Learn to play
beautifully

Question: Hi Albert,

Excellent performance for the Japanese earthquake program. I noticed that you kept your eyes glued to the keyboard. My music teacher (about 100 years ago) told me to not look at my hands or the keyboard. Was she wrong? (Instruction methods may have changed in the last 100 yea

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Question: If the piano was invented in 1700 by Bartolomeo Cristofori how can people be born with the ability to play the piano without a lesson, or a savant’s ability to play difficult numbers?

– Neil (Kingman, Arizona, USA)

Albert’s reply: Talent is primarily about potential rather than the i...

Beginning piano students are in a poor position to evaluate teachers. They have as yet no yardstick by which to measure a teacher’s skill; moreover, they often enter into their music studies with misconceptions and false expectations that can affect their choice of teacher and limit their musical ac...

Question: Hi Albert,

My 14-year-old grandson will be spending a couple of weeks with me this summer, and I would like to find out if he has any interest in learning to play the piano. I would like to put together a “quick musical interest discovery package,” that will hold his attention long enou

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Question: Hi Albert, I was wondering what you would suggest for a person that doesn’t really have any musical talent? My brother plays the guitar and now the piano. I am starting to learn how to play the piano.

– Alanna

Albert’s reply: One thing that is central to my teaching philosophy is tha...

Question: Is it hard to learn how to play the piano?

– Danielle (Austria)

Albert’s reply: I think playing the piano is like learning English: I’ve heard it said that English is the easiest language to learn to speak… poorly. The piano is the most immediately accessible musical instrument yet p...

Question: I have private piano lessons that I started mainly to accompany harmony lessons.

Although my main interest was harmony, and in the past I enrolled in a conservatory and showed no particular interest in piano lessons, things have changed because my female teacher seems very strict when e

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Question: Hey fellow pianists,

I need some advice for the following problem. Due to circumstances (moving, making ends meet), I haven’t practiced or gigged in a long time (about half a year). I am a professional player, I play jazz, funk, Brazilian and Cuban music.

Now that the waters have calme

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Question: Dear Albert,

As you may remember from our previous correspondence, I am 59, an absolute beginner at piano, and I will soon be on the lookout for a piano teacher.

In your article entitled ‘Piano Lessons Online’ you said: “Still, piano teachers are not all alike. Unfortunately there do e

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I was deeply saddened by the death of Earl Wild on January 23, 2010. Often described as the “last Romantic,” Wild enjoyed a career that spanned fully eight decades before his death at age 94.

Wild was both the first pianist to perform on television (1939) and the first to stream a performance live ...

Question: Dear Mr. Frantz,

How can one get accepted into a university and study piano after starting very “late”?

I just fell in love with music and it’s absolutely incredible. I feel this I have discovered what I want to do in life and it’s remarkable. The only thing is, I started “late” as som

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Question: Read your email today. I am a trained musician and songwriter (guitar, voice, music major at college level) working as a physician/surgeon. I have forever wanted a legitimate comprehensive piano course that I can do on my own. There are a few out there that are more like “piano candy,” g

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