Music Education
We have all heard it from our beginning (and sometimes more advanced) students that awful, wooden, unmusical playing. What can we do to fix it? If we tell them to crescendo to a certain note and then get softer, they stiffly climb up and down the dynamic ladder, and it
Music Education
A long time ago, a smart voice teacher once said, “the most important thing in music is rhythm.” That statement still rings true; the elements of music, like a melody that moves people, and lyrics that mean something, are held together with rhythm. It’s the same thing in speech;
Music Education
The advent of COVID-19 has forced teachers to move group piano instruction online. While the online medium is not ideal to teach performance skills, there is a silver lining. Online learning does present many benefits; chief among them is the great degree of flexibility it gives students and teachers. Students
Music Education
When we’re young and in dance class, we’re told to imitate trees – swaying in the wind, bowing down in a torrent of rain or just standing tall in the cold winter sun. Composers are equally inspired; they see trees as emblematic of spring and optimism or of winter
Music Education
Our New World Our current pandemic has us all teaching in new ways. I have long thought of online learning as an opportunity, a way to indulge in creativity. It represents, however, a significant challenge when it becomes forced upon us in times of global strife. We are all accustomed
Music Education
During a recent tour at the Bell Homestead in my hometown of Brantford, Ontario, Canada, I came across an interesting fact. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell set up a demonstration of his new invention, the telephone. He arranged for friends to play a melodeon and sing over a telephone line
Music Education
On London’s South Bank there is (or at least there was – it’s odd to think that I haven’t been in London since early March) a large banner of the cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason with the slogan ’You haven’t heard it until you’ve heard it live’. I
Music Education
In the UK, the biennial BBC Young Musician of the Year returned this year with a difference. The Category Finals, broadcast in May, were recorded before social distancing came into place but the Semi Final and Grand Final have been postponed until later in the year. Thinking back to previous
Music Education
All of us have spent the last several weeks adapting to the reality of a world where the COVID-19 pandemic has acutely changed nearly every part of our lives. For many piano teachers, it has been a time of sink-or-swim adaptation. Our teaching spaces are now more like broadcast studios
Music Education
When your child starts to learn an instrument it can be really exciting – for both of you. As a parent you will want to do all you can to support your child’s musical development. It’s well-known that practice between lessons is essential for a child to progress. But
Music Education
For many of our students, the works of Chopin present the first occasions where carefully planned and executed pedalling is required. The Inventions and Sonatinas they’ve studied before earning their first Chopin Waltz make few if any demands for the pedal. A brand-new sound world is offered to them
Music Education
Last summer I was in Quebec City, and one day as I happened along the Grand Allée Ouest I came upon an old church with the doors open and a Big Mama Thornton record wailing away at high volume. Intrigued, I went in for a closer look and discovered that