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Improvisation and classical piano are made for one another; since Beethoven, however, their relationship has been long distance at best. Many classical pianists are aware of the great feats of extemporaneous performance of the past masters, but few have tried their hands at the practice. Even fewer have let these spontaneous performances of old emb...
2020 Piano Magazine Collegiate Writing Contest Runner-Up As music teachers, we are constantly searching for innovative methods to help our students grow into comprehensive musicians and well-rounded individuals. We strive to give them helpful tools they can utilize throughout life. Musical improvisation is one of those tools. Interestingly, i...
Reading music is an amazing skill. If you're like me, you love being able to read a new piece of music, and love teaching music this way, but wish to expand your own skills and develop an approach to teaching improvisation. It may feel like a mystery, but with a little daily practice and dedication, this skill can be developed. As an org...
This student just started lessons in March. We only had a few lessons before moving to online lessons. In this clip, I'm preparing him for the first piece in the method book that involves dotted half notes and triple meter. The rhythm patterns that we do in the video are in the piece, but he hasn't seen the piece yet. I'm reviewing steady bea...
Piano playing requires the involvement and simultaneous coordination of many different parts of the brain and the mind.1 The aural center forms an image of the way a piece should sound—a goal for performance. Motor processing directs the arm, hand, and fingers in controlling the piano keys. Visual and reading processes are required for decoding mus...
Children are excited by sound, they want to make sound, and they want to explore possibilities and express themselves at the keyboard. Children are brilliant— until someone tells them they aren't. When faced with too many rules and layers of abstract concepts at the beginning stages of study they are often just overwhelmed by information they don't...
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Combining scales and chords Here are three exercises that benefit all musicians regardless of their preferred style or approach to making music: 1. Scales 2. Chord drills 3. Scales and chords together The last two columns offered interesting ways to practice the first two. Now, here's a way to combine scales and chords into one ...
(SE3-4) Fantasia del Tango: 6 Original Piano Solos and 1 Duet, by Eugénie Rocherolle. Fantasia del Tango augments The Eugénie Rocherolle Series with a volume of tangos by a perennial favorite pedagogical composer. Dedicated to Kathleen Theisen, the seven pieces in this collection (six solos and one duet) pres...
The following account may be fiction. It may be true. It may be both. I had been a piano teacher and performer for nearly a decade. At the age of twenty-eight, I was plagued by a persistent "hollow" feeling, especially after giving yet another mediocre lesson or anxiety-driven performance. Performing was always an ordeal, and a perpetual affront to...
Method reviews return! In 2009, Clavier Companion began a series of reviews exploring all of the major piano methods published at that time. Two years later, the series concluded and we had covered twelve major methods! (You can access these articles collected into a special digital issue on the claviercompanion.com website.) Since then there have ...
The skill of improvisation is often looked upon as the realm of jazz musicians. Many classical musicians would not dream of "riffing" with Beethoven or Mozart melodies. However, incorporating elements of improvisation and composition in classical pieces can provide students with an active, creative approach for learning repertoire. This "messi...
The purpose of this exercise is to plant a seed of playing by ear in fertile minds, a seed that could germinate and result in life-long learning. A command of basic chords is important, but expanding your vocabulary of chords can become a source of pleasure for you and for your listeners. Hearing the different chords that go with each pitch of the ...
Robert Levin is a master keyboard artist who performs on the harpsichord, fortepiano, and modern concert grand. He is also a conductor, theorist, musicologist, author, and professor, and his career has taken him all over the world. He is especially known for improvising embellishments and cadenzas in Classical repertoire, and he has recorded for pr...
In the last two columns, we looked at the steps involved in composing and varying a basic Blues melody. The next step is to stretch the form even further by adding improvisation. Blues scales You know how it feels good to complain a little now and then? It gets your concerns off your chest and clears the air. Sometimes, yesterday's problems can eve...
There is a long tradition of teaching quality classical piano in Canada. There are also a myriad of support systems to teach theory and written scores in a variety of contemporary styles. Then there's jazz. Some teachers like it and some don't. Others don't feel knowledgeable enough to include it in their studios. For many teachers it is a big unkn...
Having addressed in the last column how to help students compose simple Blues tunes, let's now consider how to help them add on to their creations. 1. Embellish the melodyWhether notated or improvised, ask your students to play their compositions a couple of times to be sure the melody is "set." If a melody is too elaborate, encourage paring it dow...
Blues music evolved from its eighteenth-century roots in the work songs and lamentations of enslaved African-Americans to become one of the most identifiable streams in American music. If you grew up in the United States when I did, you heard it on the radio (Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B King, Eric Clapton, Ray Charles), in movies (The Blues Brothers), and...
Major and minor. Together these form a basic polarity in Western music. Major scales and chords are usually characterized as "happy," while minor ones are saddled with the label "sad." After composing, improvising, arranging, and teaching for more than forty years with these musical materials, I have come to a different way of understanding them. ...