A Royal Conservatory piano student's goal,
Is mastering the art of playing with control.

Begin with scales and arpeggios in hand,
To warm up fingers and help you understand.

Next, pieces chosen with purpose and care,
Played often, so the music's easy to bear.

Technical studies such as Hanon or Czerny,
Can help you play with dexterity so cleanly.

Sight-reading and ear training are quite a treat,
To build essential skills and make progress sweet.

Choose challenging repertoire to extend,
Your capabilities, and become a true friend.

Lastly, review and refine what you've learned,
So your piano skills will be well-earned.

A Royal Conservatory piano student's way,
​Is to practice each week, with dedication and play.

William.

​Do you have enough time to take piano lessons?

Given the demands of overscheduled lives, most adults will have to give up some activity to make room for a new one.  Google "how many hours does the average adult spend surfing on their phones?" Cutting that in half will free up enough time to learn piano.

Call me when you are ready.
​
David
Revised August 2022

​Level 1: Fun is guaranteed in level 1 by just showing up and playing. Playing in a community concert band or at the family Christmas party would be an example. On the lesson front, level 1 is leisurely and steady.  

Level 2: You are going to perspire. Lessons will be intense. You may be getting ready to audition to play in a high-level community group. Or you may be preparing for an exam. Regardless, the musical standards are high. Daily deliberate practice of an hour or more will be required. Success is a near certainty given enough grit and time. 

Level 3 is going to hurt, tears will be shed. But you are all in. Your daily focus is piano. You dream of Carnegie Hall. You have multiple lines of attack. You put yourself out there. You are preparing to be an Olympian. Many dream, few make it. But this doesn't deter you. Large amount of time and money will be spent. Results not guaranteed. 

Athletic parallels
Level 1: Weekend running group. 
Level 2: Marathon preparation. It's going to hurt, but you will live to tell the tale. 
Level 3: Extreme endurance running. You might die.

Let me know where you stand. 

David
Revised August 2022

The internet is full of hucksters telling you that learning to play the piano is easy. It's not, but it is fun. Every day I watch my students grow; the days turn into years. And, inch by inch, progress is made. 

If I can help you on your journey, call me. 

David
Revised August 2022

When I was a naïve overconfident young man Dr. Hugo Norden, professor emeritus Boston Conservatory, coached me in Baroque counterpoint and harmony. He was a wise man who knew how to handle characters like me. 

A restatement of the "law of association" to which I’ve spent forty plus years considering. I've reached several conclusions starting with who and what we listen to and how that normalizes our expectations of how music should sound and be presented. These associations show us possibilities. But who we “hang with” will be the greatest influence on our musical progress. Jazz musicians hang with Jazz musicians, Classical musicians hang with Classical musicians and so on. 

To whom are you listening? Do your listening habits support your music studies or distract? Do you associate with other like-minded individuals such as fellow students, or concert goers?

If I can help, call me.
​
David
revised August 2022

What is practice math? Kim practices 10 minutes a day and Rachel puts in 60 minutes a day.

All I would add to these fine words is the following: do these things long before they are teens.  

Good luck

David
Revised October 2022

Keeping a positive attitude on the piano bench, when the going gets tough, is a perennial dilemma for us all. I found the following activities helpful on my learning journey as a percussionist. (I took up the study of percussion at age 50 on a dare from a piano student)

• I maintain a positive attitude with focused effort and disciplined study that aligns with my goals and values. I would summarize my goals and values like this: first, I want to play in community groups that are dedicated to excellence, play a few public concerts each year, and are comprised of musicians that reflect a broad range of ages and backgrounds. Second, I want to play with my retired professional peers as a percussionist where we have fun, share stories, and play the old tunes one more time.
• I take weekly lessons; I do my homework.
• Maintaining a positive attitude is easier when I share this journey with other people. So, each summer when I attend an adult music workshop where I meet other adults on the same journey.  We commiserate together! A bonus is learning new teaching techniques from master teachers. Now that piano concerts are returning, it is easier to meet other adult piano students. Strike up a conversation with the person sitting beside you. Chances are good they too play the piano and would be happy to chat about it.

David
Revised October 2022

It depends.

It depends on your prior musical experiences and expectations. If your desires are modest, YouTube will work. But if you desire to achieve some level of musical competency you will need a teacher. Teachers provide objective and knowledgeable feedback. Teachers guide you through a proven curriculum that has been successfully followed by countless students. And when the going gets tough, and it will, a teacher will support and inspire you to keep going. 

If that sounds like the help you need, call me.   

David
Revised October 2022

These are short, charming, easy pieces for levels 5 and 6.

Q: What can harpsichordists teach pianists?
A: How to pace the music. Listen to the subtle flexibility in the flow of the music. 

In the second video the performer talks about these works. 

Enjoy, 

​David
Revised October 2022

The music. BACH JS 6 préludes (BWV 939-943).MUS (imslp.info)

Q: How does an impatient student find patience?
Q: How does the piano teacher maintain the student's enthusiasm while working with an impatient student?

Good questions. 

A: There are no short cuts. Playing piano is a manual as well as intellectual skill that just takes time. If we neglect the development of your core piano skills, you will grow bored, discouraged, and quit. In the end, it's faster to learn the skills, embrace the discomfort of challenging work than to search all over the internet looking for a short cut. A good analogy is martial arts, yellow belts don't graduate to black belts by skipping the intermediate belts. There is a progression of skills, steps, and experiences required to move from belt to belt. 

Core music skills: 

1. Technique
2. Aural Skills
3. Sight-reading
4. Theory
5. History
6. Repertoire
7. Etudes
8. Improvisation
9. Group music making 
10. Music appreciation

Here is a short story taken from my parallel passion of drumming. I devote a large chunk of my practice time to the core skills and fundamentals of drumming, namely time, tone, and patterning. Left, right, left, right or LLRR or RLRR and LRLL. I listen intently to the results. I analysis my movements. And on and on it goes. I've learned to be patient and I've made some real progress in my studies.  I'm confident I will continue to make progress. 

Let me help you. 

Call me. Let's get started.

David
Revised October 2022

I'm dreaming. of one week of piano with first rate tutors, delicious food, and flowing wine at this adult piano retreat in the UK. ​Click above for more inf. 

David
revised November 2022​

Sometime the stress from the pandemic is a bit too much. It can lower our enthusiasm for practice. So, what to do? Assuming you are not suffering from clinical depression, in which case please seek professional help. This is not the place. 

But for the rest of us. Try some or all the following.

1. Find a quiet moment and just listen to beautiful music played by professionals. 
2. Remember the difference between practice and play. Practice involves judgement, play is non-judgmental fooling around, playing whatever strikes us.
3. Revisit your go to pieces and quietly play them.
4. Go for a long safe walk. Fresh air is good for us.
5. Daydream musical ideas, thoughts, dreams, and plans. For me that would include adult music camps in New Orleans and Europe. Starting up a band for my young students to play in after the pandemic. 

Good luck, stay safe, behave, and we all be playing together again in person soon. 

In the meantime, call me if you would like to meet online. I've dozens of students happily progressing on zoom. 

​David.

Will I ever get there?

Maybe.

An adult student is working on the scherzo of Haydn’s piano sonata in F major Hob.XVI:9 A fun work from RCM level 4. It goes fast, it’s light, it’s fun under the fingers. It reminds me of joyful summer memories as a kid riding our bikes as fast as we can go, just celebrating the joy of movement and being alive.

How does one play like that?
Can I ever go as fast?

Another story. I’ve a young teenage student preparing to sit for her level 8 exam later this month. One of her pieces is Solfeggio in C minor by CPE Bach an extremely fast and demanding piece of music. She runs like the wind through it. The power of youth. Can my 61-year fingers play that fast? Nope. Period. It’s as absurd as looking on while high schoolers compete in the 100-yard dash. Yeah, I can still run fast, but not like that.

Moral of the story. Be at peace with it.

​Now can we learn to play faster. Of course. Can we ever go as fast? Maybe, maybe not.

​
Now back to Haydn. Pianists who play well, including fast, have worked patiently in the following areas.

1. Repertoire is developed in a thoughtful and methodical manner over many years.
2. They learn theory to understand the music they are playing: patterns and relationships. 
3. They have developed their aural skills to fine degree. Ultimately all playing is playing by ear.
4. They learn something about the history of the music they play Classical, Jazz, Blues, Folk, or Americana. Whatever it is, it has a tradition, a history, a story to tell. They are wanting a piece this story in their lives. They enthusiastically seek out experiences to get it.
5. They carefully learn to sight read well.
6. They cheerfully deal with their etudes and exercises.
7. They take their growing knowledge, experiences, and skills to understand the nuances of great performances.
8. They can answer the question, “who are your favourite pianists?” And tell you why? The sophistication of their answers will evolve as they develop as musicians. 
9. They are emotionally committed to the project of learning the piano. And have the maturity to understand it is a journey of learning.
10. They love the music.
11. They have studied how to practice the piano through different sources of reliable information. They avoid the pitfalls of seeking a work around, a hack, or quick fix. And the huskers selling shortcuts to expertise. 
12. They make the time to practice.

If I can help you on your journey, please give me a call.
​
David

Time to dream again. Covid-19 will abate this year; the vaccines are coming, spring will arrive. Time to get musically ready to share our music with the world again. 

Here are 10 ideas to mull over.

1. Organize your practice space with everything you need ready at hand: scores, recordings, pencil, headset for listening, phone recording app operational, metronome, lighting, piano tuned, distractions minimized. 
2. Schedule practice time in the calendar, the same way other non-work-related activities are. In short prioritize music this year. 
3. Plan to take lessons this year: Let a little fresh air in. A fresh perspective.
4. Learn to love how you sound at your instrument: Recording frequently and accepting how it sounds and thinking about how it might be improved is an effective step forward.
5. If your instrument is lacking, and you have the means, upgrade. 
6. Seek out other adult learners online. There are wonderful communities on Facebook. I belong to several them. Contribute, celebrate the privilege of being able to make music. 
7. When concerts return, go. Be sure to be there, it will be an emotionally cathartic experience of lifetime that first downbeat. Expect tears.
8. Find a duet partner after you get your vaccine jab. Celebrate together, the joy of playing together again.
9. Consider expanding or updating your musical preferences. There has been a lot of music created since our musical preferences were set in our youth. Much of it will speak to you in new ways. YouTube algorithms are good for this. My teenage students have the most eclectic tastes which I attribute to these algorithms.
10. Make a fresh list of pieces you like to play this year, purchase, or print the music, put it in a folder and plop it on the music stand and visualize yourself playing beautifully.

Cheers, 

David 

I'm 15 or so, I've been playing a year or two. I "practice" in quotes all the time. She is cute, she sings, she needs an accompanist for the church strawberry social. I step up. I'm waaaaaay over my head. But keen to impress.

We practice, I survive. But I am about to learn the difference between the practice room and the stage. In hindsight I imagine it is like the difference between basic training and real combat.

It's a beautiful day, they haul a small piano outside on the grass. The back of the piano faces the singer and the audience. We step up. I am soooo nervous, so underprepared that my right leg starts to bounce uncontrollably, audibly, banging the underside of the piano. People are looking around for the source of the noise. I'm deadpan behind the piano.

It mercifully ends.

Lessons?

1. "Superbia et ante ruinam" Pride goes before the fall. But the show must go on.
2. Never underestimate the power of shameless audacity in a show biz career.
3. It's harder than it looks. The magic of the performing arts is the illusion it is easy.

David

Lockdown 2.0 Oh boy!
The article above supplies some great ideas to keep us practicing. I invite you to click the photo to read the article. 

​David

Listen to great music. A musical truism: "we are who we listen to".

Try this on your next new piece. 

1. Find a professional recording.
2. Listen a few times while watching the score.
3. With pencil in hand work out the fingering for both hands on nearly every note. You can skip repeated notes.
4. Now back to the recording. Listen to the 1st phrase, typically 2-4 measures. Using the fingering you wrote down. mimic what you heard. Make adjustments to match the expression of the professional. If you are playing jazz, make adjustments of the notation to match the recording. The recording is correct. Fakebooks are approximations. 
5. Continue to the end of the piece, painstakingly working out one phrase at a time. 
6. Next day start over. It will go quicker today.
7. As you go along, record your phrases and listen back. Are you shaping and articulating correctly. Don't worry about the tempo. That will come later. 

Have fun. 

David

It might. If the instrument you play now is uneven, out of tune, and has missing notes, joy will be dampened. Chopin is reported to have said, “play the best instrument you can when learning.”

Here are other thoughts on staying in the game:

1. Revisit the reason you started this project in the first place. Are you on or off course?
2. Are you playing the right music?
3. Is your time commitment and timeline realistic when put up against your goals?
4. Is your practice space attractive and organized?
5. Are distractions keeping you unfocused?
6. Are you suffering from Covid fatigue?
7. Are you getting enough sleep?

These are problems all musicians/students must deal with from time to time or in these times.

David

1. Having a concise well thought-out goal before you begin lessons is critical. The goal need not be lofty. Just clear.
2. There are no shortcuts. Some folks know this, others not so much. Those who methodically do the work over an extended period generally see the results they were seeking. They don't skip steps or areas of study. 
3. Some folks understand skill is earned not bought.
4. Focused students outperform the scattered every time.
5. It is easier for some.
6. Practice works, I am living proof of that. I just regret it took to age 43 to learn how to practice.
7. The 10,000-hour rule may be a myth. But it is a good place to start.
8. We can be inspired and sustain our long-term efforts from drawing on noble and ignoble reasons. For example, love and revenge seem to be equally effective to get and keep us moving forward in life and piano.
9. Learning is more fun on a great instrument.
10. Taking piano exams is difficult, thrilling, infuriating, and stressful. Costs lots of money too. I am grateful to have had the privilege to do it in my 40s. It transformed my life.

If I can help you, let's chat. 

Best, 

David

Students often believe that I must have started early in life with lots of natural talent. Let me clear this up.

I am proof practice works.

1. I started playing piano in high school.
2. I resisted structure, changing teachers yearly. I was fired by more than one.
3. I loved to sight-read music, not practice it.
4. I played in one piano recital in my whole life. That was enough for me.
5. I played pop music 90% of the time.
6. I loved creating my own music.
7. I wrote for the school band.
8. I started bands by age 13-14. I was a sad self-taught guitarist in the beginning before I discovered jazz. Then I formed and wrote for an 8-piece band every week in our rec room at home. I was also now the pianist.
9. I was mediocre in high school band class.  I owe the saxophone an apology. 
10. I had a tin ear and could not hit a pitch on the piano. I've no idea how I tuned my guitar.
11. I was a very enthusiastic music student, just an undisciplined unfocused pianist, without the gift of self knowledge.
12. My ability to memorise music was at best rudimentary.
13. I had terrible stage fright around the piano for several years.

 
I made it into Berklee with 4 years of piano under my belt, but it included 2 years of professional gigging in rock and country bands in the North Bay region. A lot of gigs. Plus, my basement jazz band. That made the difference I figure. But who knows, recordings do not exist.
 
I got through Berklee as a composition major. I thought about being a performance major, but that required serious practice. Something I was not interested in. But I continued playing gigs during those years. A lot of gigs. Some exciting gigs. I was a busy journeyman. I could sight-read just about anything. I showed up on time ready to play. I was pleasant to be around. Where did that put me in the Berklee pecking order? Turns out near the top. I made it one year to the number 2 band.
 
So, when did I learn to practice?
 
Age 42!
 
Signed up for my Grade 10 exam. My very first piano exam ever. I couldn't fake it. I had to play it. I put a couple of thousand hours of focused practice in. I read every book I could find on how to practice. How many books? Chapters bookstore sent me Christmas present. That is how many.

• I tried implementing what I was reading.
• I did everything my teachers asked of me.
• I did not push back against a curriculum written in the 19th century!
• My life was transformed. I finally really learn to play well. It progressed further during my ARCT. 
• I can help you find your path too. Call me. 

 
David

1. Try to finish level 6 theory, it will really help us to communicate as musicians and build your understanding of the music you play.  
2. Summer is a good time to explore music history. A good introduction for classical piano students is found on Audible.ca https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/the-23-greatest-solo-piano-works.html check www.audible.com I found it there for a really fair price.  
3. YouTube score watching; paying attention to one element at a time: articulations , dynamics, tempo
4. General piano skills

• Technique
• Etudes
• Repertoire
• Sight reading

Have fun, see you in September. 

David

How many hobbies can one-person juggle?
 
Depends. I juggle one. I had two, but Covid19 put an end to that.

​I’ve students who try to juggle 3 or more while holding down jobs, spouses, children, and life. They often looked stressed. How do my less stressed students do it? Here are some tactics they follow:
​

1. They decide on just one hobby at a time. To paraphrase Ecclesiastes, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun.” They prioritise what to tackle based on where they are in life. Marathons in their 30’s, night school in their 40’s, piano in their 50’s, gardening in their 60’s. You get the idea.
2. Some give themselves permission just to have fun and take it a day at a time. If you are an old-fashioned type A driver this might be take some work, but it is possible. My other hobby was ballroom dancing until Covid19. Friday nights we would just show up and have fun in a low stress class. No practicing until the following week. It took 2 years to get to level 2. We were having fun.
3. They give up something to make room for something new.

BTW, my hobby is drumming. It is now becoming a business. There will be more to this story in the years to come.

Do you remember why you were attracted to piano in the first place? Put up a post it note on the piano to keep it front of mind.

Cheers,
 
David