The Natural Piano Blog

Among the works of the happy summer of 1825 is the luminous Sonata in D major Op. 53 D 850, written whilst the composer was staying in the spa town of Bad Gastein. 

Why do people tend to squeeze the keys? 

The piano key is not a button, it is a lever. 

When it is lowered on one side it rises on the other, it is not a button that must be pressed to the bottom to be activated. 

The reason why people tend to press is the fact that sound travels very slowly, at 340 meters per second. 

When a key is lowered, the hammer hits …

It is not necessary to know or to hypothesize the real motivations that pushed an author to compose a certain passage, but to enter the spirit of the work.

The attack of Chopin's Second Piano and Orchestra Concerto begins with a seventh chord on the second grade of minor, a rare chord that Chopin also uses elsewhere, for example in the attack and in the final cadence of the first Scherzo. 

It …

Bach and his contemporaries considered themselves to be artisans who crafted music for specific occasions and purposes. Bach improvised, arranged, and composed music for church services, events (weddings, funerals, dances, etc.), organ testing, and lessons. His pedagogy reflected these aims. According to his son, he taught students figured bass (the lead sheet of the day) near the beginning, and his students learned to improvise, arrange, and compose. He was preparing …

The primary goal of some of the early level methods is not necessarily to teach children to play the piano. 

Instead, the goal of these methods is to teach children to read music notation at the piano. 

Because of this intense focus on reading, these methods can be compared to a grammar book intended to teach a student an ancient language. 

Although a person may learn to read and write in ancient Greek …