually increase your speed. Play from one measure before the difficult spot, to one measure after.
[Read more...]“Researchers now know that playing a musical instrument can switch off the stress response, improving physical and emotional health. When our senses detect a possible threat in the environment, the body undergoes a chain reaction in which genes within each cell switch on, directing the cells to produce chemicals associated with the stress response. Playing music sets off an opposite chain reaction that switches these genes off again.”
[Read more...]Make practicing the piano a part of your daily activities. I ask my students, “Do you brush you teeth before you go to bed at night?” That is a good habit that you do every night before bedtime. You need to practice the piano just before or after something that you do everyday. (Before supper, after supper, when you come home from school, before homework, after homework, etc) If you play your piano at the same time most days, it becomes a part of your day. Before you know it, you are playing better and better and enjoying it more all the time.
[Read more...]A damper pedal is a very important part of playing the piano. It serves two purposes. First, it assists the pianist in producing a legato (playing smoothly connected notes) in passages where no fingering is available to make this otherwise possible. Secondly, raising the damper pedal causes all the strings to vibrate sympathetically with whichever notes are being played, which greatly enriches the piano’s tone.
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