Getting the most from this great hobby!
Are you looking for some great resources to help you in your Piano Practice? I bought a series of Piano Practice eBooks by Graham Fitch a couple of years ago and have found them really useful. Practicing is a skill in itself I’ve said before that one thing that did occur to me when I...
"Piano Practice eBooks by Graham Fitch – expert practice advice"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
It’s about the speed A friend of mine told me that his piano teacher had recommended he try staccato practice when needing to build speed with something. I didn’t think about it too much at the time, but as I have a couple of projects at the moment that are requiring me to get up...
"Will Staccato Practice make me faster at the piano?"Continue reading
This post is to go with my YouTube Video comparing Piano Practice to baking a Layer Cake. I often want to tackle pieces that are way beyond my current technical level. This means that by definition I need to gain the technique which I will need in order to be able to manage the new...
"Piano Practice: A Layer Cake Approach"Continue reading
This post is to go with my YouTube video Today I’d like to share a neat trick I found to help when trying to master a couple of tricky Waltzes on the piano. That trick is to play it in 4/4 time. You might think I’ve gone mad – a Waltz by definition is in...
"Piano Practice Idea: Waltzing in 4/4 time?"Continue reading
This post is to go with my YouTube video https://youtu.be/0Nz8ibdQUOI. Ever struggled to decide how fast (or slow) to play something – especially when there’s no metronome marking on the score? This is the case with most classical music and, in fact, you’d have to think about how useful they might really be in reality...
"Piano Practice: Choosing the ideal tempo – no metronome required"Continue reading
When interpreting a piece of music, there are a number of ways to add interest to it and one of these is something I’ve noticed lots of professional pianists use – I call it Inner Voices. That is to say things that seem to be written as part of the harmony or the bass which...
"Add colour to your Piano playing with Inner Voices"Continue reading
When I first got my Clavinova, I had all good intentions of doing some serious practice. This then opens the question of where to start – scales, arpeggios, studies, pieces. Naturally, these days, if you want to know anything, then the way to go is Google. So I spent some time with Google (and YouTube)...
"How to practice?"Continue reading