Getting the most from this great hobby!
Piano playing essentials I’m a firm believer in using the technology (such as iPads) available to us all now to enhance our enjoyment of our great piano playing hobby. It’s possible to use an iPad or other tablet to replace many of the things any pianist needs – things like Sheet Music, a Metronome, a...
"Every pianist deserves an iPad"Continue reading
There are so many flawless versions … You might think there is no benefit to the wider world in us recording ourselves playing and then publishing on YouTube or Facebook. Clearly, we amateurs aren’t likely to produce a rendition as faultless as our favourite pianists, however, that doesn’t mean that we aren’t some of the...
"Why record your own piano playing and post on Facebook?"Continue reading
First thoughts Are you like myself and find that if you try to play things quickly, you get a lot of tension in your hands, arms, shoulders and even back sometimes? If so, read on and let me know whether or not you think I might be on to a possible significant contributor. You can...
"A possible relationship between tension and speed at the piano"Continue reading
Looking for something to help you get back into your piano playing …I’d like to tell you about Play it again Piano. These are a couple of books I discovered aimed specifically at people coming back to piano after a break. I also reviewed them on my YouTube channel if you prefer to watch rather...
"Review: Play it again Piano by Melanie Spanswick"Continue reading
Goodbye to bags and bags of paper On discovering forScore for piano sheet music, it makes me smile as I remember all those years ago. As a student, I often played background music at dinner functions. I used to carry around two massive plastic bags of books, photocopies and all sorts of moth-eared bits of...
"forScore: Piano Sheet Music with you everywhere"Continue reading
The inspiration I’m an avid Terry Pratchett fan and recently read the book ‘Truckers’ from the Bromilad Triology. Cutting a long story short, a group of Gnomes needed to ‘appropriate’ a full sized Heavy Goods Vehicle (hence the title Truckers) and drive it away from a Department Store Depot. This clearly would be Impossible –...
"How to practicing something impossible (Cadenza 2 – Liebestraum)"Continue reading
To plan or not to plan …? Do you plan out your practice or just go with the flow? We all have limited time to practice and, if there is one thing I have learned with age, it’s that when things are well planned up front, it generally saves lots of time and effort down...
"Should we plan our Piano Practice?"Continue reading
This post is to go with my YouTube video with piano practice ideas for Chopin’s C Sharp Minor Waltz (Op 64 No. 2). I found it quite tricky to master and as I tried to overcome the problem areas, I came up with a few strategies that I’d like to share with you. Basic structure...
"Ideas for Practicing Chopin’s C Sharp Minor Waltz"Continue reading
One element of creating Tommy’s Piano Corner is – even so late in life – to try to migrate my remaining working life into something more musical. Clearly, I’ve left it a little late to aim to be a concert pianist (and, in any event, I was never at a level to aspire to be...
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This blog post is to go with my YouTube Video on how we can get around odd mistakes when we’re trying to record ourselves playing. I often find that I can never seem to get a piece right end to end – even when I’ve managed it many times before during practice. From Facebook groups...
"Recording Piano: Can you edit out mistakes?"Continue reading