October marks a special milestone for us as the Online Academy turns nine! Thanks to your support, it has grown from humble beginnings as a small collection of materials on practising into a comprehensive platform with over 1,000 videos, articles and other resources.
In this post, we celebrate our journey by sharing an overview of what the site now offers along with some highlights from our recent content updates and online events programme.
Content Highlights
The following are some of the major additions to our library over the course of this year:
- The 2025 & 2026 ABRSM Syllabus – We’ve published video lessons for a selection of over forty works across all grades for the latest syllabus. These lessons are not only invaluable resources for teachers and exam candidates, but also offer an interesting variety of repertoire ideas (with some fantastic new discoveries!) even if you’re not planning on taking an exam.
- The Practice Tools Reloaded! – Our most popular content of all time, Graham Fitch’s Practice Tools series, got a major refresh with new high quality videos and a supplementary hands-on workshops. Over thirty of these new videos have been published, featuring updated content, new repertoire examples and additional features. Click here to view the series index.
- Making Friends With the Notes – William Westney presents a common-sense practising approach for achieving an underlying feeling of physical comfort and security at the piano. This powerful, proven strategy is easy to implement and frees us to play ANY piece of music freely, expressively and spontaneously.
Other updates:
- Learning Pieces – Our repertoire library now contains resources for over 300 works in the piano repertoire (an index of resources listed by composer, level and grade is available here). In addition to the video lessons for repertoire from the ABRSM syllabus, we’ve added new instalments to Step into ‘The 48 which now includes lesson videos for 28 preludes and fugues from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. A new From the Ground Up edition featuring Brahms’s Intermezzo in B-flat Minor (Op. 117 No. 2) has been published along with the remaining videos for William Westney’s series on using Bartok’s Mikrokosmos.
- Improve Your Technique – From advice on using studies and exercises to improve specific areas through to general tips for playing that feels and sounds good, our technique library contains a vast array of resources to help you develop the piano technique required to realise your artistic aspirations at the piano.
- Develop Musical Skills – Visit our skills section to take courses on sight reading, improvisation and theory!
Online Events
Our online workshops programme has featured almost two-hundred events and has proven to be very popular! These events provide you with the opportunity to learn from some of the best teachers and interact with an enthusiastic, supportive community of pianists from across the globe in the comfort of your own home.
This year so far we’ve launched new interactive workshops as a complement to Graham Fitch’s Practice Tools videos, concluded Adina Mornell’s Secrets of Experts series and presented sessions on keyboard harmony, technique and sight reading.
Coming up over the remainder of the year is a new blended course, Learn a New Piece With Graham Fitch featuring a combination of video lessons, interactive workshops and online studio sessions giving you step by step guidance on learning a new piece. Part 3 of Lona Kozik’s Harmony History and Style will finishing up with an analysis of a beloved work by Brahms, followed by the last session in Ken Johansen’s two-part series on deciphering a new piece.
Online Academy subscribers get 40% off all upcoming workshops and recordings and resources from past events. To purchase a discounted ticket, sign-in to your account and visit the events section on our store. Your discount will automatically be reflected upon checkout.
Practice Clinics
Another subscriber benefit is the opportunity to submit your practising-related questions to our “Practice Clinic” and have these answered by Graham Fitch. The videos with Graham’s responses are posted on our blog and YouTube channel and do not require a subscription to view. You can find out more about our practice clinics here and our archive of past clinics contains a treasure trove of valuable insights, tips and solutions for a wide range of works.
A Big Thank You!
We’d like to conclude by once again saying a big thank to all our customers and subscribers. Your incredible support over the years has been instrumental in enabling us to make our offering what it is today. We look forward to continuing to support you on your piano journey and to helping you enjoy your playing to the fullest!
All the very best,
The Practising the Piano Team
P.S. If you haven’t already, please be sure to sign-up to our mailing list to be notified of new projects and upcoming events!
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