The Piano Coach

Interview with Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet

2010-06-28T18:37:00.001-04:00

Piano on the Wall

2010-06-19T17:44:00.000-04:00

Watch a Steinway being put up on the wall of a music school in Canada...

Chopin Etude Op. 25 No.11 "Winter Wind"

2010-06-10T14:49:00.000-04:00

Played here by Sviatoslav Richter, this etude by Chopin is one of those flashy pieces that is widely admired. The perspective from above is interesting for students of piano technique. You might notice how he uses his body--torso, mostly--to great effect when the music moves rapidly up or down the keyboard. This is not always a natural thing for us to do--some of use have to remind ourselves to move like that.

Basic Musical Symbols #2: The Moving G Clef

2010-05-28T12:11:00.006-04:00

Picking up on my last "symbolic" post, I said that the clefs can be moved around to different lines on the staff. Interestingly, maybe, is that all clefs in music point to a line, never to a space--a space is kind of like nothing, a black hole, so I guess it is hard to point to nothing. But anyway, the G clef has historically been used on either the first line or the second line of the staff (lines are numbered from the bottom). You almost never see music today with the G clef on the first line, but it was popular at one time, mainly for violin and flute music in France in the 17th and 18th centuries. Here are examples to show you what it looks like.

Treble Clef (G on the second line):

The French Violin Clef (G on the first line):

I hope that clear things up some; later we can look at the F clef and C clef, both of which can move to different lines, especially the C clef. There are some real musical uses for these movable clefs today.

Get Organized in Your Practicing!

2010-05-27T08:59:00.001-04:00

The Piano Practice Book is perfect for piano students of any age and any level. It contains 52 weeks of assignment sheets with space for students to record their daily practice time. Each weekly page has separate sections for all the different areas of musicianship, such as technique, repertoire, theory, sight reading, and memorization. The sections give the students guidance and remind teachers to keep a balanced approach toward their students' learning. The practice book also includes all the pentascales, scales, arpeggios, chord symbols, and chords you will ever need.

You can order online right now at Lulu.com--click the picture above, or go to:
http://stores.lulu.com/pruettmusic

Basic Musical Symbols #1

2010-05-23T21:29:00.000-04:00

Reading music can be pretty complicated; there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of different symbols, words, etc. that have very specific meanings. Let's start out easy--Do you know what this symbol is?

Ok, if you said a "treble clef", you are close--without a staff it is really just a "G clef." It's big round curve in the middle is meant to show you which line is a G above middle C. This clef was formerly moved to different lines of the staff, although modern music only places it on the second line, as shown here:

So, then we can go down by steps to E:

...and farther by steps to middle C:

and here are all the natural notes in treble clef (expect for really high and low ones outside the staff):

This is just the beginning--more later about clefs and other musical symbols...

The Naxos Classical Podcast

2010-05-17T22:37:00.001-04:00

The Naxos recording label has a huge catalog of classical music cds, including quite a bit of music by living and 20th century composers. You can get this podcast through iTunes and hear about their new releases as they "drop."Many of the recordings are orchestral and some choral, not necessarily piano.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/naxos-classical-music-spotlight/id75473245

Bach: Invention No. 1, played by Glenn Gould

2010-05-16T22:02:00.002-04:00

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote 15 two-part inventions (pieces with only two notes at any one time, one in each hand). These are common pieces for piano students to learn. This piece is full of imitation--the left hand part plays the same musical motive as the right hand, but starting a little later.

The Collaborative Piano Blog

2010-05-16T17:30:00.005-04:00

For the more advanced pianists out there, I have found this interesting blog:

It's called The Collaborative Piano Blog:

http://collaborativepiano.blogspot.com/

By the way, "collaborative piano" is a modern buzzword for pianists who play chamber music with other instruments or accompany singers, etc.

This blog seems to be run by someone in Canada and has alot of information on it.

Prokofiev Sonata

2010-05-13T13:05:00.002-04:00

And now for something a little different..

Get Free Sheet Music

2010-05-11T20:33:00.006-04:00

There are many sites where you can download sheet music--The Petrucci Music Library features mostly classical music by famous composers. Because of the age of the music, much of it is no longer covered by copyright law, so it is legal to share it for free. Check it out. If you know of some other good sites, I would like to hear about them--just leave a comment.

Meter-quick definition

2010-05-05T23:08:00.011-04:00

So, meter is the grouping of pulses (or beats) into groups, usually of a consistent number--groups of 4 are the most common; groups of 3 or 2 are also quite common. Almost all music we hear is organized this way. This is why music is written with time signature at the beginning, to tell you which kind of meter the music in "in". The most common time signature is 4/4, which means there are four beats in every measure and the quarter note is given one beat. The top number tells you how many beats are in the measure, and the bottom number represents the kind of note that gets one beat (4=quarter note, 2=half note, 8=eighth note).

Rachmaninov Concerto no.2, 1st movement-Grimaud

2010-05-04T09:03:00.017-04:00

This is an amazing performance of a magnificent piece by Sergei Rachmaninov. (It is very long, so that's why the video has four separate parts.) Hélène Grimaud was born Aix-en Provence in France and studied piano at the Paris Conservatory and also with Gyorgy Sandor and Leon Fleisher. Grimaud moved to the U.S. in 1990 and has performed all over the world with major orchestras.

How fast are you playing anyway? Talk about some common musical terms...

2010-05-03T14:02:00.017-04:00

Tempo, rhythm, meter, pulse--What's the difference?

You hear these words (one originally Italian and three English) being thrown around by musicians all the time like everybody knows what they mean--so, are you really sure about them?

Well, if you start tapping your foot, or hand or anything, at a regular speed, then you have just created a pulse--more casual folks might call it a "beat". I actually call it a beat too, much of the time. You can guess that the word pulse is related to the beating of your heart that you can feel at your wrist or neck if you put your fingers in the right place.

Now, the catch is that the speed of that beat is called the tempo. Tempo can be measured in the number of beats per minute, usually from about 50 to 160 in music. Classical music also uses many different words to describe tempo in general terms, like Allegro (fast), Adagio (slow), Moderato (moderately), and so on. I think I'll do another post later to show even more tempo words from Italian and other languages. I have gone long enough for now, so let's talk about rhythm and meter later.

Any ideas or questions? Please leave a comment.. cheers

Quick Tip

2010-04-30T10:38:00.004-04:00

A quick technique tip (and yes, I really prefer the "technique" spelling to "technic"--I don't know why, it just looks so much better to me)

In general, try to make your elbows as low to the floor as you can when you are playing, without slouching your back (arching forward). I found it really helps, especially when playing loud, fast, or just legato.

The Girl with the Flaxen Hair-Debussy

2010-04-21T14:18:00.005-04:00

This beautiful, quiet little piece by Debussy is played here by French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. I met him recently when he signed cds after his recital.

Anatomy and Piano Playing

2010-04-17T13:15:00.004-04:00

Here is an excellent book that I have read cover-to-cover. It is all about anatomy in relation to playing the piano. I recommend it for piano students at least sixteen years old. It can help you understand how your various muscles and joints are used in playing the piano.

What Every Pianist Needs to Know About the Body, by Thomas Mark

Lang Lang and His Father Play

2010-04-14T21:46:00.004-04:00

Here is very entertaining performance of traditional Chinese music by Lang Lang and his father at Carnegie hall-enjoy!

Chopin, Nocturne in F minor, Op. 55, no. 1, Jorge Bolet

2010-04-14T20:50:00.005-04:00

Here is one of the most beautiful of Chopin's Nocturnes, played by one of the most amazing pianists ever--Jorge Bolet. Bolet was born in Cuba, move to the U.S. at a young age and taught at Indiana University's School of Music.

Good keyboard

2010-04-02T15:20:00.008-04:00

I recently saw a rather nice keyboard for about $499 at a Best Buy store. It was a Casio PX-120; it has 88 weighted keys and 3 pedals, just like a real piano. I liked the sound and feel of the keys.

Casio has a whole line of keyboards in this category and the model numbers change often, of course.

Here is Casio's website:

Casio Keyboards

Rubinstein-Schubert Impromptu in Ab, Op.90, N. 4

2010-04-02T11:50:00.003-04:00

Here is another one of my favorite performances of a very well-known piece.

Half Steps on the Piano

2010-03-31T22:27:00.007-04:00

All the distances between notes on a piano can be measured in terms of one musical interval--the half step.

All the other intervals are measured by this one because it is the smallest interval on the piano keyboard.

What is an "interval" anyway? It is the distance between two different notes.

It is much easier to see intervals on the piano than on a lot of instruments. A half step is simply the interval from any note to the closest note to it, either to the left (down) or right (up). This point is VERY important: the "next" note could be a white key OR a black key. If you skip any kind of key then you are not going a half step.

You can find half steps even without knowing the letter names of the notes--just find them visually and play them. Make sure you always listen carefully to notice what the interval sounds like.

Watch this video to see how it's done:

Beginning to read music: note intervals

2010-03-29T10:25:00.019-04:00

The basic foundation of reading musical notes is to relate them to each other by interval (the distance between them), not just by note names. You could read notes without knowing any note names and without having a clef at the beginning.

For example:

Note: a "2nd" is the interval from a note to the next note or finger; a "3rd" skips one note or finger. A 2nd is often called a "step", and 3rds are sometimes called "skips", but a skip could be any interval larger than a 2nd (like 4th, 5th, 6th, etc.)

You could play it on the white keys, starting on any white key you like. (The white keys are always a 2nd away from the next one, but not all black keys are a 2nd apart.)

In the following video, I play it on the white keys, starting on middle C:

In the video below I play it again, starting on D, then E:

Here is how you play it on the group of three black keys, using fingers 2, 3, and 4:

Great Performance: Chopin, Ballade No. 1, Vladimir Horowitz

2010-03-26T09:27:00.003-04:00

Here is one of my favorite perfomances of a very difficult and extraordinary piece--play by the one of the greatest classical pianists of all time, Vladimir Horowitz.

Learning Piano: Getting Started, for Students and Parents

2010-03-18T22:42:00.002-04:00

Hello and Welcome to the Piano Coach Blog,

For kids in piano lessons, parents are the single most important factor in whether they succeed, even more important than the teacher sometimes--here is what you need to do to help your kids do well (If you are an adult trying learn piano, you can do these things for yourself!):

Get a good teacher--You probably knew this one already, right? Find someone with at least a bachelor of music degree and five years or more experience, unless you don’t mind being somebody’s “teaching experiment".

Provide a good instrument at home (preferably acoustic upright or grand piano). Some good brands are: Kawai, Yamaha, Baldwin, Steinway (the best, but expensive)

Buy a metronome (that little box that makes the clicking sound).

Place the piano in a room where students can practice in a quiet environment with no distractions, such as television, video games, others talking, pets running around, etc.

If you have an acoustic piano, have it tuned at least two times a year and have a piano technician make any needed repairs. If you buy an electronic keyboard, it should have 88 hammer-weighted keys, a damper (sustain) pedal and a music rack. Some good brands of keyboards: Yamaha, Kawai, Korg, Kurzweil.

Make a written practice schedule for your student--with a specific time to practice for 5-6 days of the week. You may deviate from it sometimes, but it is better to have one and try to keep it. Some good times to practice: before school, right after school.

Follow up--make sure they practice. We cannot expect kids, especially, under about age 12, to be responsible for this on their own.

If they have written/theory assignments, make sure they do them.

Have them write down their practice times in a practice record book. If they are not old enough, then you will have to do it or help them do it.

Praise them for their efforts. Do not try to criticize their playing; that is the teacher’s job.

Remember that it takes time to learn piano, and it takes time to learn each new piece.

Realize that students must play music that they are capable of playing, not something flashy and too difficult.

Do not buy them music books without the teacher’s guidance, especially in the first 5-6 years of piano lessons. The chances are great that any books you buy will not be appropriate for their level of skill. They will only be frustrated and distracted from the real learning they should be doing.

Direct them to practice the music assigned by the teacher and in the manner assigned. If they want to play other music, make sure it is in addition, not in place of, their assigned pieces.

Sit down and listen to your child play at home. Have the family sit down and listen at a time of your choosing, like a mini- concert. Make sure you notify your student in advance and let them be prepared to play.

Playing for relatives and friends: This one is really a common problem, and not many people know the right thing to do--Do not ask your child to play for friends and relatives unless you have warned them well in advance and you know they are ready, with specific pieces or songs that they know. It is hard to play “on the spot” and is really embarrassing if you don’t do too well.

Take them to concerts and play music for them at home or in the car.

Recitals: Recital music needs to be learned extra well (over-prepared), preferably by memory. Students usually need to know their recital pieces at least four weeks before the recital, so they can be confident. Bring your child 10-15 minutes early for the recital so they can relax and concentrate before it begins. By the way, make sure you stay for the entire recital, so you can hear the other students play.