Music Education
Piano teachers know the challenges of developing proper pedal technique in the students they instruct. In this first of a series of articles we’ll focus on teaching students of any age the mechanics of depressing and lifting the sustaining pedal at the desired time. Proper pedal technique requires pianists
Music Education
If you’re a collector of opera scores, you likely have some system of organizing them for easy perusal. All those beautiful hardcover editions, charmingly tattered paperbacks, each with their unique set of dimensions and typography on the spine; there’s something comforting and cathartic about organizing them, and re-organizing
Music Education
“So how exactly do you become a conductor?” Ever since I first earned enough money from conducting to allow me to keep at least one nostril above water and to subsist on a diet not limited exclusively to the darker root vegetables, it is a question I have found myself
Music Education
Here are some of the sight reading techniques and tips that I have found to be most helpful for my students. IMPROVE YOUR SIGHT READING WITH PREPARATION AND PRACTICE SIGHT READ OFTEN The more music you read and play or sing, the better you will be at sight reading. Much
Music Education
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
Music Education
ll barbiere di Siviglia For months after the London premiere of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, police were overrun with noise complaints, mostly the result of young men strumming guitars outside ladies’ windows late at night. The cacophony went on longer than it needed to, the police’s arrests
Music Education
There’s a danger if every public decision is made by the majority for the majority. There’s a very famous phrase, “the tyranny of the majority,” that was introduced into political discourse by two near contemporaries in the nineteenth century. Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous French writer who wrote
Music Education
Leading a choir means you have many different tasks – often ranging from the actual musical side of it, to concert planning, admin tasks, building a social context and – of course – repertoire selection for your choir. This is a task that is often taken a bit too lightly and not given
Music Education
If you liked Connection Lost (The Tinder Opera), you’ll love the latest collaboration between composer/tenor Scott Joiner and writer/director Adam Taylor. Something Blue: The Bachelor Opera is another misguided love story, unpacking everything that’s totally bizarre about reality dating & marriage shows. Joiner sings the role
Music Education
Often, the point of interest in the music isn’t the melody but what’s going on underneath. I recently attended a performance of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, but without the dancers, i.e., a full ballet with the orchestra only. It gave an unrivalled opportunity to actually listen to
Music Education
My two last Bangalore visits were both in 2016 and 2017 within the “East-West Song and Dance Encounter”, hosted by The Bangalore School of Music. This year their Head of Vocal Department, Mr Jonas Olsson, had arranged the festival “Voices of Bangalore” in mid-June, a three-day festival of concerts, workshops,
Music Education
WHAT IS SIGHT READING? Sight reading is playing or singing music from previously unseen notation. The context could be playing a new piece, accompanying a soloist on piano, reading through an orchestral score or singing a new part in a choir. Efficient sight reading is very much like the process