This week’s post is by Online Academy co-founder, Ryan Morison. Ryan is a devoted and dedicated amateur pianist, and I’m delighted to welcome him as guest author to share his thoughts on ways to increase our active repertoire effectively and efficiently. * * * It is the season for virtuous resolutions and a good time to ponder pianistic plans and goals for the year ahead. Many of us (myself included!) will be tempted to embark upon stretch goals, tackling increasingly difficult pieces on our repertoire “bucket list”. Although setting challenges can be inspiring, being overly ambitious has its drawbacks. It often results in one spending ages on a single piece only to fall short of doing it justice finally when (or if!?) performing it. To avoid these pitfalls, I have opted for a different theme for 2021. Instead of tearing my hair out at a few fiendishly difficult works likely to be beyond my ability and available practice time, my objective is rather to broaden my active repertoire. The focus will be more on quantity and quality than difficulty, having a wider range of pieces that I can play at a reasonable level on the spot or brush up at short notice without too much effort. The benefits of increasing your active repertoire Broadening your repertoire can significantly increase the enjoyment you derive from your playing. It exposes you to a greater variety of music and opens up more opportunities to share your playing with others. In addition to enhanced enjoyment, playing more pieces also leads to significant improvements in your playing, teaching you new things and improving your ability to learn even more works faster. A realistic approach Rachmaninoff once said, “Music is enough for a lifetime, but […]
Popular Posts and Articles
Graham is currently away and will be resuming his regular blog posts in September. In the meantime, if you’re looking for some holiday reading, we’ve compiled a list of the most popular blog posts and Online Academy series from the first half of this year. We’re also offering 40% off all eBooks in our store until 31/07 (please see further details below). Most popular blog posts But it Takes Me Ages to Learn a New Piece! Enjoying Ultra-Slow Practice On Practice versus Playing Through Developing Sight Reading Skills On Silence and Reflection in Practice Most popular Online Academy series The Basics of Playing Scales and ABRSM Grade 1 Scales & Broken Chords Burgmuller: 25 Easy and Progressive Etudes, Op. 100 CPE Bach – Solfeggietto in C Minor Technical Exercises and Regimes Read Ahead – Level 3
New Sight-reading Resources Added To The Online Academy
We’re delighted to announce that we’ve partnered with Anacrusis to bring their innovative sight-reading curriculum, Read Ahead, to the Online Academy. This partnership will see the addition of a comprehensive set of sample materials for sight reading added to the Online Academy. The materials can be used as stand-alone sight reading exercises or with optional apps that add further interactive functionality. What is ReadAhead? Read Ahead is an exciting new program that helps piano students to improve their sight-reading ability. This unique curriculum is based on an extensive collection of carefully ordered compositions with related exercises and quizzes that help students develop the mental and tactile skills necessary for fluent sight-reading. How does it work? The syllabus is divided up into levels based on difficulty. Each level is comprised of a number of articles which in turn each constitute one day or a practice session’s worth of material. Articles contain several exercises and sample sight reading pieces. The pieces can be used “as-is” on screen or downloaded for printing purposes. The experience can also be enriched by using accompanying apps for iPhone or iPad. Interactive exercises on each day are identified in both the article and the app with the following icons: Touch exercises introduce patterns or technical issues that will be encountered in that day’s practice. This icon indicates a Memory exercise. Touch it on the corresponding day page in the app to practice a passage while training your short-term memory and decoding skills. Read Ahead exercises are complete pieces of music for sight-reading. Instructions, quizzes and tips on how to read them more effectively can be found in the app along with a built-in metronome preset to the correct tempo for each piece. In the iPad app, the music disappears in […]
Most Popular Posts and Articles
We hope all of our readers have had an enjoyable Festive Season and are being treated well by 2017 so far! We’re hard at work preparing new content and resources which will be announced next week. Until then, here’s a summary of popular posts and Online Academy articles from 2016: Blog posts: “But it Takes Me Ages to Learn a New Piece!” The Speed of No Mistakes Securing a Fast Passage Enjoying Ultra-Slow Practice No Stopping! Online Academy articles and resources: Walkthrough of Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in C Minor (1) Ergonomic Fingering for Scales and Arpeggios (1) The Art of Pedalling – The Sustaining Pedal (1 & 2) A Crash Course in Music Theory – Welcome! Technical Exercises and Regimes – Finger Exercises (3) Technical Exercises and Regimes – Introduction (1) Chopin Mazurkas – Walkthrough – Mazurka in A Minor, Op. 17, No. 4 Aria in F – Walkthrough Slow Practice – How and When to Use Slow Practice A Crash Course in Music Theory – Back to the 18th and the 17th centuries In addition to the above, the most popular videos on the Online Academy were the Sustaining Pedal and Lucinda Mackworth-Young’s Beginning to Improvise. A number of the Online Academy articles listed above are available without registration and you can also register for free to view an additional five articles (no credit card required). Click here to find out more about the Online Academy or click here to visit the site, view free content and to subscribe.
eBook Series – Revised Editions Launched!
The Practising the Piano eBook series was originally launched in 2012 and has been read by thousands of pianists all over the world. We’ve been working on publishing revised editions in conjunction with the development of the Online Academy and are pleased to announce that the complete series is now available via our catalogue. The revised editions feature a number of enhancements and updates, including: New supplementary content Numerous content updates and refinements A printable PDF download option and additional download options for PC and Mac Various formatting improvements Enhanced video streaming via Vimeo Improved download speeds from upgraded hosting infrastructure Full series catalogue Part 1 – The Practice Tools Practising the Piano Part 1 is a foundation course on practice methodology or what could be called techniques of learning. It shows you how to organise your practice sessions for maximum effect, enabling you to learn new pieces quickly and efficiently. It also provides a number of specific practise tools which will improve your confidence and the overall quality of your playing. Click here for more on Part 1 >> Part 2 – Mastering Piano Technique Practising the Piano Part 2 provides a comprehensive treatise on the subject of piano technique from an overview of different schools and traditions through to an extensive listing of technical exercises. Video demonstrations and precise written instructions with exercises accompanied by manuscript show exactly how to overcome technical difficulties with skill and panache while avoiding common pitfalls that lead to tension and injury. Click here for more on Part 2 >> Part 3 – Scales and Arpeggios Practising the Piano Part 3 is a comprehensive guide to scales and arpeggios. It features numerous video demonstrations, exercises, practice suggestions, resources and interactive tools to make […]
Summer Holiday Reading
Graham is currently away and will be back in the beginning of September. In the meantime, if you’re looking for some summer reading, here’s a listing of the most popular posts on Practising the Piano this year so far: Speed of no mistakes But it takes me ages to learn a new piece Securing a fast passage The three little pigs Enjoying ultra-slow practice
An Interview with Penelope Roskell: Part 2
I am very happy to be working with a number of guest experts who will be contributing to the Online Academy when it launches in September. I now continue my conversation with Penelope Roskell, acclaimed pianist and teacher, professor of piano at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London and expert on healthy piano playing and injury prevention and cure. Penelope will be contributing a number of resources to the Online Academy – covering topics such as warming up, yoga, posture, fingering, healthy playing and injury prevention. Here is the second part of our interview (part 1 is available here). You have created a DVD on Yoga for Musicians – could you say a bit about this and why you consider yoga is important? When I first started studying yoga in a class, the general health benefits were obvious, but I struggled to see how it could be related to piano playing. I also struggled with many of the more extreme postures as they often required more flexibility than I as a Westerner had. I later spent some time with an excellent private teacher exploring how the principles of yoga could be applied to piano playing and then distilled some of these thoughts into my DVD. I have now nearly finished writing a book more specifically about all aspects of piano playing, based on holistic principles. You have also written a book on piano fingering: how does that relate to your interest in holistic playing? I have always been fascinated by fingering, and the positive effect that good fingerings can have on our interpretation of a piece. Many years ago, I realised that a lot of the fingerings that we have all been traditionally taught are not ergonomic […]
On Pedalling, Slow Practice and Practical Theory
I’ve recently run a survey to find out what repertoire you would like to see me feature in blog articles, annotated study editions and in the Online Academy which I’m currently working on. This survey was a follow-on from an open-ended survey I ran in January which covered both repertoire and topics. My team has analysed the responses and we would like to take the opportunity now to let you know what the most popular topics were. The first question asked what specific areas of technique you would like me to address, and the most popular requests were: Pedalling Ornaments Learning complex, irregular rhythms The next question asked which specific areas of practising you would like to see covered in more detail, and the most popular responses were: Slow practice Quarantining Memorisation I also asked about other topics not currently covered on our blog or within our eBook series, and the following have come up: Practical theory and harmony Injury prevention and healthy playing Improvisation and playing by ear Many thanks to everyone who responded, your feedback is very much appreciated and I will be incorporating it into the content for the Online Academy. I have already taken a number of your suggestions on board, and I am busy working on materials that feature them. Here are some of things I am working on right now: Various articles on The Practice Tools, with video demonstrations and cross references to the repertoire you have chosen. Have you ever wondered how you are going to fill in the gaps in your understanding of theory and harmony? You know you need to know more, and you would be willing to take a course but you just can’t seem to find the right one. I am addressing this […]
Special Offer – eBooks on Kindle and iBooks Stores
We’re offering over 60% off the first volume of each part within the series on the Apple iBookstore and Amazon Kindle until 14/02. Click here to visit our catalogue and then on “Other retailers” for a link to the relevant publication at the store of your choice. Alternatively, the following links will take you to directly to the product pages for each of the publications on offer: Part 1 Volume 1 Amazon Kindle Apple iBookstore Part 2 Volume 1 Amazon Kindle Apple iBookstore Part 3 Amazon Kindle Apple iBookstore Part 4 Volume 1 Amazon Kindle Apple iBookstore Please note that a device with audio and video playback capabilities is required to access multimedia content for Amazon Kindle purchases. All purchases made directly from our website include both Apple iBooks and Amazon Kindle formats. For further information on the various publication formats and purchase options, please click here.
Practising the Piano Part 1 eBooks available on Amazon
I am pleased to announce that all three volumes of Part 1 of my Practising the Piano eBook series are now available on the Amazon Kindle store via the following links: Volume I Volume II Volume III Please note that while the full content of each publication is included within the Kindle versions, due to the limitations of the platform, the multimedia content is not accessible offline. Furthermore, while the text content and images are accessible on eInk devices (e.g. Kindle eReaders), a device with media playback capabilities (e.g. Smartphone, Tablet or Computer) is required for video and audio. As with the iBooks versions of the publications, existing customers who have purchased directly from my publisher will also get access to the Amazon Kindle editions of the publications they own via their library. However, those of you who have existing Amazon accounts now have the option to purchase via Amazon should you prefer to do so.