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Ear Training ear training

How to set up your musical mind for success

Whenever we set out to learn something, our brain automatically tries to take what it assumes to be the easiest path. We naturally navigate towards what we take to be the easiest way to accomplish any given task. But what may seem to be the easiest path...

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Essential Ear Training ear training

If you’re new to ear training, there is one skill that would be a good idea to develop first. Ideally, this skill would be developed from the very beginning of your music study since it makes other ear training possible and facilitates working with a music teacher. It even makes for a...

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Piano Exercises piano technique

Piano exercises are something of a necessary evil in piano playing. Ideally, we wouldn’t need them; instead our fingers (and minds!) would get all the exercise they need from the pieces we play. In reality, however, practically the only players who are able to forego exercises altogether...

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Effective Piano Practice—a Short Summary piano practice

Practicing piano well is a far cry from just playing through our pieces. To learn effectively, our practice really needs to be systematic. Here are a few rules for effective piano practice.

Focus

Learning music requires our full attention. Practice while your concentration is at its peak. A...

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iPad for Sheet Music (2023) reading music

For several years I’ve been using iPads for sheet music. Like countless musicians, they’ve become an indispensable part of my musical life. iPads are now standard onstage. When I go to concerts, now I see an iPad on a piano’s music stand much more often than paper sheet music.

...

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Drummers' Rhythm Exercises for Pianists piano practice

My music teacher colleague Diego Cardini was kind enough to write this post for Key-Notes readers. Rhythm is something most piano learners struggle with, and percussionists are experts at rhythm, so who better to ask for exercises to help piano students develop their rhythmic skills?

Intro

...

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Recording a Concert Grand piano

Capturing the Viennese sound with Bösendorfer and Austrian Audio

How do you capture the grandeur of a concert grand? Imagine the technological wizardry it takes to compress the whispers and roars of nine or more feet of handmade master craftsmanship into just two tiny ear buds. This...

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Play Any Chord... in a Heartbeat! theory

Welcome to a truly innovative tool that will greatly accelerate your learning of any piece. After months of development, I'm excited to announce a new kind of app that will enable you to learn the language of music at a speed that had never before been possible.

It's built directly into the ...

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Play with a Virtual Accompanist piano practice

How do you prepare for rehearsals with fellow musicians? When playing chamber music or concertos, it’s essential to know everyone else’s part well enough to come in on cue and play together. Pianists play from a full score (or at least a piano reduction in the case of concertos),...

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"Les contrastes Étude" by Nimrod Borenstein

It's an extraordinary honor for an artist to have a work written for them by a major composer, and I'm thrilled to present "Les contrastes Étude," Op. 93, No. 1 by Nimrod Borenstein.

The piece was directly inspired by the challenging topic I presented at the World Congress for Family Law...

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Bending Time: Understanding and Teaching Rubato

Today I'd like to share a special presentation with you. This was given by my former piano professor and mentor Dr. Steven Smith for the 2021 Pennsylvania Music Teachers Association conference.

The topic is "Bending Time: Understanding and Teaching Rubato."

The term rubato...

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What Is Musical Interpretation? theory

Musical interpretation is, in a word, storytelling. In a story, there are characters—in music, themes. In a story there is development—in music, variations on a theme, ornamentation, harmonic tension. In a story, there are scenes; in music, sections. In a classical story, the hero...

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