Learn like a Concert Pianist

This is a lecture by the eminent pianist Carlo Grante, which he gave as part of a lecture series "Music Explains Itself" for the Accademia Merano in Italy. Carlo is one of my musical mentors, and he kindly asked if he could use a clip from my TEDxSalzburg talk on this subject, "What Makes Music...

An acoustic phenomenon that helps make a piano sound beautiful is sympathetic resonance. If we play a note on the piano, other, compatible notes vibrate in sympathy as long as there are no dampers to, well, put a damper on them. This video lesson demonstrates this phenomenon and two ways you can...

What exactly is "perfect pitch"? This lesson explains what it is, the difference between perfect pitch and relative pitch, and what you should pursue if you weren't blessed—or cursed!—with it.

You may have heard pianists talk about “voicing.” If you’ve been confused it’s certainly understandable, since the term actually has several entirely different meanings in piano playing. This lesson will clarify the different meanings of "voicing” as it relates to...

Everyone should protect their hearing, especially musicians. In this video, pianist Albert Frantz shares tips designed especially for musicians, including hearing protection while traveling and optimizing the acoustics of your practice room.

For the past several years I’ve used a standard-sized iPad. I’ve had several models over the years, all with a 9.7" (diagonal) screen. For me it’s been a general-purpose device, something easy to toss in a briefcase and use for reading and writing email, drafting blog posts, as...

Why do we play music? Music stirs the emotions. It’s beautiful. We love music. We have favorite pieces of music we never tire of. These are all wonderful reasons to play music.

Constructive reasons

Love for a musical instrument, its sound, its expressive possibilities is a similarly...

What do Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt and Bernstein have in common? All were not only composers, they were also pianists and conductors. In our time many famous conductors started their careers as pianists, including André Previn, Daniel Barenboim and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Why should pianists...

The simplest way to think of a seventh chord is three thirds stacked on top of each other.

The dominant seventh is the most important of the seventh chords and is fundamental to Western harmony. A useful shortcut is to think of a dominant seventh chord as a major triad with a minor third on top....

Do you love music? Are you learning to play a musical instrument?

There are more benefits to learning a musical instrument than you might have imagined. My colleague Diego Cardini of The Musician Lab prepared a special infographic on the benefits of learning music which you can download here on...

The 23-piece course for beginning pianists (18 by Bartók, 5 actually by his contemporary Sándor Reschofsky), First Term at the Piano, is now available to key-notes members. These pieces were written in 1913 as an introductory course suitable for beginners.

All pieces were newly...

A properly crafted piano can be a magnificent instrument that will last for ages and produce the most beautiful sounds. Buying a used piano can therefore be an excellent decision economically as well as musically.

Be that as it may, pianos are quite complex and very delicate instruments and not...