Mid-year Wrap-up and What Lies Ahead…
We’re now just over half way through 2018 and as always, it’s been a very eventful year for both the Practising the Piano blog and Online Academy. With the summer…
The 20-Minute Practice Session
Graham Fitch outlines an effective 20 minute practice session to help you get excellent results even if you have limited time to practise!
Flexibility in Pulse
I heard Chopin’s beautiful Waltz in A minor in a class the other day. The basic feeling, tempo, balance between the hands and the pedalling were extremely good, and there…
Practising a Performance
In a recent stint of adjudication work, I was struck by those who were able to steer themselves confidently through a performance on an unfamiliar piano in front of an…
Making the Well-Known Our Own
This week’s guest blog post features an article on how to approach interpretation of well-known works by Ken Johansen, author of the From the Ground Up series. In this post, Ken shares his thoughts…
Playing Double Notes at the Advanced Level
When I was a student, I was struck by the two opposing camps that seemed to exist among my peers. There were those whose teachers expected them to be practising…
Feeling Comfortable in All Keys
Do you feel comfortable playing in all keys? Are you able to transpose technical exercises without notation? The ability to play by ear in every key is an important musicianly…
Virtuosic Pedalling
Are you squeamish about using the soft pedal? Some players never venture there, because at some point their teacher has told them they need to be able to control soft…
On Demonstration
There are those teachers who demonstrate for their students all the time in piano lessons, and those others who don't go near the instrument. I have studied with both types.…
6 Helpful Tips for Using Our Products & Services
In order to continually improve our products and services, we regularly review correspondence and support queries from our readership. Therefore we thought it might be helpful to compile a listing of…