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!
Four Essential Practicing Strategies for Piano Students
Learn by Sight and by Ear Reading music is a vital skill, possessed by nearly all professional pianists. There is more music written for the piano than any other instrument. Much of it is among the world's greatest music, and it can be quite complex, and therefore...
The Best Free and Low Cost Applications and Web Tools for Piano Teachers and Students
With technology news lately being dominated by topics such as privacy issues (Facebook) and treatment of workers (Amazon), it becomes easier to dismiss the value that computers and the internet provide us. While I often feel frustrated with the seemingly endless...
How to Harmonize a Melody – Harmonic Function
If piano teaching were really as traditional as many contemporary teachers imagine, then, like keyboard students in the 18th and 19th centuries, today's students would more often be required to learn basic creative tasks like harmonizing a melody. Being able to...
Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians (Book Review)
There is no shortage of good books for piano teachers to assimilate and integrate into their teaching routine. Yet, at least in my opinion, only a few (thankfully) are truly worth their weight (and that goes for weightless digital books too!). Jeffrey Agrell's book,...
17 Success Strategies for Adult Piano Students
I am pleased to announce the publication of my new e-book, 17 Success Strategies for Adult Piano Students. The book is oriented towards beginning and returning adult piano students who are seeking quick, accurate and actionable advice on a number of important topics,...
Foundations of Improvisation – Space and Silence
It's been awhile since I've written about the essential principles of improvisation. In previous posts I've covered the principles of staying present, not-knowing and unity and contrast. Another important and often neglected principle of improvisation (and music...
Mindfulness of Thoughts for Musicians (Part 2 of 2)
Interested in piano lessons but don't live in Portland? I am now offering lessons by Skype/Facetime to adult students anywhere. Learn about lessons for adults or contact me. In Part 1 of this series I explored the benefits for musicians of cultivating mindfulness of...
Mindfulness of Thoughts for Musicians (Part 1 of 2)
From 2007 to 2014, I taught an undergraduate mindfulness course at Indiana University Bloomington that was academic yet highly experiential. Not surprisingly, a number of talented IU Jacobs School of Music students took my class through the years. In previous posts,...
The 10 Fundamental Chords
I am seeking teachers interested in using The Creative Keyboardist Adult Piano Method with their students in order to obtain additional feedback as I ready it for publication. The method is a perfect choice for adult and teen students whose primary musical interests...
The Minor Scales and Chords
The Minor Mode A mode is a scale with characteristic qualities. There are two principal modes in Western classical and popular music: major and minor. Words such as dark or melancholic are often used to describe music in the minor mode, though minor mode music can...