The Piano Lab Blog
Featuring fresh ideas, tips and inspiration for piano teachers and students. Find older posts by category or keyword by visiting the Categories and Tags sections in the right sidebar. Welcome!
Homage
Today’s brief post is an homage to Chick Corea, one of the great jazz pianists, who passed away in 2021. I was fortunate to catch Chick’s concert with the Oregon Symphony about a year before his death. Still spry in his late 70s, wearing tennis shoes, and refreshingly...
A Preliminary Approach to Polyphonic Sight Reading
In this guest post by Juan Jose Rezzuto, you’ll learn basic strategies for sight reading, or what I prefer to call "sight playing," since that is actually what we are doing – playing at first sight! When we face the challenges of reading music composed for a...
The Magic of Slow Practice
Ruth Slenczynska, 97 years young as I type this sentence, is the last living student of Sergei Rachmaninoff (above), one of the great pianists of the 20th century. She tells the story of arriving for a lesson with Rachmaninoff, standing outside his door, and hearing...
The Digital Dynamic Dilemma (or “Don’t Pump Up the Volume”)
Practice on a digital piano? In this post you’ll learn how to set your instrument’s volume in order to optimize your keyboard technique. To become a GPP (“Good Piano Player”), developing the ability to consistently play a gradation of dynamics (volume) is vital. On...
10 Films About Piano Players That You Might Want to See
IMDb ratings (out of 10) and/or Rotten Tomatoes’ critics score (in percentages) are given for some of the films. 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993) Although not exactly a household name these days, more than 50 years ago Glenn Gould’s recording of Bach’s Goldberg...
The Piano Masterpieces of P.D.Q. Bach
Every classical piano student needs a break from the serious stuff now and then. What better way to take one than by turning to the music of P.D.Q. Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach's long-forgotten 21st child (of his 20 children). Born in 1807 and living until 1742, P.D.Q....
Five Facts About the Piano Every Player Should Know
“Piano” Is Just a Nickname The first and original name of the piano was gravicembalo col piano e forte, roughly translating to “soft and loud keyboard instrument.” Unlike its predecessor the harpsichord, the piano's new and more complex technology enabled the player...
Enhancing Musical Creativity with Meditation
As a music teacher, and former instructor of an undergraduate class on mindfulness meditation (at Indiana University Bloomington from 2007 to 2014), I am fascinated by the many possible applications of meditation to music. One of these applications is creativity. The...
Don’t Play This Piece Fast (Maple Leaf Rag)
It's a truism among piano teachers that the average piano student can't wait to play Scott Joplin's The Entertainer. And while The Entertainer's first two sections are undeniably catchy and memorable (particularly if you've heard the local ice cream truck blare it...
The Father of Stride Piano
James P. Johnson (1894-1955) was the leading pioneer of the exciting and influential stride piano style. Born in New Jersey, his proximity to New York allowed a young Johnson the opportunity to be influenced by a tremendous range of musical experiences. Johnson was a...