Highlights & Most Popular Content of 2021

We are currently taking a break over the Festive Season and will resume further posts and updates in the New Year. We will be kicking off the year with new videos for our collection of resources for the Trinity syllabus, the next work in our Beethoven on Board series and more videos on technical exercises. Our first events for the year will take place on 15th January and you can join us online or in person for several sessions, including a performance workshop and three lecture-presentations.

In the meantime, we thought we’d leave you with some highlights and links to our most popular content and events from the last year:

Highlights

Although 2021 might not have gone according to plan for most of us, we are very grateful for the wonderful experiences and highlights that the year has given us, including:

• Piano Day – We ran a weekend of online events to celebrate Piano Day 2021 (29th March) which featured ten sessions presented by Graham Fitch, Ken Johansen, William Westney and Jory Vinikour. Click here to find out more or to purchase access to workshop recordings and resources.
• Teaching Healthy, Expressive Piano Technique – Penelope Roskell’s new online course based on her award-winning book, The Complete Pianist, was launched in November. The course features approx. 9 hrs of high-quality footage and numerous musical examples showing how to teach all aspects of technique to students of all levels. Click here to find out more or click here to view a sample video.
• Beethoven on Board – The first three instalments in our new Beethoven on Board series were published, featuring guided tours of Beethoven’s Op. 2 Sonatas by pianist and captain of The Piano Boat, Masayuki Tayama.
• Examination Resources – Our collection of resources for piano examinations grew significantly and now features 100+ videos on the ABRSM and Trinity syllabuses, in addition to several videos on other aspects of exam preparation. Click here for more information.
• How to Start Learning a New Piece – We created a free email course based on our series on learning new pieces, which over 500 participants completed! Click here to find out more or to sign-up.

Most popular content

The following are our most popular blog posts from the last year:

• Pedalling the Moonlight Sonata
• A Fantasy Analysis of Brahms Op. 118 No. 2
• The Principles of Scale Fingering
• Chopin, Left Hand Evenness, Runs and Trills
• The story behind Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu

And these were the most popular Online Academy series:

• 25 Easy and Progressive Etudes (Op. 100)
• A Guide to the ABRSM Syllabus (2021 – 2022)
• From the Ground Up
• A Guide to the Trinity College Piano Syllabus (2021 – 2023)
• The Practice Tools Lecture Series

Events

• Getting Your Pieces up to Speed (Graham Fitch)
• Baroque Workshop for Pianists (Graham Fitch)
• Making Good, Healthy Sound – Even at the Softest Dynamic Level (William Westney)
• Creating a Beautiful Piano Sound (Penelope Roskell)
• Sight-Reading – Keeping Going, No Matter What! (Ken Johansen)

Two of our most popular YouTube videos were:

• Chopin – Fantasie Impromptu – How to Manage the 4:3 Polyrhythm
• A recording of our Piano Practice Clinic with Graham Fitch (1st May 2020)

Thanks again to all of our readers and subscribers for your support over the last year. As always, we are hard at work on many exciting new projects which we look forward to sharing with you soon!

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