Music Education
TACTICS FOR THE SIGHT READER I have already discussed in Part 1 how to build a slow but sure improvement in sight reading skills over time. That article also advised on the main problems and reasons for poor sight reading. To recap: * Sight reading every day is vital * A weekly
Music Education
Pedalling is essential to creating the magical sounds called for in the piano music of Debussy. The moods, atmospheres, and far-off lands he conjured cannot be evoked without skilful use of both the sustaining and the una corda pedals. In my experience students respond very positively to this music once
Music Education
Did you know that the word “patter” comes from the Catholic “Pater Noster,” which was apparently recited as fast as possible by the congregation? Equal in hilarity to the image of a monotone group of Catholics speeding through holy texts out of sheer rote/boredom are all the “patter songs”
Music Education
GROWING THE SKILL So often relegated to the “too difficult” category, feared and loathed as part of the exam syllabus, wistfully envied in the “naturally talented” … sight reading seldom excites optimism or enthusiasm. Yet it would make no sense to ignore it in building the full set of Useful Pianist
Music Education
Stringed instruments and their printed scores had been in existence for centuries before the piano was invented. When music started being written expressly for the piano many of the notational conventions of string music were carried over. Slurs and staccatos are found in the early works for piano by J.
Music Education
Students as well as teachers can be confused by the variety of ways Beethoven indicated when he wanted one or more of the pedals used. This is because he had a wider variety of pedals available to him and there wasn’t yet a standard notation used by all composers.
Music Education
The two works slated for performance by the SOI on 25th February could not be more different. But both are compelling essays that convey a message directly from the composer that is far broader than any single performance and as powerfully universal as it is timely. Zane Dalal traces the
Music Education
Flowers show us the invisible world – they pop up to show us Spring, they dance in the wind, they bring happiness, and can mark occasions of solemnity. Composers, accordingly, use music to show us flowers – dancing, or something less concrete. We have to start, of course, with the most famous
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
