As pianists, we are often preoccupied with playing the correct notes dictated within the score, especially as the music we play becomes more and more technical and complicated.
How we play those notes and the musical decisions we make not only impacts the overall sound of the piece but is also how we express ourselves creatively as pianists.
These phrasing decisions are not only how we interpret the music but how we …
The double beat use of the metronome proposes that earlier composers used slower tempi by means of using the metronome differently then our current use.
In the double blue beat use of the metronome there are two parts of one beat: the back and forth of the pendulum oscillation is one event like the inhalation/exhalation of a breath, the systole/diastole of the hearth beat, or two halves of a day.
When the …
The foundation of a correct piano playing habit is the whole arm action principle – playing from the entire relaxed weight of our arms – and not by taking the needed force only from our fingers.
Besides protecting us from tension and pain, this technique enables us to create a deep, beautiful piano tone – as compared to the shallow, percussive sound that comes out of the instrument when we strike …
To my ears, B-flat Major is a peaceful Key with a sweet nature.
Mozart’s last piano concerto is written in this Key.
G Minor is, for me, a Key of the night.
Mozart composed forty-one symphonies, thirty-nine of them in various Major Keys. The other two were both in G Minor.
Mozart obviously had an affinity for this Key, as did Beethoven for C Minor.
It is natural to fall in love with some Keys, …
D Major is a warm Key, joyous and boisterous without being edgy or overbearing.
Brahms wrote a symphony in D Major that is one of the sunniest of all symphonies.
Vivaldi wrote his famous piece Spring from the Four Seasons in this Key, and Handel chose it for his famous Hallelujah Chorus in the Messiah.
B Minor is the relative Minor of D Major because it shares the same Key signature. In my …